Mass Effect Style Alien: Portrait Render

Most of the design problems are solved before this stage so all thats left to do is to give the concept some polishing up. Textures are applied to give an idea of the different surface materials involved and a rimlight is added to pop the design out from the background.

Mass Effect Style Alien: Colour Tests

Continuing from the previous post, I paint further into the chosen drawing, destroying the lines and replacing them with varying tones to add forms that were absent before. This grayscale image would be used as the basis to produce quick colour sketches to generate ideas for a direction. The colours were all done on a 'hard light' blend layer.

At this point I found the frame around the forehead draws too much attention (almost like how you might be drawn to stare at somebody's bold patch) which is why I decided to keep the colouration close to the plate. I think I will take design #4 forward for being the least cliche (which perhaps makes it feel a bit more alien) and also because there is no other Mass Effect alien character with yellow skin.

Massively Effective Alien: Head Designs

A few of my buddies set up a new art blog, The Clockwork Ballroom, where we contribute artwork to a bi-weekly topic. The first theme we are tackling is 'alter ego.' As I have just completed Mass Effect 3 (and going through a bit of a sci-fi binge), I am going to be a complete geek and design myself as a Mass Effect alien!
This here is stage one of the process to a final concept painting. The brief I gave myself for theis design is to create a character that could fit into the Mass Effect universe as a squad member in Sheppard's team. As an ally to the protagonist, I wanted this character to carry clues about his allegiance (with generally soft flowing organic shapes) and the ability for him to pull a variety of expressions for the players to be able to relate to. In each design I try to restrict them to one unique motif. Imagine if you try to cram too many ideas into one design, you'll get creatures with 3 sets of eyes, 2 nose and a mouth on top of it's head, it would just be too many ideas fighting for attention.
Since this is a alter ego of myself in the Mass Effect environment I still need to relate the design back to me somehow. My thought was to give the design a dragon flavour with my alias being Bendragon and all hehe. A potential problem I was cautious of was avoiding falling into the realms of fantasy creatures, you can decide for yourself if it stays in science fiction. The design set #3 all originated from the same drawing. I chose this drawing as it was the best fit for my criteria, and then produced a few more variations following the same philosophy. I will take 3b to the next round so stay tuned for more!