Experiment with Alchemy

After some advice from Phil, I decided to try my hand at the drawing application: Al.Chemy.

Personally, I didn't really get on too great with it. But I guess that's what these things are for, trial and error and the like.

When illustrating, I prefer to have an idea in my head and run with it - some may argue that this is a bad/boring/uncreative method, but It's how I like to work. Al.Chemy makes it very difficult to do this. Yes, I'm aware that it is designed to promote abstract, free thinking images, but with the stage I'm currently at, I feel that I'm close to finishing a resolved concept piece. I can see the use of Al.Chemy being more beneficial at earlier 'shaping' stages of concept design and will definitely be returning to it for future projects (perhaps at an earlier stage).

Anyway, this first image was a play around with the jagged landscapes featured in some of my concept art already. Now without sounding to contradictory, I actually did find that the 'Shape' module was very useful when applying depth and texture to my mountainous landscape. This was more a play around with shapes than anything else. There are a few figures in there for scale references.

This piece was created using the mirror tool. It was a rough sketch of the 'gaunt soul' character who will feature in my piece. I actually quite like it - It's kind of what I was going for, A bit of refinement needed of course, but it's not a bad start.

This piece, again, Is focused more on the character study of my piece. Reason being, I feel quite confident in the environmental direction and style I have chosen - altering it drastically at this stage, I feel, could possibly be counter-productive. Anyway, this is just a few sketches of possible characters, still holding that gaunt zombie look.

All in all, my experience with Al.Chemy was quite positive and YES, I would recommend everyone at least take it for a spin once, but I personally feel more comfortable with my traditional methods.