Work-in-progress GIF: http://goo.gl/g4iwdC

Well, this was an interesting one. I’d had the idea in my head for a while and did a very rough draft around a week ago. Yesterday I decided to dust it off and try to tidy it up, and it just seemed like one of those pieces that just sort of worked. I’d never drawn Chesnaught before, but I didn’t really run into any real difficulties in terms of the lineart. His design is actually pretty simple, he was definitely easier to draw than I had expected him to be. His shell did make it a little tricky, given that the way it restricts his arm movement, the pose he’s doing would be quite awkward, but I think I just about managed to make it work.

The lighting was interesting on this one, and that’s part of why I went with a background, as well. I really wanted to have the light source coming from behind, to sort of convey a “He’s gonna smash you from above” kine of vibe, but at the same time I didn’t want too much of his body to be in shadow. In the end, I felt adding the background helped contrast nicely with the amount of shadow on Chesnaught’s body, and better convey the action and mood I was going for.

I was actually going to originally have grass surrounding the viewpoint, but then I realised that would imply that the viewer was shorter than a blade of grass. :P It also didn’t look as good as I was expecting it to and kind of drew attention away from Chesnaught, so I decided to just go with the sky background.