Elephantmen Sketch practice

Over the holiday’s to practice my drawing skills and also acting as research into character volume and forms i sketched a few frames from the graphic novel Elephantmen. It tells the story of genetically modified animals bred specifically for the purposes of a future war. After the war finishes and thier usefulness has come to an end the Elephantmen are freed from captivity and released into society where they have to readjust to fit in. The stories are allegorical and cover topics such as racism, post traumatic stress, brutality, and drug abuse. I really believe the graphic style of the series would make a great translation to games if handled with tact.

Ebenezer Hide (Ebony) is one of the novels main characters, he finds it the most difficult to forget, fit into the society that created him, and escape the horrors that he has seen and done.  I really liked the war elephant aesthetic however I decided to lighten the tone of the subject while translating it to my own game design, while I like games that make an audience think, I believe the topics in Elephentmen to be a little extreme for the average gamer.
I love the oversized proportions of the characters, it relates back to the proportions of the Greek gods. In this sketch i liked the movement and foreshortening of the character, the dynamic stance of the character and low angle framing give the sense that we are looking at something big and powerful. 

 

In this sketch of Obadiah Horn I wanted to again capture the oversized, godlike proportions of the character. I was trying to use it as a study of muscle mass and anatomy as this is the underlying skill every 3D artist should study to aid with character development while translating concepts to 3D.

As with any good character development a character should be a combination of the archetypes discussed earlier or they may be stereotyped. The sketch below shows the softer side of Ebony. Multiple artists worked on the illustrations and it shows in the different styles of each image, the flowing lines of this image give the character a softer feel.