Thread: August Entry: Compass Rose

My first step will be to find references to use. I googled various search terms...knights, shields, cartouches, compass roses etc, but didn't really find what I was looking for.

I then remembered that I had Heck's Pictorial Archive of Military Science, Geography and History

Click on the link to go to Amazon. This is quite simply a brilliant reference work for the sort of mapping we do. I've scanned three pages of the 200 or so, for the references I was after which I attach below. I'll continue to collect references for the work but I may not post them all as this is intended as a diary of how I am approaching the process.

Ravs

First off, thanks for saying that my "Holy Isle" concept sketch inspired you! Secondly, thanks for the referral to "Heck's"; it's now on my short list of to buy!

I look forward to your compass rose!

For the figures in the piece, I decided it would be quickest and easiest just to get my wife to take some reference photos of me. A bathrobe with a hood served as a cloak and a walking stick as a sword. (First Picture)


I then brought these into PSP, cropped them to shape and inserted some basic shapes (Second Picture) and then made them into black silhouettes (Third picture). I then played with some compositional choices. The challenge here is to make the composition interesting enough to lead the eye through the piece but to keep the shield (or banner as in image 1) the centre of attention as this will hold the compass rose. Image 4, I felt was too static. Image 2 is good but the shield is abnormally large compared to the figures. Image 3 has a smaller shield but this would make the centre of attention, the compass rose on the shield, too small. I decide on image 1, I can make the banner bigger to fit the compass rose and it seems to be the most interesting shape of the 4 images and the shapes are nicely integrated.

The horizon on the reference photos differ, with the sitting figure the camera was placed on the floor and the standing figure was taken at waist height, but I can rectify that in the drawing stage.

Ravs

Wow! I love it when you guys show your work on the boards. I never would've thought of doing it that way. Keep up the good work!

Thanks Koor. This is the standing figure. Jeez, took me 6 hours to do, but I was learning lots of software stuff, so hopefully the next one will be better / faster.

I'm not going to describe this long and painful process, but basically it involved tracing around the reference picture using Serif and colouring it. It looks pretty awful, I know, but hopefully the next one will be a bit better. It'll be scaled down a lot in the full picture which will hopefully hide a multitude of sins!

Ravs

Here is the latest work in progress. I'm glad I did this challenge, I'm learning so much more about the software and how to draw, the second figure took only about 3 hours to draw...although granted there's a long way yet to go before I give Da Vinci any competition! Now all I have to do is finish the banner and er...do the compass rose.

The 'thing' at the bottom is meant to be a chest, but it's not looking like one. I will change it to something else...maybe a dragon, curled up around the standard...it's fantasy, gotta have a dragon, although it may overtax my feeble drawing skills beyond their limits.

Ravs

Ravs--Much like Koor, I loved seeing the in-between shots, mainly because (also like Koor) I never thought of doing it that way. (PS: I love the shot of you in the bathrobe! Hahahaha, what a great idea!)

I would not do the dragon; IMHO, this would be too "busy", and the image already has enough interest with the two figures.

Nice going!

Thanks Don. I'm not happy with the colours, but those can easily be changed. I think I'll put it to one side for a bit, work on something else and come back fresh to it.

Ravs

Here is the final version. Good learning process for me.

Ravs