I’ve been a fan of the Tarzan story since Christopher Lamberts depiction of him in the 1984 film Greystoke: The legend of Tarzan, lord of the apes.
I distinctly remember watching one scene as a kid where Tarzan is just chilling with the apes like they were nothing to be afraid of. And I remember thinking ‘who is this guy, and why aren’t the apes tearing the crap out of him right now’.
As the story unfolded I came to understand who he was and how the Apes raised him to eventually become the head Ape in charge.
Being a kid with chronic Asthma I idolised anyone who exuded strength and fitness and Tarzan, with his agility and jungle prowess was definitely a character I admired.
Fast forward to the 90’s and Disney releases their version of Tarzan and it became one of my favourite animated films at that time. The way those animators captured Tarzan’s movement was so sublime I would replay those montages just to admire the amazing work of those artists to bring Tarzan to life.
So with that being said and with the release of the Tarzan reboot, I thought this would be a good opportunity to capture one of my all time favourite fictional characters in my Legend of Tarzan caricature.
From Sketch to Completion
Step 1 – Rough Sketch
For my initial idea I wanted to find a balance between showing off Tarzans agility while also capturing some sort of narrative with Jane. I also wanted to honour Disney version of Tarzan and find a happy medium between their depiction, and the depiction of the latest Tarzan – this will be a fun challenge.
After a couple of failed roughs and average ideas I ended up sketching an image of Tarzan swinging through the jungle with Jane.
I wanted to over-exaggerate the perspective as well as their heads just to give it more of a caricature feel to it.
Step 2 – Sketch Cleanup
During the cleanup I decided to reduce their big caricature heads down to a relatively normal size because after doing the cleanup it just didn’t look like it worked that well.
I also adjusted Janes pose to capture her movement through the air a lot better. To be honest I don’t know what I was thinking in the initial sketch for her pose, but it looked more like trapeze act than anything else.
As you can also see from the initial sketch, I moved Tarzans feet off the canvas, only because I couldn’t find a way to fit Jane in properly without doing so. But after doing it I realised it was the right choice to make because Tarzans head sits more in line with the rule of thirds, and his gaze helps to move the eye down towards Jane, which helps the piece to work better overall.
Also when I was looking at Alexander Skarsgårds Tarzan for reference I couldn’t help but notice this guys super six pack, so I decided to use that and give my Tarzan an 8 pack!
Step 3 – Inking the Characters
Inking is pretty difficult for me to do. I don’t know if its because of the tablet i’m working on, or it’s the settings in the software, but whatever it is I just find myself having to redo ink lines over and over again because I just can’t get it right.
Fortunately with this piece the inking was not such an ordeal and I was able to hit the right curves, weights and details.
During this step I ended up adjusting the curve of the vine because I didn’t like the way it was trailing the eye to go down and off the page. So I curve it towards Jane to help the eye move towards Jane. It also helped to sell the movement more and unifies them moving together.
Step 4 – Inking the Background
Although I had initially intended to create a really extreme perspective on this piece I ended up going with a moderately low horizon line instead, which changed the piece from being a ‘Tarzan saves Jane’ piece into more of a calmer, lazy afternoon, let’s go swinging in the jungle piece.
I wanted to break up the jungle to make it a bit more interesting so I added in a winding river to give the landscape a bit more variety.
I also kept the overall details fairly simple to keep the focus on the characters.
Step 5 – Adding Character Flat Colours
Not much going on here but this stage is fairly important, if I get the saturation and hue wrong here I usually end up chasing my tail for the rest of the piece to fix it up. Fortunately I wasn’t going crazy with the colours so it made the job alot easier.
I had also already made my mind up from the beginning that this piece would be backlit during sunset, because it’s fun to do and by putting the sun in between Tarzan and Jane it will help to pull the focus in that area even more.
Step 6 – Adding Background Flat Colours
Oh yeah now we’re talking! I had initially intended to go with a cooler blue-magenta colour scheme but after some playing around going with a warmer scheme just looked better and way more appropriate being that it was in the jungle in all. You gotta feel that heat!
Usually I would add a gradient in the sky but I thought i’d experiment a bit and just do flats instead with the intention of blending it in the final stage. Doing it this way allows me to have more control over the different areas of the piece so I can easily change them as required. I liked what I discovered here so i’ll probs stick with it until I find a better process.
Step 7 – Lighting and Shading
Maybe I over did it with the rim lighting but i’ll be damned if it don’t look good!
Good to see the overall art and design choices still holding up as well. That sunset is gonna look dope once this is all done I can tell. The lighting scheme looks solid right now, let’s keep this going.
Step 8 – Blending and Details
Getting to this stage was fairly simple because of the solid foundation built from the previous stages. It felt really good to just have to worry about blending and detailing, because there were no mistakes to resolve, which is the absolute worst thing to encounter during the final stages of a piece.
I was really happy with my decision to start the sky with flats so I could blend it later. By doing so it allowed me to create a more interesting sky.
As I was adding the rim lighting I decided to keep it predominantly on the left side of the piece as well. I could have easily blown it out here, and maybe I already did but I think this decision was a good one.
Step 9 – Colour Correction and Finalizing
Aaaand here it is!
The colour correction really helped at this stage to unify the temperature of the whole piece without completely blowing out my cool colours in the foreground.
Adding the yellow gradient to express a radiating sun really helped to bring warmth to the piece, and to bring the focal point right to Tarzans gaze over Jane.
Tarzans all like ‘Don’t worry babe I got you’ and Jane is all like ‘I just lost my shoe but oh those muscles’.
Overall i’m pretty stoked how this piece turned out and even though it isn’t technically a caricature piece, it’s something that I not only enjoyed creating but also enjoy that it held up to my initial idea, which was to combine the worlds of Disneys Tarzan and the new recently released live action Tarzan.
Anyways that’s it from me, I hope you enjoy the piece as much as I did creating it.
