WIP: Concept art for Human Warrior

In recent weeks I've taken an interest back in drawing with Photoshop. It's been useful for generating ideas for character modelling practice which I have been keen to develop. To get a better idea of how to put my ideas across I've been studying sketch-style concept pieces, trying to work out just how to get a more convincing design and image, especially when it comes to the face.

The left-hand face below is when I started earlier today. Rather dissatisfied with how flat it looked. I looked online to get some inspiration, coming across a rather nice sketchy look. Using this painting as a basis I took a very different approach to create what would become the face on the right-hand side. It started with just the face, blocking out large patches of shadow and filling in the gaps with detail such as eyes, mouth and wrinkles. I thought it came out so well I tried the technique on the hair and headband, resulting in a very different hairstyle (and face) when you compare the two side by side.

It's been surprising to figure our the difference comes from one afternoon of analysis.

There is still plenty to work on with the image. His lower body has only been blocked out. His sword-hand and the attached hilt are somewhat completed and his cloak only has some basic blocking to it. After that comes colour.

Back to Basics with Digital Drawing

  I've been going back to basics lately with my drawing skills. I've had a nagging feeling for honestly quite a while that my colour depth palette has been rather muddy. I've noticed I get lost in getting the shade just right at the expense of how clear the composition is. So, back to basics; getting familiar with the essentials of blocking colour first before moving on to tackling light and shadow.

  After all, many projects are 20% crunch, 80% cruft. You want to get that 20% foundation right or the whole thing just doesn't work.

  This new approach I feel has also given me a chance to back away from relying on dark lines to delineate shape. The pictures I have been drawing lately have been moderately popular on Reddit which is good for exposure. I'm getting plenty of feedback and starting plenty of conversations about what I've been working on. It could be some time before I'm back to full-shade digital painting like I've been doing before: I'm taking this one step at a time, so when I am ready to start adding shade again I am definitely ready.

  Moving away from the same old character subject, I've experimented with map design using Adobe Illustrator. I've found it and PDFs amazing for condensing enormous images into something I can easily send to clients. When I tried buildign something like this on Photoshop, it would slow my computer down as the images, plus layers, might be over a gigabyte in size. Which my computer did not like.

  But it was mostly fun to try map-making, which I have found to be an amazing way to build a setting as they say you can tell a lot about a place by reading into how the local inhabitants drew their maps.

Badge and Emblam Ideas

  As the new year approaces, I have lately been pondering writing. It was one of my strengths at university and before and I've been really getting into writing regularly over the summer. Although I didn't quite live up to my "nulla dies sine linea" goal ("not a day without a line"), I appear to have taken a new motto: "not a day without a word."

 To accompany a possible publication (which is in a state of revision for final publication) I picked up a stylus and powered up Photoshop to do some drawing as I like to combine words and images. In this case the goal was a logo for an airborne military division that is the centrepoint of the story.

  I decided on something more elaborate to separate from more tried designs and try something distinct, the central idea being the wearers of this symbol, these badges, are heroic fighters who fall from the sky and turn the tide. "decisive" "falling" "speed" and "celebrated" were key words that rang though my head over and over while I was designing the emblam. The initial ideas for the design (above) just didn't feel right for the society portrayed in the story, so I moved away from sci-fi and looked at paratrooper badges for inspiration.

What I have may change over time as who knows what could come from this.

  I might go back for some character drawing as the t-shirt sales plan came back. Although thinking about it, this emblam could look nice on the front of one. Maybe accompanied with a phrase from the book "strike hard, strike fast, seize victory." (might revise this)

This could be why I've been quiet for a month.

Major Project: Four Solid Concept

  Looking to catch up after a couple of slow days I set myself the task of drawing up a final concept piece for Four herself. In hindsight I could have drawn her at different angles but the addition of a few expression poses (1-7) I figure help a lot as I considered she could communicate her mood using her fins, much in the same way dogs, cats, rabbits and horses will direct their ears to indicate attention or mood. A little flexibility could be useful in these instances as they'd allow for a much more living performance when on the screen. All that remains are understanding the colour of her fins (as the colour pattern, while attractive is mostly a placeholder) but more importantly I need orthographic drawings. The colour and pattern of her fins can come in-between modeling. Especially since by January my aim is to have a fully developed set. for filmmaking

  Regarding which, I now have my three primary voices. They still need a little processing so they will come in a later post.

Major Project: Developing Ceti 821

  I've been nursing a minor cold lately which I believe has slowed me down a little. When I got around to work, my focus was on the base, now that Four has come along quite nicely. I looked back on the various themes I had collected, the main thing I wanted to take away when designign the three primary rooms was that each one had to feel distinct. Each room required its own atmosphere, its own feel. The biolab (2) and office (4) are empty mainly because I wanted to pace myself and not get bogged down in the detail.

  I also want each room to feel part of a greater whole: Sterile and mechanical for the biolab, comfortable and oozing importance for the adminsitrator's office, and familiar for David's room (I realised today and yesterday that as a senior scientist, David's quarters on the station would be more luxurious than the small "bed and a desk" rooms I was drawing initially. Given David's personality however, at least at the animation's beginning it would still be quite a stark and aescetic home. There would be little clutter with everything organised, which would become less so as the story moves on.

  To help understand what I need to build, I looked into creating an inventory list. Most of it is small props; pens, mugs, sheets of paper with some larger props like chairs and tables.

Biolab

• Test tubes
• Computers
• X-ray photographs
• MRI photographs
• Centrifuge
• Pens
• Experiment reports
• Computers
• Stools
• Tables
• Coffee mugs 

Dormitory

• Desk 
• Table
• Computer terminal
• Phone
• Pens
• Rug?
• Coffee mug
• Photograph

Office

• Executive desk
• Executive chair
• Office chairs
• Pens
• Computer terminals
• Rug
• Computer banks?
• Financial reports
• Mug?

Major Project: Outpost Concept Ideas

  Along with a script and looking for voice-over actors, I've been looking at possible designs for the base in which the story will be set. I looked at various science fiction shows of the 1960s and 1970s for inspiration, taking ideas from various themes from this artistic period from productions such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Space 1999 and Frank Herbert's Dune.

  While inspired by moonbase designs of the 1970s, I am tempted to move away from the design of Moonbase Alpha. Although its design is quite ubiquitous which might make things tricky. There have been moon-base designs that feature a donut ring around a central core, much like the station in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Other moonbase ideas involve tunnels and prefabricated structures. Though a permanent construction makes the whole thing feel established as David mentioned he's been on the project for five years. I have considered that later in the story David will become less of a neat-freak, his workstation and dormitory will be progressively overcome with clutter.

Sketchbook: Plotting a Course for Year Three

  With the hot late-July Summers hitting the country I had the chance to explore and head out into the sun. During a trip into London I got back into sketching, The drawings on the left-hand side of the above image were life-drawing attempts on a miniature of a fountain commissioned sometime in the 18th century. The drawings on the right of the top picture were partially inspired by the kind of outfits that became popular at that point in time, a time when English dress (termed Côte Anglaise) was very popular on the continent.

  Later on I thought about refreshing my character design skills, building an understanding of humanoid forms that are not strictly human-like in proportion. The structural sketches, done today, were based on how I felt after last Friday's art-stream session. I tried a hand at map-making, as over the past two years I have found I like an analytical approach to designing something be it a character or a world. And city maps can demonstrate a location's character (I had the good fortune to talk about this in detail on the stream), something I may try developing further in my third-year project.

  However as the half-finished nature of both suggests, I lost steam during the broadcast. Whether or not I will work on them again will be something to decide, but the lack of momentum I felt has made me inclined towards finishing the Minotaur painting half-made on the stream before this one.

(Yes, sketch 14 is an attempt at Totoro. I am quite fascinated with Studio Ghibli's works)

Stream Saturday 02/07/2016: Horror Creature Design

  It's time I started considering what I'm going to do for my third year of university. With that in mind I decided to dive back a little into creature design. Originally I wanted this thing to have an angler-fish-like head, something reminiscent of Colo Colo. But as the stream progressed the monster became a little more bat-like in form.

  A secondary reason for this piece is to practice on some dynamic lighting as well as refresh my memory on bounced light. There are three point lights in this scene, each illuminating the creature from a different direction. Although on reflection maybe the light shining off the creature's rear-end is a little too spread out. Or it might not be, his hip looks quite close to the light.

As usual, I created an accompanying time-lapse of its construction. The thing I kept thinking while working was that the more I work on the layers, the better it will turn out.

Adaptation B: Environment Idea

  With the creature itself some way done I thought that one of the crucial things I needed was an environment to put it in. A creature needs a home to interact with, after all; a place where its existence makes sense. Nothing too fancy, and inspired by the slums of South America I looked into creating somewhere grimy, perhaps already influenced by Colo Colo's presence. Or perhaps simply an unfortunate circumstance regarding the accommodation itself.

  To get the right colour for the might-time scene I started by creating the location as it would look in the daytime, then adding an intense blue filter over the top. The daytime scene helps show some of the grime. More could be added to the scene, I admit as these places from my research appeared quite small, there would not be much for the person living here. Colo Colo itself will likely be hiding in the dark places during the day, perhaps under the wardrobe or in a hole in the wall out of shot.

Adaptation B: Colo Colo Concept

  Two thinks occupied my time today: the interim crit presentation and any assets that will be useful in it. So my afternoon was spent creating a more refined concept image of the creature, settling o na crest design and a colour scheme. I considered the above scheme because it resembles pallid skin, while with the darkened legs I tried to go for a colour resembling a blood-deprived (but still living) extremity. One of the key ideas for how the creature would be represented is by introducing it via its eyes. So a strong, intense pair of eyes felt essential.

  Another key feature that maybe doesn't come across so well is an attempt at a sickly skin look, inspired by images of bald rats (though I found a big difference between a bald rat and a naked mole rat). The pale colour and reddish tinges could help it fit but stand out in an earthy-colour environment. I have considered that much of the demonstration will take place during the night inside a shack located in a South American slum.

Adapation B: More Concept Thumbnails

   Today I decided to get some concept work done and looked at fleshing up Colo Colo. Putting bodies over the skeletons I had drawn up. This also gave me room for experimentation with Colo Colo's form. Presently I am leaning towards 7 and 19, which for me feel more characterful. A peculiar outcome as these two were drawn with framework ,rather than full skeletons. 

  The tablet driver was playing up a little so I went to do some sketching. I decided to look at hands and feet, interested in somehow melding the anatomies of rat paws and chicken feet. But I also was curious to know what their paws actually looked like.

  When I did get around to some concept art for the hands and feet I realised something - Colo Colo is vampiric, It stinks the house it dwells in with the smell of rotting flesh, this thing is of the undead. So a healthy colour would look wring. In a previous level-three course I recall seeing some birds brought in, encased in glass, one of which was unfortunately suffering a little decay on its legs, which had turned slightly greenish. So maybe some discolouration would sell this thing as a disturbing, undead creature of the night. My preferences for the colouration are 24, 26, 33 and possibly 27.

Art Stream: Cityscape Concept

  The product of a three-hour stream. If anything this was an attempt to get my mind back into actual digital painting since aside from the concept art for Legends of the New Year, I hadn't picked up a stylus for Photoshop for anything more than silhouettes.

I suppose the buildings at the bottom could have a lot more done to them. There are still a number of rough edges and I might need to look a little into building layouts next time in order to make something a little more organised.

Character: Village Painting And Sketchbook Progress

  I worked on the vilalge environment today. Due to the mythology of Nian's attack happening at night, I decided ot creat a night-time scene. Some elements were not fully realised and perhaps the mountains at the back came out better than the ground at the front or the roofing. But a concept image is meant to portray the environment to give an idea to production artists. So to an extent, I don't think this looks too bad.

  As well as some concept art I also managed to photograph what I had been working in my sketchbook recently. The quality of the photos could be better however. But I think I am slowly gettign the hang of drawing faces but I think I still have a long way to go.

Narrative Project: Pufferfish Ideas

I decided today to do some concept art for the narrative project's pufferfish protagonist. As far as is known to science the only known species of puffer that makes the patterns in the sand that so inspired us is Torquiguener albomaculosus, more commonly known as the Japanese white-spotted puffer.

     Although I have not entirely nailed down a specific design, I decided to make a pattern contact sheet. Even if this is not the form that sticks, I hope these designs can remain transferable. I looked into making something distinct and perhaps show our fish might be creative in some way. But because of the inspiration I also looked into making something that could be described as cute. So I'm not entirely satisfied with designs 1 2 and 3 on the upper panel.

Personal Work: Planetary Colonies 2 of 3

Final Composition

     Encouraged by various art videos I was encouraged to continue with my planetary colony art collection. The second planet in the chain is the third planet in the system. In start contrast to the calmness of Akonoinen II, III was a volcanic planet, with an extremely active system of volcanoes that constantly spewed out lava that made lakes and some bodies were large enough to be seas.

    It is generally ill-advised to trek on the planet's surface without some form of environmental protection. So the structures were designed to look highly resilient to the planet's caustic atmosphere, but evoking a similar architectural style to the buildings found on II due to a shared colonial heritage. The planet uses the vast quantities of heavy metals and electrically conductive compounds to produce a wide variety of consumer electronics. But unlike planet II the site is hardly desirable for a high-teh firm to set up. So while II has a healthy service industry, much of III's high tech industry is making the electronic goods widely used and sold on II as well as exported throughout the solar system and beyond.

Stage 1: Lines and basic colours

The city's first design felt a little too tall. Chances are that each structure is in and of itself a city block to protect the populations inside from the environment. So after some thought and looking back on sketches I had done went for more of a look that reflected the aesthetic style of the colony on II.

Stage 2: basic toning

I used photoreferencing of real-life lava lakes for the look of the lava lake. And the whole environment I tinted orange to reflect the amount of illumination from lava lakes and rivers. To get a smooth look on the colours for the buildings I used the polygon select tool to draw out these areas and fill them in with a paintbrush. I think I'm getting better though at giving depth.or sharpness to structures or objects in focus.

Stage 3: detail touches

Stage 4: Additional finishes

Personal Work: Planetary Colonies 1 of 3

    Over the summer I have been taking interest in the video game EVE Online. Prior to the course I had explored the game's planetary interaction system, setting up production chains in order to make products that are to be exported off-world. At some point I decided it could be an interesting painting challenge to represent three planets I had colonised in my time playing, as the game's representation is from a view in orbit .

The first I have painted is the central hub of the network, Akonoinen II. Ingame the planet has a high-tech industrial foundation, producing supercomputers from coolant and consumer electronics imported from the other two planets and locally-produced water-cooled electronics. So I imagined the city that surrounds the spaceport would be fairly wealthy. Part of my inspiration was from the BASF chemical plant located on the river Rhine which is easily the size of a city. Since the setting of EVE online is of a medium-sized star cluster with hundreds of populated planets, I easily imagined each of the construct-able industrial complexes matching the BASF plant in scale.

    Being the most hospitable of the three planets (the other two being a Mustafar-like lava world and a planet that experiences frequent continent-scale thunderstorms) and where the most advanced products in the chain are made, I wanted to give the impression of the settlement being fairly wealthy compared to its counterparts. Offices and shops would have developed to provide services to the workforce and visiting off-world tourists and immigrants.

    This is the initial city design but I felt it was too like my old style to feel like an improvement, hence why I reworked it in the picture above. It was also missing the central spaceport and the architecture itself felt too plain to demonstrate the colony's purpose.

Personal Work: Human Forms Practice

    Decided to take a break from drawing dragons but considering the nature, probably shouldn't do too many of this nature. This piece is still very much a work-in-progress and an attempt at refining my ability to paint humans and especially my ability to create humans who don't wear skintight outfits. The soldier on the left was created by use of a colour layer over a values layer while the man on the right isn't as complex, consisting of flat colours with shaded colours painted on top.

Personal: Design Practice

More practice drawing and brainstorming with design ideas. I think I prefer the secondone for its less conventional features. I also wanted to have a go at drawing distant buildings, landscapes and sky, as well as practicing with a few brushes such as pointed ends, but clouds in particular as I have returned to working on Infiltrate Exploit Spread. I want the clouds for the first scenes to look their best so I used these concepts to sneak a little cloud-painting practice in.

1

2

Mosquito Development: Legs

The body itself is still due for some tweaking, so this look is not set in stone.

    Following though with my thumbnails I looked at designs for the legs. I want them retractable so that the mosquito's profile in-flight is kept minimal, and they would fold out as the creature lands. One idea I have is that the feet are folded up and open out to hope plant the mosquito into the surface it lands on. I also tried experimenting with deployment distances. My current thought is that no. 4 seems the best balance. Again, in actuality the mosquito's knees rise high above the torso but If I want to include this design it will mean I also need to consider retractable wings.

Actual mosquitoes have hairy feet which resemble a segmented toe, but I thought this was too far from the machine look, and at a distance most insects appear to have very tiny feet anyway. No. 6 I am considering indicating prongs on the underside. These particular feet however best fit my idea of folding-up feet and were based on a thumbnail back in the first week that I had considered using on the merozoite model.

Mosquito Concept Sheet: Version 2

    One of the pieces of feedback I got was to make my mosquito more insect-like appearance as well a removal of the wheels. Instead I plan on insect-like legs which will extend out from the sides. One thing I am trying hard to balance is the shape of the head as I want to keep it aerodynamic and jet-like but I also don't want it to look too much like a bird's head.