Artorias the Abysswalker - 3D

“Forgive me, for I have availed you nothing!”
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So it’s finally done!

Artorias the wolf knight, once the greatest warrior in the known world, along with his great wolf Sif, sought to stop the spread of the Abyss. Suffering crippling damage to his shield arm in his fight against Manus, father of the Abyss, he used the shields enchantment to protect his friend before falling to the Abyss’ influence himself.

The Aviators song for the tale “Song of the Abyss” Served as inspiration for this piece, and I would definitely encourage you to listen if you’re interested! I had it on repeat so many times through making this..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0qb9YsWhEA&list=RDMMh0qb9YsWhEA&start_radio=1&ab_channel=Aviators

It was so very nice to tackle something fairly new, learning all kinds of things and seeing it through. Blender, I have begun my conquest! I really wanted to try and emulate the way I’ve been drawing things lately, which included the thicker linework and combination of hatchey shadows and solid fills, but combine it with the 3D elements.

And who better to do it for than one of the many sad tales from Dark Souls. I haven't played all of them, and I’m definitely a casual, but that lore, and that design, ticks all my favourite boxes! I spent a good amount of time trying to find a proper ref for this arena.I ended up watching and pausing other peoples boss fights and digging up concept art and screenshots.While they differ from each other and you only really see about the bottom layer of the arena, I managed to patch together something sort of accurate. You never see the full arena anyways.

The whole background is lit, textured and rendered in Blender, all the textures, save for 2 are hand painted. The plants, the bricks and my precious floor (I’m so proud of my little tiles) got the same outline treatment. I did then end up going over the render in a paintover with my usual line work anyways, just so I could more accurately tie everything in. The background’s sole purpose was to serve a paintover in the end, so the actual file would probably make actual environment artists cry, but it was good for what I needed!

As for the final, I really wanted it to convey some level of emotion. Artorias is a tragic character. A protagonist that didn’t win. A self sacrificing knight that fell to the very thing he sought to destroy and while completely lost, you find him still carrying out some semblance of his duty. I was aiming for the duality I suppose, fallen but once good. Artorias in this piece is completely 2D, along with the Abyss effects. Of course, I had to have him in a semi classic pose and I really wanted elements of the Abyss to look like it was leaking from his armour. Some of that got lost in the motion blur I think, but it came out pretty cool all the same.

As a whole, I’m very happy with this piece. I went in wanting something just to tackle learning blender, but as I went, it started turning into something I was excited to finish. I hope you guys like it, Dark Souls fan or no.
Maybe I’ll be looking to do an opposite companion piece to go with the Abyss? Maybe something...Gloriously incandescent? \ [T] /
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“Thou art strong human, surely, thine kind is more than pure dark”