Hercules Illustration

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Sketches and Visualization

Once I knew what part of Hercules' Life I wanted to depict– the desperate and lowest point of the Mythological Hero's Life– I came up with three main ways I could express that. Things had to start with thumbnails: this would give way to better overall composition and control. I also in this phase went ahead and added notes for intended theme and potential color scheme.

Armor and Pose Design

After selecting one of my thumbnails, the next step was to figure out if I wanted a pure mythological representation or to go somewhere else with it. Below is a sketch of the potential pose I wanted to use and the idea to maybe veer towards a cyberpunk or modern futuristic style.

Digital and Background

After I knew where I was going with Hercules, it was time to move everything to digital and get started. Below is the base figure built from the sketches above, accompanied by three slightly different possibilities for backdrops. After peer review, more changes were made to the concept, and I ended up using a combination of elements.

Refining The Background

Here you can see the development of more detail in the cliff face and the refined options for the sky. After speaking to a few professionals in the field, I took to some of their techniques considering contrast and applied it in the composition as well in order to better draw the eye. Though the sun by itself was dramatic, it felt like a lot of bad negative space was still forming in the top section.

Adding Detail And Testing Print Contrasts

I tried a few routes with adding detail to Hercules, but the first attempt felt wrong and honestly lazy. I tested it as a print and it came out way too dark for my liking. The third image– where I ended up– was much more successful.

Color Overlay

My color–scheme wasn't hard to establish, as I already knew what direction I was headed in. I originally had more greenish–yellow, as you can see, but I opted for a more reddish earth tone that was less distracting. the red tones also helped me hide the more subtle details I wanted to add: The ominous presence of blood.

Resizing for Print

I painted the image smaller than I intended to print it; this was mostly due to hardware limitations at the time. I was able to resize to a larger size by using photoshop's lucky resizing tool. I also tried to see how effective a light layer a Gaussian blur alone would effect the illusion of resolution. On the left in the original– it is somewhat pixelated close up. In the middle we have the same file with the Gaussian blur, and on the right we have the original resized using Photoshop. The difference in quality is apparent. Of course, there was another round of cleaning up edges and areas before proceeding to the final piece.