Troll Concept - Piece Breakdown

Recently I finished reading the Artemis Fowl series. I know, I know what took me so long? The thing is I actually read up to the Lost Colony and then life got in the way, so I decided to start from Book One and read all the way through. I decided that I wanted to do some concepts of how I saw the characters, and one of the characters I had the most vivid image of in my head was the Trolls. I just found their description so fascinating so I had to paint one. Here's what the official Artemis Fowl Wiki page has to say on Trolls.

As you can see that is one hell of a description. With this piece I wanted to do something in my usual style, but I didn't want it to look like a normal piece that has lineart. Instead I wanted to do something a bit more painterly. However before I could get that far I needed a sketch!

Now one thing I typically have an issue with is conveying my thoughts when it comes to art. I'll have a clear idea, but the moment I try to draw it, I just can't seem to get it right. This is one of the SUPE rare instances where I was able to draw EXACTLY what I saw in mind! I was happy with my sketch so the next step was to add color.

Like I said, I wanted to avoid my typical art piece and not line  the work, so I decided to block in the color in a similar fashion to how I approach a portrait. Now typically when I have a portrait I'm painting, I have reference of some sort to base the lighting and the different colors off of. With this piece, I obviously did not have that luxury, so instead I had to figure it out on my own. This was a bit of a challenge, so I knew I had to go back and add a little bit more to the painting to get it just right.

And there ya go! One troll concept from start to finish! Like I said I was really proud of this piece for two reasons. One it was one of the first times I was able to convey EXACTLY what I was thinking, and two this was the first time that I had a super clear image in my head of a book character and was actually able to show what they looked like.

As always thanks for stopping by and enjoy!

~Josh