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Hello everybody, this is Yasmeen from Yarkspiri Fantasy Art . com
Today I'll be working on drawing Charos who was the collector of souls in Greek mythology.
His role was to collect the souls of the deceased and bring them to the underworld.
I did decide to approach this drawing in a slightly different manner than what I usually do.
I kept some of the traditional elements for this drawing but modified it by adding some more modern elements.
This drawing takes place in a post apocalyptic setting while still maintaining certain part of the Greek myth.
I really wanted to mix these two elements together since I haven't scene these mixed together all that much.
I really wanted to show this character's power of the souls of the dead.
What I did to achieve this effect is a drew this character on top of a steed to give him more speed while collecting the souls.
I gave this character a weapon which allows him to collect and drag the souls to the underworld.
I mainly working on the line art by using the default round brush which has been set to a small size.
I'm working on the basic structure for the horse and characters.
I was debating whether or not to draw the horse normally or to draw a skeletal version.
I did end up changing the portion that I'm currently working on because I decided to go with a different approach.
While I was working on the souls, I decided that I really wanted to show these characters struggle trying to break free.
The greeks were terrified of death and they didn't want to go to the underworld because it wasn't a pleasant place.
I really wanted to show their unwillingness to be dragged to the underworld by force.
I'm currently working on the horse as if it was a more realistic steed at the moment.
I do end up changing the horse and rider design as a progress because they simply didn't seem to fit properly.
I need to change it because the character's size in relation to the steed wasn't correct.
The character was the same size as the horse and there's now way a steed would be able to lift someone of that size.
I did need to change the size of the character and do some additional modifications.
I removed what I originally had painted in and began fleshing out more thoroughly the design elements that I wanted to include.
This became necessary when I noticed that it wasn't progressing properly and wasn't looking appealing.
At the end of the day, if the drawing doesn't look appealing then it's probably not a good drawing.
I resized the character, I redesigned the elements that I wanted to have in the drawing.
This really helped save me a lot of time because I didn't have to think as much now that I had all of the information there already.
I really wanted to show that struggle so I really worked on the chains and how I wanted them to try and escape.
I just roughed in the background elements quickly so I would have a general idea of what they would be.
I just re-started painting in this character and at this point I'm mainly working on the face of the horse.
The horses face has so many complex elements to it that I need to figure these out prior to working on the rest of the image.
This is the portion of the horse which will be most bonelike and therefore the structure does matter a lot more than the rest.
This isn't supposed to look like a normal horse since it needs to look more demonic.
I did try to showcase these elements by morphing and changing the anatomy as I drew this drawing.
I'm just working on some of the muscle tissue and the spinal cord for the horse.
I'm plotting in the basic shadow for the neck area so that I can start working on the armor and the muscles.
I'm just adding some more of those basic shadow shapes so that when it comes time for me to add the rest of the bones it's easier.
As I'm adding in the bones, I've set my soft brush to a larger size which I then go back to add more details by reducing the size.
I find that this makes it easier to create the basic shapes needed for the structure of the drawing.
It then becomes a lot easier to tighten up the details with a smaller brush size.
I'm trying to tie in the rib cage area so I'm trying to show it in the chest area.
I'm working on the legs while keeping the details for the bones extremely simple.
You don't normally have to add all that much detail in the bones to make them look realistic instead you want to hint at it.
The human eye will automatically fill in the rest of the details for you.
It's a really cool trick which helps to save a lot of time.
As long as you have a general understanding of bone structure, you can essentially guess at the structure.
I am using my reference material as I work on this drawing but the difficult part has been done since I figure out the proportions.
I'm just adding in the muscle tissue in order to solidify the structure and the shape of the horse.
It makes it a little bit more accurate.
Because i've done so many anatomy drawings, I'm essentially guessing at the muscle tissue at the moment.
I don't really need to refer as much to my reference material because it is in the midground so you won't see as much of it.
I'm adding some additional details by bumping up some of the shadows
I've just started out plotting out the basic information for the character right now.
I'm really working out the anatomy.
It is very necessary for me to plot out the basic elements and then turn off my line art as soon as possible.
If I don't do this then I find the information won't look good because too much is lost without the lineart to support the drawing.
In order to prevent this from happening I will work out the basic portions first and remove the lineart to figure out the rest.
This is the main reason why I turn off the lineart as soon as possible.
I'm just working on the foot right now and the saddle.
Because the saddle is being sat on and the angle of the lighting you won't see too much detail later on.
Most of that detail will be lost once I begin adding additional shadow layers.
I'm adding the helmet.
Making sure to fix any structure problems in head as I do so.
For the character's weapon, I made sure to design it to be very functional.
It is essentially a short double sided spear that has a half loop attached.
This loop is designed to act as a dog leash that allows him to capture the souls which he needs to bring to the underworld.
I'll be working on the loop portion of his weapon very shortly.
I've just started working on that hand.
I'm working on the loop portion right now.
It doesn't require all that much detail but it still needs to read correctly.
I'm bumping up the contrast within the armor to make sure that it reads as being separate from the horse.
I don't want those areas to blend it too much.
I've just started working on the souls that are being collected.
I wanted to have some of these souls appear to be decaying because I wanted their physical appearance to reflect their deeds.
So whatever may have happened in their lifetime will essentially reflect their current appearance.
If they were extremely greedy while they were living than this would affect their current appearance.
No there are certain characters which don't appear decomposed and that's because they were very good prior to their death.
This character here that I just skipped forward too doesn't seem to be decaying at all.
He lived a nicer life were he wasn't hurting as many people.
This is more of a karmic effect which can be seen on these characters.
I'm just adding in the hair right now.
I'm just working on that final character which is in the background.
For these character's, I'm trying to make sure that they all look very similar in appearance.
I did this so that they would look like they were striped of their rank upon death.
It's essentially a way for the main character not to discriminate between the souls he's collecting.
He's job is to purely collect the souls and it doesn't matter if your good or bad he's still going to bring you to underworld.
He does this so that you don't cause havoc and harm the people of the living.
The greeks had a lot of fears concerning death and were afraid of the dead harming the living if they were buried properly.
It was considered illegal to not properly bury a body.
I'm not sure if this was applied to just the Greeks or the Romans but I do know that death was feared by most cultures.
I'm working on those extra details right now and I'm just trying to figure out what type of coloring I will be applying to this drawing.
I'm adding some additional shadows to bump up the contrast between the light are dark areas.
I'm making sure to add this most extensively in the mid-ground and foreground elements.
I'm going to do this in the background but not as much as with I did with the foreground elements.
I'm adding the bounce light onto the characters.
This really helps brighten and balance out the drawing.
If I don't do this then the drawing looks too dark and you can't see enough of the details.
I'm trying to respect the anatomy as much as possible as I do this.
I do take a little bit more time while I work on these portions because of this.
I just skipped forward to the lighting effects that I added in.
I simply used the linear add tool in order to get this lightning effect.
I just changed some that green color that I originally had because it simply wasn't working for this drawing.
It looks a lot better now that I've removed the green from the drawing.
I added that glow effect to other parts of the body.
You would normally see that light being reflected onto other surfaces as well.
I'm just adding some additional details to Charos.
I'm really trying to emphasize the fact that he's dragging these people away so I've adding in some additional chains.
So here's the final illustration. It was a really fun drawing and I learned a lot by doing this illustrations.
I hope you guys enjoyed this and I hope to see you guys soon. Thank you and take care.