Fallen Angel

This year, I returned to David Belliveau’s Paintable One Week Character Challenge. I chose the Fallen Angel character design brief with the intent to turn the traditionally associated paladin/crusader design and colour scheme on its head while adhering to the brief at the same time. Instead of the gilded armour being big and heavy, I’ve embedded it into the skin - showcasing how the angel can never part with its origins. For the colours, I was looking at deviating from the classic blues and whites associated with the divine as well as the reds and blacks associated with the fallen/demonic. Instead, I looked at traditional cardinal garb and did find other colours present specifically in the seven changing colours of Orthodox Priests. I was particularly drawn to utilising purple, as the only other non-typical colour was green, which meant “united with God” - as a fallen angel, this character is the furthest from their god they’ve ever been. Purple is a royal colour and that kind of royal authority is still present within the character.
I also wanted to push myself further - I don’t often finalise back-view poses and a pose reference with a profile face view, which is also more difficult to render, really lent itself to the challenge.
Furthermore, I don’t often illustrate dark-skinned characters and since a lot of “fallen angel” character designs are very white, I got incentivised to create a black character.
I learned a lot specifically when it came to designing the hair as I have not properly illustrated 3C curls before. It was tough to design them faithfully while also trying to keep to the cloud shapes I enjoyed drawing so much.
The clouds were probably my favourite part to illustrate - elevating the overall shape and giving me the opportunity to incorporate more celestial designs.
I learned a lot more about how to do effective overpainting and while I am thrilled about confronting my personal challenges to further develop my skills, I thoroughly enjoyed coming back to Paintable’s community and designing alongside hundreds of other artists.