do you have any tips for drawing diablo characters? i swear, the complexity of the armor designs is ridiculous
It's. Not easy to draw them.
References are your friend. Simplification is your best friend.
Actual Malthael: Bullshit. Utter ridiculousness.
You can get away with a lot of simplification if you get the major identifying features Rightish.
Red is extremely simple, but you can still tell who it is.
I am not drawing all those lines, sorry Inarius;
Just gotta get the major shapes down.
Unfortunately, majority of references will be different from each other. Blizzard has consistency issues (I also have consistency issues.)
Imperius has at least three different designs floating around. Inarius...was a big pain in the ass up until recently, and there are still differences in his Cinematic Armor and the stills that bliss has released. But even so, references are your friends. Look for Big Shapes - Imperius's star, Itherael's streamers. Auriel is comprised mostly of v-shapes. Malthael is way too complicated, and you can get away with bullshitting majority of his armor so long as you get The Shoulders and his Hood right.
The biggest trick is figuring out the pauldrons/shoulders and the breastplate. Those tend to be the major identifying features, everything else is actually pretty generic.
Hoods? Malthael's is really pointy, and he and Auriel's both have tassels, but everyone else's is almost the same except for color.
And Imperius has his helm of course - I recommend using his HotS model for reference, it's the easiest to draw and breaks his shape language down really well. Actually, all the angelic HotS models are good reference.
The boots are all pretty similar, except for Tyrael's - his are made of V's. Malthael, Imperius, Inarius, and Itherael all have this similar design that swoops down from the calves to the ankles, and if you can draw it once you can get away with drawing it on all of them.
The differences being; Malthael is hella pointy and silver, Imperius is thicker and rounded, Inarius is a little more complicated (add more lines), and you will never see Itherael's legs anyway, they have a really long skirt.
Similarly, unless they're kicking something or doing the can-can, you're probably not going to see Imperius or Malthael's legs anyway. They also have robes in the way.
And of course, they all have different wing ailerons (which connect around the pauldron) and wing-color/shapes. Malthael and Inarius don't actually have ailerons, but their wings are very distinct. Everyone else's are pretty different.
Another helpful thing to remember; Tyrael came first. He was designed before all the other angels, and was iconic before the other angels even went into concept art. The art dev team designed the rest of the angels with Tyrael as reference. If you can draw him, you can noodle your way into the others from there, and he is the easiest out of the bunch. His armor doesn't interlock nearly as much as Imperius or Malthael. He is Shaped Like A Friend.
