Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy
AD Andrew Vallas

One of the ones I'm really happy about! A boy and his monsters :D The challenge here (aside from drawing young folk, which is terribly hard) presented itself in the sketch phase, thankfully resolved later. Thread ->

Brief! A lot of folks praise the diverse people I put in my cards, but a lot of it has to go to the creative team who make sure to have a wide variety of characters :)

Not sure why but I had a harder time getting to these sketches. This was a busy period for me but these thumbs are still pretty basic. I had a few ideas of him being relaxed, him being badass standing INSIDE the mouth of one of his beasts, even him surfing on a manta-monster :)

Getting a sketch ready to send to the AD was likewise a struggle. Some ideas I had I couldn't get to work, others I couldn't get the colours quite right.... pour one out for Kinnan the Manta-surfer :(

Eventually said to heck with it, top left is decent, sent it in.

Reference!
I had wanted the kid to be first nations, but time constraints meant I'd be my own model, like 99% of my work. Went outside at my dad's, put on his old snow machine gloves (it's cold up there in the air!) and hopped on his trailer for pics.

Back to sketching with all my ref in tow. This one I went 4 stages (usually it's 3)
- gesture
- rough detail placement/design
- tighter details
- final sketch

included is a bigger look at the tight sketch. Note really pretty line art, but it's just for me anyhow

GIF!

Normally that would be the end, but I want to talk design; this set is so cool in that the bonders have clothing that reflects their bonded monsters... this dude has 3! so it was a challenge to reflect all that in a cohesive piece of clothing -

First off is my favourite of his beasties, what I dubbed "Raynomalocaris" :D Anomalocaris was the world's first super predator, and I think they're neat.

Tied it into his clothing with the big blue triangular shapes as well as the large beige knots mirroring the plates

"Mustache Moose" has these big furry skin flaps that fit in well with a fur/leather wrapped skirt that would angle away from his body;

And finally, whatever he's riding on has his tusks reflected in the horn-on-leather of his shoulder pads and boots.

Thanks for reading!

oh and @Wadie_Owl , this was the one I was asking about RE your cousin. Just didn't have the time :(
Tell him he's in here in spirit :D