Since I got back from my christmas holiday and ready for our next assignment, I was excited to illustrate a book and chose one of my favourites, Dune as it was one of the main influence of becoming an illustrator of science fiction and fantasy. I enjoyed creating the characters as they were fun to design and how they would look in my version to separate from the book made many doodles of them. Another would be setting up the ideas of the scene for the story, only manage to do about 11 including the cover. Had I focused more on the project if we didn't have visual records I would've done more bu just enough for a good grade I believe. My skills have developed over the months and did more on the lines so they would not look more flat in the later illustrations I've worked on for the book.
Black and white version
I want the cover to have a dramatic theme with a character (obviuosly Paul Atreides) walking up the sand dune with faint light pouring through the clouds as though it was a dark day or a sand storm but slowly fading as though light was breaking through to represent some hope to the enslaved Freman of Arrakis. This has been a great improvement of my skills and how the colours and tone have been made from dark and light areas, making sure there is some balance in this. The Title I think works ok and thought of giving it an outer glow, but took a thought of it and would look out of place.
Here are the rest that I have completed and explain what is happening in each of them.
This would be the spar between the young Paul and he veteran soldier Gurney with their daggers to outmatch each other. Wanting it to look random but more as though they were actually fighting so I wanted to make a unique position for the two with Gurney crouching down and Paul with his dagger pointing the opposite to launch a surprise attack. Fighting would normally come by instincts rather then thinking of how to strike their opponents so I thought Paul would make a desperate move to surprise his teacher.
Two Sardaukar troops along with the paralyzed Duke Leto Atreides on the ground, like the rest I wanted my characters to be more distant from the traditional uniforms and outfits from Earth cultures and wear some armor and weapons. One points to the duke for the other to pick him up to deliver to the Baron after the invasion on Dune. In the books they wore grey uniforms and had long hair and served as the key element to the Imperium.
Thought of making many unique and alien looking plants with Jessica in the middle and observing the beautiful flowers.
After Paul and his mother manage to escape with their lives and manage to avoid becoming worm food. They encounter the Fremen and later Jessica would meet the Sayyadina (meaning "friend of God" in Chakobsa from the book) a lower ranking priestess who have not yet passed o become Reverend Mothers.
On this pic above, two fremen would show a sign of a conflict going on with their weapons held and one of them fired their weapon. Would make sense to launch an attack on their suppressors, the Harkonnens in a storm to provide more cover and ambush like the one on top crouching on the sand to take. Giving them an organic-look on the armor as I figured metal would be very difficult to find and produce in such a harsh environment, unless maybe they scavenged some from any debris of ships from the past when mining for spice.
This one would be based on my favourite part of Dune when the warms are used by the Fremen as mounts to attack the Imperium in the Arakeen palace. Its mostly common for them to ride the Worms as part of their cultures and worship them. Worked on the sand in the same way I did for the cover to have different shades of brown, depends on the direction of the sun would be and make it more like an actual desert with lots of dunes. Wanting the worms to burst out of the sand in great leaps like it was an ocean to them.
Here in the final illustration would be the battle to the death between Paul, now called Muad'Dib against the last Harkonnen heir and current Baron, Feyd-Ruatha in the end of the war for Dune and he long feudal war between the two great houses. Taken advice from professional artists to make a battle less flat and more 3D, doing some practice of some sketches and took this one with Paul charging in and Feyd-Ruatha ready for him with a sneer on his face, like he was taunting him to attack. Made Paul's skin more tan as over time he would develop a change while becoming more native to the desert planet and kept his long hair but still in a similar style so the long hair would not get in the way of his face. Although I might have made his arm too long by the look of the position, something I will take note in the future when I do more action poses.
