Dark purple was my only choice for the Dark Knight’s color scheme. At first I thought I was going to make the armor more leathery, but after living with a few sketches I decided to go all out and create a true fantasy type armor set. What is a fantasy story without a nod to dragons?

This was the only piece that I textured the background first and then pulled out the figure from the colors. I did that because I knew I was going to have this stained glass broken and wanted the background to be a little chaotic. I don’t normally work like that but it was the best treatment for the concept of this one, so I learned. I’ve included the first stages of watercoloring this piece to better understand how it began.

There are more videos about the process of this and other Three Lives pieces here.

Below is color information copy and pasted from a color theory site to explain why I chose this color theme for the Dark Knight (though it’s an important color for the entire series and all except Ermingild use purples).

Dark Purple

Dark purple hues evoke feelings of gloom, sadness, and frustration. Too much purple brings out qualities of irritability, impatience, and arrogance.

Red

Can mean strength, leadership, courage, vigor, willpower, rage, anger, danger, malice, wrath, stress, action, vibrance, radiance, and determination.

Blue

Represents meanings of depth, trust, loyalty, sincerity, wisdom, confidence, stability, faith, heaven, and intelligence.

Background

Since this a single image in a series of five, I wanted to make stylistic backgrounds that had a clear uniformity to them, while still offering an option of character customization. I’ve always loved stained glass and decided it would be a fitting frame.