Chell - Portal 2k concept

they are done! GLaDOS, Chell, and more or less Wheatley for my y2k inspired redesign. GLaDOS was just my version of a humanoid glados but I just lumped her in with this project. it feels good to get this vision out there after some time living in my head. The portal gun design was inspired by elements of the concept art for the long fall boots.

something I noticed is my more concept pieces tend to be more refined than when I do a raw pencil drawing for anything else. I really enjoy the raw quality and energy of a pencil drawing where I really commit to every line and going off of that for an ink and screen tone piece. it's very easy for me to get looser with a digital underdrawing with a lot of fixing when you have infinite undos and no eraser marks. I think that's what just happens when you work digital, at least for me. it makes sense for concept pieces since I change things aaaall the time on the fly and that's just my concept brain wanting to make it readable for a character artist. I wasn't formally taught concept art so everything learned is through looking at concept art online and being part of HL2 mod teams where everythings need to be mostly clear.

this drawing especially went through a few changes from the sketch. went from an illustration to a design piece. one is lack of bg. I just didn't feel it was necessary and I had it originally for the sake of having one. it def has the polished quality that I don't think my work sees much, especially if it has color. hot take, but coloring can be quite tedious. a reason I do a lot of black and white and why im not super confident with colors. I'm also an adjustment layer abuser and I try to avoid local colors as much as I can. gonna be more mindful to be a little looser for the half-life 2 beta and sniper//gal concepts.