Lewa's Capture-Brutaka's Game

"Lewa's Capture"

Woo! this scene....I've been putting this project off for a few years. This scene is from Brutaka's Game, a fan fiction written by Saronicle.

For a few years this particular scene of Lewa's capture has caught my attention, and I, like other fans, for some reason am captivated to see one of my favorite characters facing turmoil.

Despite the fact I've never read Brutaka's Game, viewing only clips of the story, grazing through the art pieces, and skimming through the podcasts, I've always wanted to see this particular scene in my own style.
I'm glad to say I finally stuck my foot out the door and got myself to ask Saronicle for permission to do so after a full year of hesitation.

Brutaka's Game: Lewa's Capture by Saronicle on DeviantArt    You can find more details about this scene by clicking on the link provided.  Above is the original version of this picture, dating back to 2010. On the left is the pilot named B.J., in the background is the character known as Mr. Petrik, and to the right is Ethan. I based my version of the image off of this 2010 drawing, but later after making the line art, I realized that I switched up the character placement in my version, meaning the image doesn't technically coincide with the actual story chapter.   My fault for ignoring the written details while drawing, despite the fact I've read that part before....What can I say, I didn't feel like drawing Ethan's face for some reason, and preferred the back view of him, finding it more pleasing to see Ethan tugging Lewa from the front instead of the back, and B.J. tugging Lewa's neck from behind instead of pulling his head forward. Basically, the foreground characters switched places in my version. Only way to make sense of it would be to say that during Lewa's struggle, Ethan circled around and the lasso slid to Lewa's front, while B.J. ducked away from Lewa's arm and tugged his neck from behind so Lewa would fall to the ground before getting tackled by more angry men, his doom to be tied up and threatened.
Brutaka's Game: Lewa's Capture by Saronicle on DeviantArt I'll also make note that Saronicle created this newer version of the scene, but still I remained more captivated by the original layout from 2010. I like the trees in this one though, always enjoying atmosphere. The atmosphere of my version is a bit different in the sense I made the camp ground less grassy and made it an earthy clearing with grass patches.....Not sure why I did that. Plus my trees are smaller.    On the subject of art process, it was interesting to work on this. Line art seemed good, and I tried a bit harder to lay down colors  which displayed proper lighting, wanting to get it close to the original setting in hour.  I find I'm still practicing in the realm of lighting and color, something about it seeming rather difficult. I asked myself if the lighting was good, and was surprised to find the painting looked better when the lines are gone. There would need to be many more tweaks and colors added to make the pure painted version look even better, but seeing the image without line showed me I didn't do too badly with color, and may one day improve upon the no outline version. Currently I'd say the painting looks like you're staring at the scene with slightly bad eye sight. I also was told Ethan's hair was brown, not blond. The detail I changed was his hair style, and felt like giving him a ponytail instead of a mullet. :P   About sketch process. I shared this page of pose concepts with Saronicle before proceeding to create line art. It was interesting to play around with poses of Lewa, but wanted an outside opinion of which I should I go with. Saronicle felt I should combine sketch 1 and 4 concerning Lewa's pose.    At first I made line art of sketch 4, and while I let the idea sit, I decided to make an adjustment and pull Lewa's arm out so it resemble the original art piece of the scene better. After a few votes, the line art with his arm out was chosen. Before this time I found it amusing to click back and forth between line art, noticing the adjustment of Lewa's pose was so slight that it appeared to be animated. It's probably only amusing to me, but I made a small video to show the two line art pieces put together, displaying Lewa tugging on the rope.

  You can see both line art pieces this way.