Monday 20 February 2012

Popularity

Popularity is being surrounded by friends who admire you, in my opinion.
Of course it means all sorts of other things, some more positive than others, but I've always preferred to think of being 'popular' as having friends who love you.

I'll cut the sappy out now and lay some art on you.

This week is half Shirt design and half fanart, based around the incredibly popular game 'Portal 2' and the relationship the main character, Chell, has with the various robots, turrets and sentient cores around her.

Official art of Main character; Chell.

They may have been designed to keep GlaDOS in check, but the various 'personality cores' encountered through the game ended up more as comrades than objects.

I wanted to create an illustration with a vintage sort of look to it, that incorporated the main cores from Portal 2 and Chell herself, looking all friendly and happy together.

I took inspiration from this picture initially, loving the lack of notable lineart (which is a pretty big step away from my usual style) and the overall shape of the woman's face.

Sketch!
Group hugs are wonderful.
Trying to translate mechanical, highly detailed objects into simple forms, however, is not. I needed to keep enough of the details so the cores would be recognizable, but still simplify it enough so that it fit in with the rest of the design.
So many moving parts....
What I ended up with is a happy medium, I think.
I left out the blue portal in favour of a more symmetrical design. Might add it again later, I'm not entirely sure whether I like it with or without.

Tune in soon for a video of me working on this piece, once I master the complex wizardry of video editing.

Video is alive!

Find the portal 2 soundtrack here, it's FREE! :D
music by Valve, Turret wife Serenade, Robots FTW


Thanks for dropping by!
-JessB

5 comments:

  1. I love Chell's expression. Sort of a combo of smug and content (Smugtent?)

    Also this just reminds me I still need to play Portal 2

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  2. Very nice Jess! Great concept and a good update of a vintage style - well done!

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  3. SPAAAAAAAAAAAACE <3

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  4. I concur with the Anon. SPACE! But man, this is an awesome IF! You managed to simplify them effectively.

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  5. This is amazing, great job

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