CHOW 182 :: The MORRIGAN

[Aly Fell]

ROUND #182:: The MORRIGAN

DESCRIPTION

The Morrigan

First off this is nothing to do with the Capcom character!

The Morrigan is ‘The Phantom Queen’ of Irish Celtic legend. Associated with death, prophecy, sovereignty she would appear to heroes when their life was in mortal danger. She appeared to Cú Chulainn ( from last week’s CHOW ) as an apparition of three crones, and her symbol, a black crow or raven appeared at his death. But she is more commonly seen as a beautiful and terrible woman with long wild hair. As a shape shifter she could also take on other animal forms. In mythology she is often seen as what is known as a ‘triple goddess’, incorporating ‘the crone, the mother and the maiden’, common across many cultures.

The Morrigan was once mistaken to be a banshee, the female spirit of ill omen and death, but she is more complicated than that. She is not a spirit but a goddess. Your task is to provide your personal interpretation of The Morrigan. Keep her in the mythical past, so no updating, but feel free to portray her as either terrible goddess, crone, mother or maiden. However, because of her associations with ‘battle and death’, you might do well to keep these aspects in mind when designing her.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Morr%C3%ADgan

http://www.shee-eire.com/Magic&Mytho...Factsheet1.htm


---------------------------------------------------------
DEADLINE
MONDAY, December 7th , 2009
Deadline is Monday, at 5:00 pm Eastern Standard Time (GMT -5).
---------------------------------------------------------
FOLLOW THE TOPIC.

POST YOUR FINAL IN THE FINALS THREAD.

SAVE YOUR FILES IN THE FOLLOWING FORMAT. Chow##_Nickname
example: "CHOW#100_Oblio.jpg"

PLACE THE IMAGE IN A FRAME WITH YOUR NAME/TOPIC


(you can add CA logo, etc).


POST YOUR FINALS IN THE FINALS THREAD!
Remember to include your nickname in the file name.

About quality - as general rule: if your shapes and values are not decent - you are out. Watch proportions, perspective etc. we need perfectly readable shapes and coherent, consistent values.

_____________

BE PROFESSIONAL - only finished and good quality entries will be taken to the poll. Daestwen and Poshspice will make the selection.
Please review these helpful reminders if you have not done so already.

ON GETTING TO POLL
-------------------------
NEW ROUND RULE: WIPS PLEASE!
-------------------------
SUBMISSION FORMAT REMINDER



PLEASE REMEMBER TO WRITE YOUR COPYRIGHT INFORMATION UNDER THE IMAGE IN THE FINAL BURNING THREAD SO I DON'T HAVE TO HUNT YOU DOWN LATER!

[Josu]

oh man, there is no time to rest, now it's sexy godess of death time

[kittymeow84]

Holy crap what an AWESOME topic!! Wish I could take part but I've got that much work to do for others that needs to be done before xmas....(which is a good thing I suppose!)...Cant wait to see everyone's take on this one.

Man, I love crows too. This is gonna be SWEET.

[skorpi]

Great topic, I give it a try

[Ruri]

In regard to this topic, all I have to say is: HELL YEAH!

[¿Dubious?]

Oh man I suggested the Morrigan in the suggestions thread a loooooooong time ago! Im mega-excited! Unfortunately I dont know if Ill be able to participate but Im still psyched to see what everyone else will turn out.

[LadyLooLauren]

Frick. Love this topic, just gotta get the DA: O Morrigan look out of my head first.

[Pixeltuner]

I want the Capcom character I loooooove Darkstalkers Anyhoot, great topic nevertheless

[AhChu]

hmmm funky, yay Christmas work out of the way now....game on

[Nev87]

woah awesome topic. maybe I could give this one ago after I finish my current project. That being my current project is done tomorrow(not really looking likely but we will see).

[daestwen]

I guess I'll kick off the wips then. :]

So this time I decided to work more on composition/background... It means I've committed one of the cardinal sins of chow and made her face away from the viewer, but this was the only thumbnail i liked!

oh well, if worst comes to worst i can always cut myself from the poll.

edit: a little more work on it...

Attachment 841710
Attachment 841781

[Matt_B]

well I am SHOCKED, daestwen! To so recklessly break the rules like that?! for shame

I'll follow up on the WIPs. I'm still working out the final idea. but here are some of the thumbnails I liked. Keep in mind they're rough and, of course, the proportions aren't right yet.

[Venger]

Cool, I love this theme
Hmmm - I might mix it with Cu-Chulainn


Compiled post - to keep it tidy.

I abandoned adding Cu-Chulainn, I thought it was to much work and I wanted to concentrate on the Morrigan.
So with simplicity in mind - I did all versions of her!!
Guess I got carried away - it's much more of an illustration than concept art.
Although the Crone and Maiden are bust shots (and against Chow rules), I'm hoping I can get away with concentrating on the Battle Goddess as the main piece (the rest is just for illustrative purposes)

Attachment 843917
Attachment 848278

[Matt_B]

How much of 3/4 is 3/4?

It's more than 1/4
But it's a nice idea!

[Nutter]

I dunno if I'll go with this, it seems a little bland. I'll try and come up with a more exciting look for her with the next wip.

[Wiggers]

Great topic but sadly no time to join in this week

[Aly Fell]

Sketchy sketchy... I love stone circles so I want to get one in. They feel appropriate...

Edit01: Thanks for the feedback... Yeah, the bottom one's probably a bit more challenging, so some washy colour to start. She's too high in the composition with too much heavy dark at the bottom, so I'll sort that.

Edit02: Working up the colour a bit more. I want to bring out the greens of the landscape a bit and the grass at the front. I might do some kind of discreet top for her as well.

Edit03: Continuing to work it up. Will bring up the colour a bit. Her hair will be reddish and decorated. Bleh...

Edit04: OK... I'm done. Bleh... I have one with her modesty intact as well...

[Pixeltuner]

Ooh nice one Posh.. Btw, can I at least draw her in Capcom style?

[oddy]

oh goddess, please let me finish tis in a minute onllly...pleasee...

[Aly Fell]

Ooh nice one Posh.. Btw, can I at least draw her in Capcom style?

Heh heh. You wag Pixeltuner!

[Pixeltuner]

Heh heh. You wag Pixeltuner!

I take that as a yes

[Aly Fell]

I take that as a yes

Your style is up to you, dear chap, ie: the form, media and method you select to present you design, but this isn't the Capcom character. So what I would say is steer away from other styles and just go with your own... make sense?

[Pixeltuner]

Your style is up to you, dear chap, ie: the form, media and method you select to present you design, but this isn't the Capcom character. So what I would say is steer away from other styles and just go with your own... make sense?

I know exactly what you mean, it's just that I'm in love with Bengus and Akiman's character designs and way of drawing and I'm just pulling yer leg

on topic: I would go with the last one in the field, it's very moody

[Mark Tarrisse]

Nutter : thats a pretty nice piece, but to be honest I prefered the pose on the first WIP, the last one looks a bit to static, and same thing for the face, I really loved what was coming on the first one

Posh : I would say the the bottom one is great, you should do it

Venger : Pretty cool too maybe you could crop a bit from the left and right, and add a bit of space on the down part.

[Wijaha]

nice.. didnbt manage to fin last one as suddeny the week got very busy! hopefully will do something here... posh your bottom one is excellent.

[Tommoy]

It's going fast again.

[Nerahla]

Note: my sketchbook is too big for my scanner plate, so the landscape in particular was cut off.


So yeah, I think one of my all-time favorite things are Irish/Celtic/Welsh/British legends and history. Seriously. I saw last week's too late, but oh boy, The Morrigan.

So, I sketched out a ton of stuff that I'm not even posting trying to get out ideas.

And Posh, get outta my head... I did the landscape before I ever looked at the replies in this thread!!

Anyway I think I like the second sketch better, still no idea what to do with her hands or what costume to give her.

I'd like to apologize beforehand for the poor draughtsmanship. I'm still working on that! In fact, I need to practice drawing so much that I may not even flesh out this idea and enter the CHOW at all, I may just keep drawing ideas to practice drawing. But not sure, as I really like my idea so far, esp considering its like the 5th one I sketched out last night.. hehe anyway I just wanted to let you know I'm here in Spirit even if I don't finalize.


-----------------------------------------------------

[Nerahla]

Daestwen: Gorgeous start so far, I don't think it's against CHOW rules to show the back? I always thought it was just important to show a goodly amount of the character so we got a definitive idea. Well you've definitely done that here! I kept trying to think of a way to make her have feathers like that, so nice to see you solve that problem in such an awesome way!!

MattB: I like the last one, probably because it looks like I wanted mine to look, but you draw better than me Her hips are slammin' nice job!!

Venger: Oooh, nice concept!! It doesn't really fit into CHOWs rules, but this is a gorgeous illustration anyway, and I totally dig Cu's flamin' hair

Nutter: I dunno about bland, but I see why you might think so since she has a less dynamic pose than her purpose might intend. Absolutely gorgeous use of value here, it's a lesson in itself, looking at your B&W.

Poshspice: All 3 are totally brill, I love how you do women... so beautiful. I'd love to see you do all 3, but make one the crone and one the maiden (perhaps keeping the stone circle one the mother?) anyway I dunno that's a lot of work but hell, they are just all so good. If I had to pick, I prefer vertical format for CHOW, so the first one is full of her badass presence, imo. That's the one I keep looking at, anyway.

Oddy: Wow awesome perspective and great expression on your Morrigan, I like where this is going!!

Tommoy: Oooh Pinup Morrigan Where is her left hand? I know she's like clutching her other hand across her belly? but it looks like a stump right now, but that could simply be because you haven't spent any time there yet, it's all good. I'm gonna say this but..... less black! *scampers away*

[Windsrock]

Oh, I hope I can do this.

[skorpi]

Great start here, everyone, thats inspiring

daestwen: i really like the composition of yours, and who need a face if there's body language.

Matt_B dynamic, I think her left arm is to short.

Venger Looks good, even if it doesn't works with chow rules

Nutter Yeah, dark, great sketch

Poshspice Great as always, I really like the third one.

oddy love her hadns, but I don't really get what scene the pic shows

Tommoy At the moment, she looks some kind frigthened from the dead body.

Nerahla I like the landscape


Sketch, I think, I'm going to work with this one