#matt rhodes
Sometimes you put too much effort into something and it just ends up with you filled with hate over a sock
Inquisition was the best project I’ve ever worked on by a large margin and drawing these epilogue slides felt like the best possible send off for me. Out of the 43 that I drew, these were a few of my favorites.
It was a great chance to break free of technical limitations (cloaks, hair, etc…) and to explore what directions they may head. As wonderful as “iconic” looks are, I like to break characters of their set appearances when possible. Every costume in the game required drawings, sculpting, rigging. That cost means we usually don’t get a lot of wardrobe changes for characters. The epilogue slides were also a good chance to explore what else these characters may wear. Maybe they let their hair down (Josephine), or they have a favorite coat they never wore because they spent the game in armor (Cullen), or they have culturally specific clothing they can bring out (Cassandra’s formal Nevarran dragon dress and hair braid).
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Clara Leone
I saw my brother Tom Rhodes having all this fun with his @rndfantasy project and I had to join in. This is the final drawing for this weeks winner @Tay_McD. Her character Clara Leone is a young wood elf, a self-exiled noble’s daughter and skilled huntress. The commentary video will be coming soon, but until then here’s the progress video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVIZKE2VGMQ
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HUMPHRIES & DEL MUNDO TRAVERSE THE TWISTING, MYSTICAL ROADS OF “WEIRDWORLD”
- Weirdworld #1 and #2 covers by Mike Del Mundo
- Weirdworld #1 variant by Matt Rhodes
- Weirdworld #2 variant by Afu Chan
- Concepts for Becca and Goleta by Mike Del Mundo
Goleta- she’s a seven-foot-tall barbarian woman. She’s been a blast to create and a blast to write. Her design by Mike Del Mundo is crazy. When you see her you’ll immediate fall in love with her. She’s someone who is loud and brash and is completely at home in the wilds of Weirdworld. She hunts wizards.; she despises wizards. That’s her jam. She has a gigantic blade in the shape of a G, and she drives a souped up Weirdworld infused muscle car, both designed by Maniac Mike Del Mundo.
Becca- She is a normal teenage girl; as normal as you can be for someone who is thrown into a crazy sci-fi, fantasy world. Other than that she’s mostly normal. She actually does stand apart from most teenagers in that she is burdened with her own personal quest. Then she literally crash lands on Weirdworld, and everything gets complicated a thousand-fold. Because now she has to survive this crazy mixed up world, complete her quest, and get home. She is an American teen from the Marvel Universe. So as an aware citizen she certainly knows about super heroes. She knows who Spider-Man is. She knows who the Avengers are. She knows that in the world there are crazy things that do not lend themselves to easy explanations. But now she is going to come face to face with the heart of extreme weirdness of the Marvel Universe, with nothing but her phone to defend her!
My first time working with Marvel! I got to do a variant for “Weirdworld”.
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Dune (Re-posted with some color)
I gave in to the siren song of Dune and was dashed upon the rocks like so many concept artists before me. There just isn’t time to render these, but I’m reasonably pleased with the line-work, so here they are!
Some context: I fell into a Dune-hole recently which started by stumbling across the INCREDIBLE art from what would have been Jodorowsky’s Dune film. That inspired me to re-watch the David Lynch movie again (one of my favorites). At that point, I had to read the book again. In the middle of my read-through, I watched a couple Tarsem Singh movies and my brain made a connection that I couldn’t shake loose:
I want a 4 hour Dune movie designed by Tarsem Singh’s crew (production designer, art director, costume designer, cinematographer, etc…)
So, in order to get that thought out of my brain, I took a clumsy swing at designing the cast of Dune through the lens of Tarsem Singh’s crew. To me, that meant making each character an operatic or theatrical expression of their role in the story. Visual storytelling cranked to eleven.
For descriptions:
Caladan
I thought the Atreides on Caladan should look “water rich”. I wanted to design a visual language that looked like it was born out of generations of ruling a tropical paradise.
Dr. Yueh – The diamond mark of his conditioning becomes a mask, but it’s not %100 effective so it doesn’t cover one eye.
Thufir Hawat – The Juice of Sapho is held in a small vial near his mouth, always near him. He may once have fit his ceremonial armor better, but he’s no less dangerous.
Gurney Halleck – Patrick Stewart was perfect in this role, but in the book he’s described as being a pretty ugly guy. He has blades all over him, and his clothing is tied down tightly for sparring.
Paul – He wears the Atreides Hawke at his breast, with one “red wing” cape over his shoulder. He is dressed for life on his water-rich homeland.
Reverend Mother Helen Gaius Mohiam – She carries branching staff to represent diverging bloodlines. Her collar echoes the Emperor’s own crest. I wanted to design a motif for the Bene Gesserit with several meanings. Her hair is tonsured like a monk’s, but they wear a braided mohawk like a horses mane to make reference to their ongoing breeding program. They also wear fine chains connected to piercings from their eyes, ears and mouths. This is a visual representation of their constant focus on observation, listening and influence through speech.
Duke Leto – He is described as having a face like a bird of prey, so I exaggerated that. He wears the Atreides Hawke on his chest, with two red wing capes behind him.
The Lady Jessica – She has the Bene Gesserit hair (tonsured with a horses mane mowhawk) and piercings (connecting eyes, hears and mouth). She has a modified version of the Atreides Hawk crest, forming a more elegant cape.
Antagonists
Feyd-Rautha – His build reflects his regular gladiatorial training. I wanted the Harkonnen’s to look like they hung around in their robes all day. I also gave them a consistent jewelry motif that was part viper-pit, part “plans within plans within plans” like a diagram of nefarious connections.
The Beast Rabban – He’s an animal, even less restrained than the Baron. You can see that it’s only a matter of time before he competes with the Baron for sheer scale. He’s adorned himself with cruel trinkets, and what may have once been luxurious furs have become rank tatters through neglect and abuse.
The Baron Vladimir Harkonnen - …yup.
Piter De Vris – Like Thufir Hawat, Piter keeps his Juice of Sahpo within regular sipping distance. His “rig” is built up into a flimsy collar, meant to look arrogant and hint at his aspirations to rule.
Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV – His royal armor is designed to reflect his paranoia (the same paranoia that inspired him to us the Harkonnens to crush the Atreides). Physical descriptions compare him to Duke Leto, so I wanted him to look like a lesser version of the Duke. His armor plates are all given to him by the various guilds and houses he rules.
Sardaukar – The Emperor’s elite soldiers. Their crests reflect the emperors, but are all built from reclaimed prison bars from their hellish prison-homeworld, Salusa Secondis. I wanted them to look completely opposite to the Fremen. They’re big, bulky, heavily armored. The glimpse of armor you can see was designed to look like it would react TERRIBLY to sand.
Arrakis
To design the Fremen is to design the Stillsuit. To me, they were done perfectly in the David Lynch film, so I wanted to try to make a different statement. Fremen don’t care that they smell awful, they accept the realities of their lives, so I wanted to design a suit that didn’t shy away from its vulgar processes. It’s designed to process piss, shit and sweat into drinkable water. Seeing a person in their stillsuit should almost feel like seeing them naked.
Stilgar – Sturdy, reliable, and pretty much a surrogate father to Paul.
Muad’Dib – I kept it simple. His outfit is just a stillsuit and the red wing cape of the Atreides.
Chani – Just draping the stillsuit with something asymmetrical and soft.
Alia – She wears little red Atreides wings and a Gom Jabbar.
Great Mother Jessica – Her Bene Gesserit mane is exaggerated in a fabric crest. She holds the water of life in a bottle that isn’t meant to be put down.
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Inquisition was the best project I’ve ever worked on by a large margin and drawing these epilogue slides felt like the best possible send off for me. Out of the 43 that I drew, these were a few of my favorites.
It was a great chance to break free of technical limitations (cloaks, hair, etc…) and to explore what directions they may head. As wonderful as “iconic” looks are, I like to break characters of their set appearances when possible. Every costume in the game required drawings, sculpting, rigging. That cost means we usually don’t get a lot of wardrobe changes for characters. The epilogue slides were also a good chance to explore what else these characters may wear. Maybe they let their hair down (Josephine), or they have a favorite coat they never wore because they spent the game in armor (Cullen), or they have culturally specific clothing they can bring out (Cassandra’s formal Nevarran dragon dress and hair braid).
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World of Thedas Volume 2
The second lore book is out, and it’s kind of ridiculous. It’s heavy, stacked to the gills with lore, stories, recipes, songs, and juicy gossip. It also includes some never-before-seen concept art, as well as a large amount of new content we made specifically for this book. I honestly can’t even believe we made this thing.
Here are a few of the original pieces I was fortunate enough to contribute to this ludicrous tome, in order:
Darinius, first Archon of Tevinter
Garahel and Isseya
Garahel slays the Archdemon
Some of the cast of Dragon Age: Origins
Illustration for Mir Da'len Somniar, a traditional Dalish lullaby
For those who are interested in picking it up:
you can pick up the hardcover on Amazon
Or pick up the special edition on the Bioware store.
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DA:I - Some Inquisitor development
Sifting through the design fog until you start seeing light in the distance. These were just some of my drawings, there are even more from other members of the concept team.
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DA:I - Divine Heretic
Another one of those moments that never saw the light of day, but made for some interesting and heated discussion internally. We thought it would be interesting if you gained enough power you could name yourself Divine. It would be twice as hard to do if you played as a male, and for the hardcore player it would twice as hard again to do it as a male Qunari. An effectively game and lore breaking act of heresy. Not even a little bit surprised we backed away from this one.
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DA:I - Greater Wilderness Creatures
A couple of my favorites, which to me will always be the Dragon Bear and the Hyena Vulture. The idea was that an ecosystem that included flying tyrannosauruses would be different from the one we know today. In this case, a breed of bear that targets wyverns and dragonlings, but in the spring may even go after a high dragon. Alternately, a scavenger that has grown large and confident living off the scraps of the high dragon.
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DA:I - Some guy in a cave
This did not make it into the game. It was just one of those things that got painted between DA2 and DA:I
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DA:I – Storyboard for the Coronation
We had the opportunity to work with the cinematics team for several months working on storyboards. We worked fast and dirty, and rarely did less than five versions of a scene.
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Tellurion project
I started a thing in my spare time a while ago and I just made it to 8 pages. I’m just taking my time, adding images as I finish them. Still lots to do, but I’m enjoying the process. If you’d like to see the bigger versions, they’re on my ArtStation page here:
https://www.artstation.com/artist/mattrhodes/albums/77988
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Rey
Rewatched TFA, doing some doodling. Thinking if Rey struggled with anger could’ve made for cool arc opposite Kylo
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ILM Art Department Challenge: The Job
Some of my submissions for the final leg of the contest. For more, some explainations and bigger versions go here:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/9Pg3q
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ILM Art Department Challenge: The Ride
My submissions for the second part of the contest. A flatbed truck I call “The Turtle” and Alderaan’s revenge.
Further explanations and bigger versions can be found here:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/oz19z
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ILM Art Department Challenge: The Moment.
My submissions for the first section of the contest. Larger versions and explanations can be found here:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/wvwPY
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“Elas” for Jacob
A half-elven thief, guest-drawn for my brother’s youtube channel @rndfantasy. I’ve included the hour long process video with commentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D7jnC5HJkE
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D’ni
Gehn and Atrus reach the subterranean city of D'ni. Just some fan art from the Myst book.
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Study update
Since my trip to Montreal I’m really pushing hard for a level up or two. So here’s:
-A polar bear and wolf skull at my local museum
-Some horse life drawing
-Some co-worker portraits and figures figures figures
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Wolves
I’ve been doing a lot of wolf studies lately and I thought it’d be a fun challenge to make an illustration that focused entirely on wolves. Anatomy and reference drawings are one thing, but trying to create characters and tell a story uses a different muscle entirely. Pretty simple, implied story moment using some broad archetypes. Turn out that when drawing wolves it’s easy to slip into mythological territory.
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Post-Montreal inspiration
I was fortunate enough to attend the Syn Studios “Gathering of Masters” in Montreal. Five days of talks, workshops, and hanging out with like-minded artists from all kinds of backgrounds. It was hugely inspiring to listen to James Gurney, Terryl Whitlach, Samantha Youssef, Raphael Lacoste, and many others. I’ve been home for two days and I can’t stop drawing.
Right now I’m frantically running around drawing everything. Eventually i’ll calm down and start focusing, but for now I’m like a humming bird with a pencil.
There are life drawings, animal drawings, anatomy studies, and even some airplanes (picking a subject I have little to no interest in and trying to lean into it).
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League of Queens
Episode #205 - The League has tracked Maleficent (with Jafar and Trident in hand) to the Godmother’s tomb. Belle has learned to control her transformations, Ariel now wields Excalibur, and Jasmine has finally been freed from her lamp. Can Cinderella lead them to victory before Maleficent acquires the final piece in her plan?
That Disneypocalypse image I made a while ago was fun. In a continued attempt to get back into the swing of doing personal work I thought it would be fun to revisit this idea. A few extra details:
-Cinderella’s armor is glass because practicality is boring.
-Ariel wears a large, purple octopus beak around her neck.
-After being set free, Jasmine turned her lamp into a dagger in the hopes it could kill Jafar.
-Maleficent bears the scars of being stabbed in the chest by an enchanted sword.
Larger version with closeups here: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/kaNyK
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Moonlight
Reveling in my old motifs again.
Full size: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/81P6O
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I got to do some variant covers for Marvel!
Weird World #1
New Avengers #6
Avengers Standoff: Welcome to Pleasant Hill
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For 2 hours my brother and I talked about concept art, character design and techniques. We do that all the time, but this time we had a microphone set up.
