The Bachira Process by ArtJokk on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

The most recent post on my DeviantArt is one that I really innovated with, since it contains new tricks and techinques I used to achieve the perspective, composition and mood I seeked for this piece.

For starters, it didn´t take me long to figure out the best pose for Bachira while doing his contortions, at first, I thought of him performing a Quadfold while holding a soccer ball and having a wide grin on his face, but I though of someting else that fits his name a little more, a more dynamic and crazy way of playing with the ball. These ideas can be seen in the next picture.

Fig.1

As you may see in this picture, the idea of Bachira performing a quadfold is there, but bery incomplete, and you also may the the idea that made it into the final product along some other ideas.

When I found the idea I liked the most I also made a basic sketch of the background, I really wanted to push my capabilities further from thar last Bachira related piece (Fig. 10) I made a while ago, where despite setting a grounded and clear scene, it really looked very basic and bland back then, so I though of making this one more dynamic and with details that resembles the manga/anime backgrounds.

Fig. 2 - Still looking quite basic.

Fig. 3 - Much better!

Further into the making of Bachira contorting while holding the ball, I was drawing Bachira in a casual soccer outfit, meaning, a shirt and a short, and also barefeet because, who doesn´t like some nice feet? But when I saw that the falling shirt of his belly was sorta covering the ball up, I remembered that this outfit didn´t make sense, since Bluelock recruits wear a full body suit, so I decided to change the outfit for the next part. This gave the overall shape of Bachira a more clean and readable silhouette, I also took the chance to add stirrups to the suit (Fig.4), because you know how much I love stirrups.

Fig. 4 - His feet look nice in stirrups.

For the suit, it only took me a quick research to know the light blue line pattern that goes around the suit.

Fig. 5 - Suit

Also, in Fig. 4, for the ball, I just went for a perfect circle lineart and filled the interior with the universal pattern of a soccer ball we know and love.

Now, here comes the most interesting part, the one where I went nuts and crazy innovative with the background. For this part, the background seen in the final piece was modeled in 3D! using Autodesk Maya, took a while, but recorded the process.

Video - Modeling the field, had fun doing so despite it´s simplicity. Also had some failed attempts.

At first, I had some failed attempts while figuring out the approach I´d take for the field. I looked at how many squaresI could see in the references, to measure the length and the width of the field´s 3D model.

For reference, I had to paint a grey version of Bachira (Fig. 6) to place on the maya scene, create a second camera where I could render the image, and then place it to get the background still I needed for the piece. Then placed that same rendered image onto Krita, and continued with the coloring and rendering.

Fig. 6 - Grey

Fig. 7 - Inside the Maya scene

Fig. 8 - Final render with no character.

For the final coloring, I just made the usual process to integrate Bachira into the scene I rendered previously on Maya (Fig. 8).

Fig. 9 - Final Result

Fig. 10 - Diamante en Bruto (Before)

The most important thing I learned while making this, is that, we should never limit ourselves to what we can do with our capabilities, to use our knowledge to our advantage and to learn some new stuff in the process, that´s an important lesson, think process, not result, and make a crazy mix of what you can do to create something innovative, but most importantly, to create something you´re proud of.

I really love how this turned out, and I can tell that I really improved in comparison to the first Bachira conortion related piece called "Diamante en bruto" (Fig. 10), which I´m very very proud of, I think this is going to get better and better, as I innovate more and more with my technique and discover new and creative ways to create art here, same thing I really hope you, my beautiful audience, enjoys as much as I do.

-JOKK