Art - SHAO KAHN - Mortal Kombat - step by step -

ROUND ONE! FIGHT!

Hello people! It's me with some new art project finished after 10 days or so. This time it's Shao Kahn from Mortal Kombat game series!

This fella took some time to get done because of the detail work and all, glad to share it finally! Here we have a legendary boss from a fighting game series, MK 11 is on it's way so, I kinda felt inspired by all of it to illustrate my version of him.

FINISH HIM!

The voice of this guy is legendary, the emperor, the narrator, the announcer, the fighter, the boss of it all and yet, so authentic. Wanted to make the setting a dungeon where he awaits new challengers, as you can see the previous ones did not fare so well, makes him kinda dreadful.

By my humble opinion, one of the best fighting game franchise characters and feels so old school, inspired by history and if you remember older kung fu movies and stuff, fits right in that 90s era with 80s influence mixed up with historic stuff.

For the art itself I used regular paper, ink, brushes, acrylic white paint and pencil, some smudges, splashes and napkins and stuff like that. It was done traditionally and later on scanned to add a bit of color in Photoshop.

Here's a quick step by step:

Step 1:

Yeah, not so impressive at all... Just a pen sketch with an idea, some brush marker to darken it a bit so the white would fit right on.. Had an image in my had by that time and made a lot of changes

Step 2:

Destruction and rebuild mode on! Splashing big white paint moves on the black area and vice versa, playing around to get to the core and base of the idea, took many days. Spent about 20 - 30 minutes daily, during that time I did not rush it, just building it.

Step 3:

This one was, well, the transition mode where it should look a bit like the idea, but a tough one. Here I spent the most of the time figuring it out and taking it easy.

Step 4:

Felt free after all of this and continued onward. Here is the freedom part, white, black, gray, all of it. Decided to leave one eye in the shadow, worked on background, details, transitions from one to another, lighting source and really, the result was like a puzzle coming together!

Step 5 (final step):

Polishing the details, canning art and doing some light color work digitally in Photoshop. Did not want to overdo it, since it would eat up the details.

Hope you liked it and/or found it useful or amusing, you have a wonderful day and an awesome week.

Thank's for visiting!

FATALITY

I am a comic book artist and geek from Serbia, doing illustration work for 15 years now, really enjoying it!

My IG: https://www.instagram.com/the_art_of_rez