Knight in (Nearly) Shining Armor

Here’s a project that pulled me completely out of my comfort zone. I was asked by a friend to create some concept art for a statue of a knight to be created for Urbana University in Urbana, Ohio (my home town).

This knight pulls elements from both the classical iron armor appearance and more modern representation, with even a little Asian flair. I’m usually drawing cars so working the human form is a little off-center for me, but I think this guy turned out really well for a first try.

I started with a basic outline in pencil, and rather than shading the entire drawing by layers, I blocked this one off and did all the shading in one section before moving on to the next. You can see this in the image of the feet and bottom portion of the cloak with shading completed prior to moving on to the arms and chest.

This sketch is done exclusively with pencil, Copic sketching grays, and ink pen, with a little Posca white to accent shininess.

I really like the way the fabric waviness turned out, and the polished shin and arm guards. It’s exciting to me to know I can pull off this form as I’d like to eventually move into graphic novel-style story lines. I have some cool ideas in the vain of Initial D I’m starting to conceptualize.