The Art of James Teeple

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Leicester, United Kingdom
I'm 21 / DMU Art Student / British-American.

Tuesday 21 May 2013

Book Character project - Kvothe

For my "re imagining a book character" uni project, I chose to work from my two favourite books to date, The King Killer Chronicles series by Patrick Roth fuss.
The Character's name is Kvothe and the books follow the epic story of his life, from boy to man, told through many different perspectives. They are incredible so I highly recommend them! can't wait for part 3.
To begin with I did the usual idea generating because to put a face to Kvothe I found was very challenging. Because although I imagined him so clearly in my head while i read the books, It was never easy to focus on that image enough to draw straight from it. So I began researching, casting for the face of Kvothe or characteristics I could use to bring clarity to his face.

At first I was unsure at what I wanted to set my painting in the books time line. So initially I played around with painting Kvothe as a young street urchin from the first book; 'The Name of the wind'
I made a mood board to explore this idea.


However, it just didnt click with me and I decided that I would go forward in time a little to a point where, to me, Kvothe really began to come into his own as a young man. At the stage in the second book, 'The Wise Mans Fear', where Kvothe has settled somewhat at the university, lots of interesting action happens and Kvothe begins to gather some fame as stories evolve around him. I decided I would pick a scene from that time.
I made another mood board, again focusing on his face because that was the main thing that eluded me when I visualized him, I knew the bare bones of what he looked like, just not the finer details that sets everyone apart from one another.


Anyway, I wont talk about all the research or prep sketches. It amounted to me deciding to paint Kvothe playing his lute on the rooftops of Anker's as he so often did.
I was working to a strict deadline so It isn't as polished as I'd like, but its all I could fit in with the time I had, about 11 hours. Which for me wasnt too bad considering I'm very out of practice with digital painting and still consider myself to be very new to it. Here is a process compilation.
I consider this an original painting, done from how I imagined Kvothe to look in the second book, soon after rescuing Fela from the fire in the fishery and having been rewarded by her with a lovely green cloak. It took a fair few evenings to get right, especially trying to find lighting I liked.
Final Image
I encountered some difficulties when it came to painting the lighting for the scene. I found it difficult to find reference that would help me and in the end I just went with my instinct, which doesn't mean its right... I knew that moonlight desaturated colors and the main struggle was to have moonlight but still show his key characteristic flaming red hair. I ended up losing some realism and instead opted for a more fantasy feel to the lighting. Overall I'm happy with it. :)

This was easy for me to imagine doing as I have so many amazing scenes in my head that I'd love to paint, from reading the two books. So hopefully I will get around to doing more! I especially want to imagine Denna though a painting some time soon.

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