Personal: Monsters Misfits and Serpents

  I promised myself I'd try something a little more alien and out there and for the most part I think I'm on the right track.some of these still have that dinosaur DNA but others (my particular favourites of this being 3, 5 and 9) are more bizarre, more something unknown.

  I believe there is enough character in each of these to tell a story for each one. What they are like to speak with, what their tastes are, maybe even what they consider to be artful or in good taste. I've grown to like turning rough shapes into creatures, a few of these I had a clear picture in mind but others started off quite vague and abstract. 9 I believe was quite random to begin with and some unexpected things came out of 5's outline.

At a pinch, it is possible that all or most of these could exist within the same universe, perhaps under the same banner.

Mosquito Redesign: Early Stages and Legs

  I'be been thinking for a couple of days now about going back and redesigning one of my old projects. Namely the mosquito craft from one of my first year university projects. This design was ambitious, even back then and the video it came with was somewhat popular so I thought why not go back and rebuild the thing with better creative knowledge, problem solving skills etc.?

   One thing I really wanted to try out in the old design was some form of foot. In the original model I believe they were just spikes due to time pressures. With a better grasp of Maya's rigging and component system I feel confident I can do a proper foot as well as better joints. For fun I could design all kinds of bells and whistles: Brake flaps, redesigned landing gear bays, ailerons, a probe bay, maybe even rotary blades in the wings and a segmented design to allow for full-wing tilting and proper VTOL.

   I've mostly been inspired by the ship designs made by Cloud Imperium for Star Citizen. I tried the game out once during a free weekend and was amazed at all the little animated components the one-man ships had whether it was for doors, maintenance hatches, thrusters, airlocks, you'd think they brought in mechanical engineers to work out all the components. I might not go that far, the mosquito in the sequence primarily concerns landing and takeoff but no lie, it would be fun to try and build some sort of open folding mechanism for the front probe or the landing gear.

   I might keep the hydraulic system. It was quite useful for compacting the legs into the body (all six of them) and this time around I could go an extra step, maybe include the tubes for the hydraulic fluid that could be linked to the model via a spline curve.

  I am definitely going to need some kind of control rig to sort out all the moving parts I already have. It would definitely make accessing the components for animation a lot easier, too.

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.

Huabanyouliu: Revising an Old City

As I looked to the future I had a suspicion that I may be looking for a job for a little while, so to keep my skills sharp I went back to an old design, the city I built in my first year with fresh ideas to make it more convincing. Maybe more expansive or more true to something Philip Treacy would design, as while the key buildings are certainly Trracy-like, I feel the rest of the cityscape could do with a more true-to-his-work look.

It's only a blockout so far, but going back to my inspirations I have a few new ideas for the city's layout.

  I went back to my old inspiration, the Zhangjiajie Forest National Park in China where the city was nestled in the pillar-like mountains to look for ideas on layout and construction. Maybe the mountains form part of the city itself. The original city's design involved many platforms, elevated psaces for people to move and interact. The mountains provide a perfect preface for such vertical construction, a foundation as the city reaches out into the air, it's people rooted in the rock but living among the clouds.

  Key structures will be installed, of course - the opera house and some of the platforms will remain as they are symbolic features of the design as it was during my final submission. I might not get to populate it, or expand it as more than an empty city once vibrant, but it's a wonderful exercise to fill empty time.

Zhangjiaje, in particular some rock formations that might work very well in the revised city. (Amusing Planet, 2015)

References

• Amusing Planet, 2015; [Zhangjiaje, in particular some rock formations that might work very well in the revised city]; zhangjiajie; available at https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtoRrCKClHbHehbqdH2JRo_BKEbVicoS9rzqapdDKGSq1vYbmYx-K2pfMtxtllS_LmboW8M3n_bDTWtH-Jnz2F27WFiRrbn3FGEDRBTWDD9kMRYVFcXIhW_k1nx0373FOFZ_byjlJdXBRH/?imgmax=800 (last accessed 13th September 2017)

Major Project: Third Time Is The Charm

  Confident after some initial drawings (below) I tried refining some ideas, going into more outlandish designs that could come from the puffy juvenile form I'm keeping with. I kind of like the amphibian forms - they relate to the swampy environment, they're somewhat bizarre and it's a form that could develop from the pudgy mass Four emerges from its cocoon as. They could also have some translucency to them (something I might need to practice drawing) to add that alien feel. I think I've hit the start of something that I could explore further.

These below were from a previous post today but I'm including them for context. 9-21 were I think when I started getting into my stride with this.

  Additionally, for the base I have taken to examining the original television show Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, which was broadcast in 1967. It's not 1970s but there are possible signs of the trends that would mark the 1970s within the show. It's more mature and serious than it's predecessor Thunderbirds, for one.

Major Project: More Logos More Creature Heads

  I got drawing more logos but I feel like I'm honing in on an idea. I was drawn to the W-X combinations like 29 and 37, but also the iconography of 25. I think I can make the W-X combo distinct. I tried playing around with alternatives all the while thinking of how other companies manage it. While the common theme is it's simple and straightforward, designs themselves vary wildly from monograms (Volkswagon,Uber, Virgin, AOL, First Great Western) to iconic (Monsanto, Lloyd's, Birdseye) to abstract (Amtrak,, Ubisoft, Legendary Pictures, Mercedes-Benz). Abstract icons are interesting as there is imagery in their logos. Maybe Smithston-Wessex could simply be something like "Wessex Frontiers" or "Wessex Frontier Interests".

  As suggested by Phil, I spent the afternoon watching Splice. I thought it was going ot be a standard Alien-esque haunted house film due to the marketing angle (the back of the jewel case for instance has such lines as "an uncontrollable mistake that's about to break loose and rip their world apart into tiny pieces"). But it wasn't, and chimed with my story much more closely than I expected. I might have taken inspiration as the creature in it started off quite alien, but over the course of the film developed into something much more human. Its almost a shame the creature developed the way it did as earlier instances such as its baby phase and the first creatures shown - the latter of which were practically blobby translucent slugs - were much more bizarre. But I can understand why it developed the way that it did, as the story had tones that related to parenthood and growing up.

  The themes were there, and I find myself likely to take inspiration away that will help a lot on this project to sell a convincing creature design.

Major Project: Initial Creature Design

  Today was my first minor project tutorial and the general gist was that while the script is getting there, it is coming up time to consider my world and my creature. While I had some early sketches, there was an issue that they all had some regality to them. Which is the opposite kind of response to the creature that I am after, as it is supposed to be only the scientist that admires it.

 Extending from the larval form, I looked into creatures like the Tardigrade or water bear. One of a number of micro-animals; creatures so small they can only be seen with a powerful microscope but this is to their benefit - they look incredibly alien and grotesque. As along with standard insect elements, the bodies of these creatures often feature large prominent hairs. The use of micro-animals also allows me to better explore any development of the grub phase as the grub elements can echo in the juvenile phase. I might be able to assemble a creature using bits of various micro-creatures, as they tend to be quite compact.