[Various] Commissions from various artists

urbwar · Post by **urbwar** » Sat Aug 25, 2012 12:29 pm

Thanks Mr. J!

I updated the image in the earlier post as I got the color one from Anthony last night. It's the low res version, but it's still pretty neat.

urbwar · Post by **urbwar** » Thu Nov 29, 2012 2:02 am

Here's a couple of newer pieces from Dan Houser. These aren't the final versions, but are close enough. First up is a villain currently known as Delirium, though that name may change. He's a master criminal type:

This evil looking fellow is El Muerte Rojo (The Red Death), Delirium's right hand man, and chief enforcer/assassin:

MrJupiter · Post by **MrJupiter** » Fri Nov 30, 2012 12:42 am

Great, wicked look for Delirium! I'm really curious, just by looking at the art, as to what powers he may have. Additionally, I think the costuming for El Muerte Rojo is really good. I especially like the skeletal mask and gloves.

urbwar · Post by **urbwar** » Fri Nov 30, 2012 3:43 am

MrJupiter wrote:Great, wicked look for Delirium! I'm really curious, just by looking at the art, as to what powers he may have. Additionally, I think the costuming for El Muerte Rojo is really good. I especially like the skeletal mask and gloves.

Delirium's original concept is gas bombs that look like pumpkins, and carry toxins/diseases in them. Not sure if I will be keeping that though.

El Muerte Rojo's costume is inspired by a series of luchadores (mexican wrestlers) who used the name La Parka/LA Park

Storn · Post by **Storn** » Fri Nov 30, 2012 12:52 pm

I really like el Muerte Rojo!

urbwar · Post by **urbwar** » Thu Mar 07, 2013 6:31 am

Storn wrote:I really like el Muerte Rojo!

Thanks Storn! It's a character I've toyed around with for years. Mostly as an actual wrestling character for fantasy wrestling, but now as a supervillain.

I have a new commission to show off. it's a personal piece, featuring my main character in a Villains & Vigilantes campaign named Glare. Kris Smith did an image for me (which is in my thread of his work), but this piece is by an artist who goes by the name of Celtic Bolt. Found his stuff on DeviantArt, loved his work, and contacted him for this piece. If all goes well, I hope to hire him for some pieces for a future release. Anyway, here is Glare 2.0:

urbwar · Post by **urbwar** » Thu Apr 04, 2013 9:23 am

No one has any comments on the Glare piece?

MrJupiter · Post by **MrJupiter** » Thu Apr 04, 2013 11:35 am

Sorry urbwar. with all the Awesome Powers Kickstarter excitement, I kinda' forgot about this. Nearly everything about this character is outstanding. From the cool armor design to the golden colours, this looks like an awesome hero! I was wondering if there was some way, though, for the artist to bring more expression to the face area. It is a blank slate that makes him hard to read.

Both Spiderman and Ironman have the area around their eye's costuming move slightly to convey the hero's surprise or anger and the blank visor here does allow us to connect with the hero in a similar way. Have you considered making the glass just slightly transparent so that we could see his vaguely hinted expression within?

Other than that I find the work to be incredibly good!

urbwar · Post by **urbwar** » Thu Apr 04, 2013 11:45 am

Mister J,

While I appreciate the suggestion, his face is supposed to be obscured. The character suffered a serious accident, and was badly burned. I don't think people want to see a face that looks like pizza....

Mendou · Post by **Mendou** » Thu Apr 04, 2013 9:24 pm

Would it be possible to redesign the helmet to suggest human features, at the very least? Heroic characters need to connect to the reader in some way, and an expressionless glass plate doesn't really allow that. For a villain, the obscuring visor works very well; for a hero, not so much...

BillionSix · Post by **BillionSix** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 2:53 am

Mendou wrote:Would it be possible to redesign the helmet to suggest human features, at the very least? Heroic characters need to connect to the reader in some way, and an expressionless glass plate doesn't really allow that. For a villain, the obscuring visor works very well; for a hero, not so much...

It worked for Iron Man.

urbwar · Post by **urbwar** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 2:59 am

Mendou wrote:Would it be possible to redesign the helmet to suggest human features, at the very least? Heroic characters need to connect to the reader in some way, and an expressionless glass plate doesn't really allow that. For a villain, the obscuring visor works very well; for a hero, not so much...

He's a character I play in someone's game, which is set in the 1990's, The inspiration for the helmet look was based on the Crimson Dynamo and Spitfire (new universe) armors. It's really not much different than the image of the same character I posted in my thread for Kris Smith art, and was purposely designed to be very robotic in outlook, to reflect that the character exists in a game that is set about 12-15 years ago. The image is for personal use, and isn't for a character that I plan on using in print.

The design works for the way the character is played. The character is actually one of the more popular heroes in the game world, and has an entire toy line devoted to him. Even after having 80% of his body covered in 3rd degree burns (and needing to wear the suit for longer periods of time just to stay alive). He's easily the second or third most popular hero in the entire game world currently.

MrJupiter · Post by **MrJupiter** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 7:17 am

urbwar wrote:
Mendou wrote:Would it be possible to redesign the helmet to suggest human features, at the very least? Heroic characters need to connect to the reader in some way, and an expressionless glass plate doesn't really allow that. For a villain, the obscuring visor works very well; for a hero, not so much...
He's a character I play in someone's game, which is set in the 1990's, The inspiration for the helmet look was based on the Crimson Dynamo and Spitfire (new universe) armors. It's really not much different than the image of the same character I posted in my thread for Kris Smith art, and was purposely designed to be very robotic in outlook, to reflect that the character exists in a game that is set about 12-15 years ago. The image is for personal use, and isn't for a character that I plan on using in print.

The design works for the way the character is played. The character is actually one of the more popular heroes in the game world, and has an entire toy line devoted to him. Even after having 80% of his body covered in 3rd degree burns (and needing to wear the suit for longer periods of time just to stay alive). He's easily the second or third most popular hero in the entire game world currently.

Excellent points. That’s a great concept for the hero, by the way. The man probably feels exposed outside of the suit because everyone can see his weakness. He might be carrying himself boldly, but people will judge him by his scars and that means greater difficulty integrating with others. As Glare 2.0 he is probably perceived as a machine (I’m guessing here) and has the advantage, hidden behind his armor, as being judged purely on his strength, abilities and intimidation factor.

Cool too, is the fact that he must rely on the suit for survival. He’s a really tough guy with deep vulnerabilities at the same time.

urbwar · Post by **urbwar** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 2:26 pm

He didn't start off that way. The character got shunted into the Astral plane during a botched experiment (in the campaign world, he created Dimensional Physics, but even he doesn't know all there is to know about it), and when bringing him back, there was a mistake made (ie botched roll), and he got badly burned). The suit is now required when he leaves the base for the organization he works for (CHESS, which is similar to SHIELD).

He ended up in the Astral Plane again (in order to save his life, sans armor), so the concept of the 2.0 armor is when he gets back, he makes new improvements (ie spends XP to design new abilities for the suit).

The game world is currently under threat of destruction by a race similar to the Kree (this is public knowledge), so the heroes are the first line of defense against this threat (who also have their own supers). In previous battles with the aliens, Glare kind of stood out for his actions, which is why he's one of the more popular heroes (while other heroes focus on the villains, Glare actually tries to help innocents in the line of fire, minimalise property damage, etc). His injuries are not public knowledge (his ID is secret after all), but the helmet being the way it is helps him conceal that.

MrJupiter · Post by **MrJupiter** » Sat Apr 06, 2013 3:24 pm

Great character background. I also like the way the campaign carries an ongoing storyline dealing with alien invasion. That would be a fun setting to play in (especially as heroes instead of villains like the Necessary Evil campaign setting).