Bloodsport 14: Beast Master

Last night (more like early this morning) I finished up my 2 illustrations for the Crimson Daggers Bloodsport 14 Beast Master Challenge! It was due way back on April 5th, but between having some freelance work and my part-time job I decided from the start I was going to go at my own pace and just focus on making 2 solid portfolio pieces.

In short, the challenge required you to create 2 illustrations the first depicting a human donned in armor that reflects it's more powerful monster form, which is the base for the second illustration.

Here are the final illustrations:

BeastMaster form 1

BeastMaster form 2

I based my character design on an African tribesman, specifically looking at the Zande Warriors. I learned about the Zande and their weaponry from watching a neat TV show called Deadliest Warrior. A typical episode takes a look at 2 different groups of fighters throughout history from all over the planet and compares their weaponry and fighting tactics. It's glamed up a bit for TV but it's pretty interesting and it's a fun watch. If you like weapons you'll really enjoy it. Anyways, I based my costume designs on various Zande dress and armor, and I tried to make their weapons feel more authentic by applying what I learned from the TV show.

Part of the Bloodsport Challenges requires that you do studies to work up toward your final piece, in order to familiarize yourself with your material so you can better execute the final illustrations. Below are some of my studies:

Here are some progress shots:

I'm pretty happy with what I came up with. I didn't look at any of the other entries until I finished my pieces so not to influence my decision making. There are some really impressive pieces that you can see for yourself in the Bloodsport 14 WIP thread HERE. It was fun participating and I hope to eventually participate for real and meet the deadline at some point on a future Bloodsport Challenge.