As described on Steam: 

To kick things off I went on the Dota 2 website to look at the Heroes list containing all current playable characters in the game at present. I noticed whilst looking through the designs that there were several that had animal-like features such as hoofed feet and fur.  I thought this would be a great place to get my head around coming up with ideas for characters if I started with an animal based (much like the approach with the pokemon characters). After looking through the heroes and considering how their design effects their playability also, I considered water-like elements to be my main focus as their were few water based designs already created within the heroes lists.

Frilled blouses are perfect to try and replicate jellfish-like features on my character

My first approach to this character was mostly just geared towards taking elements of a jellyfish and incorporating it into the design keeping in mind that the silhouette must stand out and be recognisable. So my first rough line art came out very fishy looking but after a few more sketches in my book I found that by making the face look more rounded and regal it gave the hero more personality, like a Queen jelly fish. I kept in mind the concept of keeping the character regal looking and added more elements to make her unique - like the trail/cape and more emphasis on the breast and collar trimmings. 

Looking at the silhouettes I defiantly think that the second one (middle) stands out the most. It's pretty much the same as the third but without the cape. As much as the cape adds to the personality and the regalness of the design, it takes away too much from the silhouette so I think I'll leave it out for now and continue working on the second design. 

I found this process to be long and a little frustrating. I'm not sure whether it was my range of tones or my brain not making the connections but after a while of fiddling and iterating I settled on this tone scheme before i move on to choose my colours. 

Using adobes colour pallet webpage (//color.adobe.com/create/image/) and a Google image searched man of war jelly fish I created a colour pallet that I think would work well with my Hero. Nice soft colours that aren't too in your face so that later on when I create focal points on the character I could possibly use more striking colours.

As I'm approaching this character as some kind of monarch I will stick to that theme whilst designing her weapon, taking inspiration from crowns and jewels.

I see this coloured stone covered scepter as a perfect weapon for the Queen of the jellyfish with it's ocean-like qualities, but it's not particularly readable especially if it was just a silhouette so I need something a bit more obvious. 

Taking inspiration from a traditional portrait of Queen Elizabeth I - someone who would probably have the same values as my Hero, I think that keeping it simple would work best with the flamboyant design of this character. Making sure to get the same blank but sneering expression so it looks as if she's looking down her nose at her opponents.

I felt the need to make a fourth and final change to the colour scheme whilst filling in this portrait as I felt like the colours on the head weren't working in design I was originally going for. I think the problem was that I was trying to colour each individual aspect of the design in a different colour to make it unique and stand out. So what I did was simplify it a little on the head so that there are less primary colours so that when I come to painting I can make more subtle mixes. 

So with the same approach as Queen Jellyfish, I looked at animals but this time I was looking for animals with a stocky build and intimidating features. Whilst looking I didn't really have a personality in mind other than he was supposed to be the 'bad guy' which... Really he isn't because in Dota 2 heroes are 'Heroes'!. After a few scribbles and doodles I was drawn towards the spider as a base creature, then started adding more human like features. It was whiles I was drawing his stocky body that I added his robes which reminded me of a Monk. Working with that my Spider-man/Monk concept is created!

I really like the colours and folds of the monks robes and they are a popular source of inspiration in numerous video games for their unique style and it's religious roots. The spider concept ties into the monk theme as no creature is too small to be overlooked by their beliefs (all creatures big or small are sacred). 

So I only tried a couple of designs for this guy mostly because I was pretty happy with the original. Trying him in the monk outfit was worth it though as it gave me a better idea with what colours I'm wanting him to be inspired by those monk robes. 

The colour picking method I used before doesn't seem to work very well with what I have in mind. I want the vibrant colours from the monks robes but also some nice deep shades of jade. Even photoshopping what I want into one picture for the colour picker to use wasn't very successful...

Really struggling with this guy and ended up just colour picking quite randomly to try to find something that suits the design rather than simple just the vibrant monk theme. The first two, really sticking to the idea of the bright orange monk robe and jade accessories works up to a point but I was too tempted not to add another colour to clash. Unfortunately I don't think they work, the clash is the bad kind rather than something that stands out. My third version I tried to tone it down a bit, sticking to colours that aren't so vibrant and trying to draw more attention to the fact that this guy is more spider than monk. 

Roughly blocking/scribbling out the composition of this piece and how the Heroes would be interacting with each other. 

It took a while but I finally managed to get the body proportions and poses looking semi-possible! I'll work on making the piece more solid whilst working in the colour.

Basic colour palette's' are down...