FURTHER READING FOR IDEAS

          Ok, so I thought I'd have no work to do over Christmas besides the further reading for other modules. As it turns out, I have some homework to do over the Christmas holidays - further reading. 

     My tutor has given me a selection of books to choose from. The one I choose, I must read in its entirety. Whilst making notes and posting them on my blog, my tutor will look at my notes and make a decision for after the holiday - what we should design and draw from the book we have chosen. 

     So, be expecting a few more posts from me covering my initial ideas and notes. Before I even choose the book, I'm going to ensure that every 3 chapters I read, I will post a 3 chapter overview  and review of ideas and notes - nothing to lengthy though, just so I can reference it in the coming weeks.

NEXT POST: THE CHOSEN BOOK

ASSIGNMENT 1: FIVE PIECE PORTFOLIO

        So far, I had learned the proportions of every part of the human body, practised perspectives, practised drawing the individual characteristics and clothing, learned how colour can be used to texture and light a piece of work, learned how line theory can be effective and how finally, shapes and silhouettes can be used to create a great character design. Through all of this, I was set the task of developing and handing in a five piece portfolio. To me, this means a chance to showcase everything I have learned so far and eventually, get marked on my work this semester (hopefully a first).

   My intention was to take all that I had done (besides the terrible onion), polish out the imperfections and present it as professionally as I could. The five pieces (that I completed in 1 day including the villain design by the way) are below.

          Well that's the first semester all done. All I have to do is hand this in an enjoy Christmas with a bit of further reading for other modules. However, I will be posting throughout the holidays if I read something in Edge magazine or on Gamasutra.com that is relevant to this blog. 

Oh, and feel free to comment. I would really appreciate it! Thanks!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

NEXT POST: FURTHER READING FOR IDEAS

TASK 6: HERO AND VILLAIN (HAND-IN)

          Designing a hero and villain was by far the most enjoyable of all the tasks set so far. Not only did I have to come up with a design for a hero and villain, but I also had to write a back story for the chosen design. Story telling is something I want to do and although not a brilliant story in the end, I enjoyed writing it and it justified the chosen design's design aspects. 

    The idea in mind was "Ying and Yang". That the hero and villain, regardless of which I would eventually choose, would contrast and relate to each other within the same fictional universe. I eventually chose to develop the villain, unfortunately both original paper based ideas are gone because stupidly, I forgot I needed to write a post on this task. The villain named "Revenant" is below.

    Considering I lost the original designs, I feel I need to describe the concept for the hero as well as the villain. The idea was that the villain represents the bully and the hero represented the bullied. In designing both of these, I went into it ensuring that every design aspect has meaning and symbolism.

THE HERO: A bullied person often keeps themselves to themselves and only acts like their true selves when alone. With this in mind, the hero would of lived alone completely isolated facing their own inner troubles. However, everyday a bullied person finds themselves in a social situation, only in a paranoid and alert state of mind - they could be emotionally attacked at any moment. Their defence? Pretending to be who they are not, conforming with their surroundings, getting them through a potentially horrible day. Thus, the hero's power would not be set in stone. Everyday the hero would unwillingly adopt a new power that benefits them in that situation and adopt a new look that hides his real identity - his 'true' self. The backlash of this is that he just wants to be normal and and in wanting such, faces an identity crisis, never being able to socially interact in the fear of changing.

THE VILLAIN: The bully is know to traumatise those weak around him/ her. Even the slight presence around somebody could intimidate someone and therefore weaken them mentally,  sometimes physically as a result of nerves. Therefore, the Revenant's power was literally his presence. Just standing in his vicinity would weaken you. However, bullies are often said to only bully others to hide their own weaknesses. Therefore, his physical appearance is a literal representation of that - his entire human identity is hidden by this intimidating shell of himself. His weakness? Having that shell destroyed, revealing his 'true self'. Under that shell, is a scared and troubled person, that is left powerless to their own pain.

    What is ironic is that although both are a direct contrast of each other, they both have one problem, themselves. They struggle to deal with who they are and what they have become, so they use the one power they have, to adapt to survive. I really like this idea and will definitely develop it in the coming years. As for the villain, it's easiest to just show you the back story to explain his physical appearance and powers.

          Something I must note is that there is a clear presentation difference between this task and the previous tasks. This is because by this point, I had been notified by my tutor that the first assignment had been set - to deliver a five piece portfolio. Because of this, I developed this to be part of the portfolio and am proud of it. This, along with four other pieces (improved versions of my previous work), where being developed at the same time. The next post will cover these five pieces.

NEXT POST: ASSIGNMENT 1 - FIVE PIECE PORTFOLIO (HAND-IN)

TASK 5: CLAY MODEL (HAND-IN)

         With the task of designing and developing a character out of clay, I had to find some inspiration  My tutor said if we really wanted, we could choose an aspect of a character or a character itself to base the model on. I initially went to my favourite game franchise, Resident Evil. I chose the most interesting character I could find, the Nemesis. The image that inspired me was the one below.

    I 'thought' it would test my skills and give me a higher understanding of 3D shape considering it's complexity and iconic facial features. However, my tutor thought it was "a bit boring" considering it has been modelled a thousand times before. It's a fair statement and regardless of my wish to model the Nemesis, to my own regret, I  scrapped the idea and used inspiration from it instead. Going for the comical route yet again, I designed an onion... for some strange reason. The back story will be detailed after I show you the development of the model I handed in not days ago.

STAGE ONE: I started building the basic shape of the model with two shaped balls of tinfoil connected together by a piece of modelling wire. Once down I flattened on a sheet of clay and moulded it around the base of the mouth.

STAGE TWO: Here I added the top layer of clay and added in the cheeks to stitch both parts together. After doing this, I filled in the mouth to hide as much of the tin-foil as possible, followed by marking out the positions of the eyes and the stitches. As you can see, I also tried to model the lips on basic level. At this point, modelling the mouth out of the same piece of clay was the tactic. It eventually proved impossible when attempting to stick the teeth on the inside of the mouth. So I decided to rethink to strategy.

STAGE 3: Pretty much complete by this point, the model had taken full form. I had added the mouth, the teeth, the eyes, the stitches and the hair of the onion (or whatever you call it). With the mouth proving so difficult in the previous stage and the teeth posing an issue, I decided to rethink the strategy. I filled in the entire cavity of the mouth with clay so that sticking the teeth on (all made up of one piece of clay) would be much easier - I would stick them on the clay in the mouth cavity rather than the roof of the mouth, which proved unstable. The lips where then added as one tube of clay rolled out and then smoothed to the face. The eye was made in a similar fashion and the stitches also - with separate pieces of clay layered upon each other. Finally the hair of the onion was added, which I will admit it dreadful - I suppose it's trial and error.

STAGE FOUR: Now that the model had been completed, I needed to bake it. It sounds like a such a simple job, but I managed to burn my onion (like most food I attempt to cook). Anyway, my onion now had a nice tan, but I had to paint it.

STAGE FIVE: Once the model had cooled, I gave it three coats of white paint. Rather than brushing the paint on, I dabbed it on. This was to ensure the final piece would look rough rather than smooth, hopefully highlighting its wild, organic nature and its evil tendencies. Because obviously, all onions are evil.

STAGE SIX: Considering the body of the onion was the most evident part, I decided to paint that first. Using a mixture of orange, two shades of brown and white, I mixed three shades of this golden colour that I layered - just like I would in any digital piece. I like the final outcome. It gave it the rough, organic texture I aimed to create.

STAGE SEVEN: Finally I used the same techniques for painting the teeth, the eyes, the stitches and the onion hair. However, with great disappointment, they are laughably awful and what I believe to be, a ruined model. 

    If I had the chance I would repaint it or even completely redesign and redevelop to model. Maybe I will one day. Anyhow, why did I choose an onion? The idea was comical. This onion is actually a giant building sized onion that was a result of science gone wrong. It was a happy, but lonely onion, until one day, something tried to eat it. After a traumatic surgical process, the onion woke up with one working eye and stitches - starting its revenge quest. Its evil nature spawned, it began to make everyone cry and thus, forced an entire country to bow to its mercy. With thousands of men wearing goggles to prevent tears, they roll the onion to its desired destinations. All whilst avoiding one arch enemy - the giant knife. A homage to Van Helsing, the giant knife constantly hunts the giant onion.

    So there you have it, my yet again, random design that could have turned out alright if the paintwork hadn't of been so terrible.

          My tutor said he liked it so I'll just accept that and forget this onion ever existed. On a more serious note, whilst having three weeks to develop this onion, I did miss a few lectures and workshops as a result of personal matters. In this time, the final task was set - to design and develop a hero and villain, choose my favourite, and then develop it into a completed deliverable. A task that should utilise everything I have learnt as of yet. This is one task I am really looking forward to and the idea of "Ying and Yang" I have chosen as a concept and goal has me excited.

NEXT POST: TASK 6 - HERO AND VILLAIN (HAND-IN)

TASK 4: SILHOUETTE AND SHAPE (HAND-IN)

          From brainstorming few ideas for characters using silhouette and shape, I developed a variety of unique potential characters. From these, I chose two. The two that contrasted each other in an attempt to showcase my own talents and to be honest, to also retain my enjoyment in the work so that the second character was as accomplished as the first. Both characters are below.

    I LOVE the first character. With a base shape of a circle, the character was intended to be cute and amusing. I truly believed I have utilised the base shape well. Along with this I like the fur, the colours and the lighting - it's the design I prefer overall. However, on showing my tutor, he said "I like it, but, it's a bit random". In fact, he showed me how he envisioned the initial silhouette - a small goblin in armour. It made sense to be fair. I didn't get his original statement at first, but now I do. All this time I have been learning how to draw and drawing humans, so naturally, I should design a person using shape. Instead, I got carried away and thus, in terms of the criteria my tutor was personally look for, I did not tick the right boxes. Regardless, I still like the character though - my favourite so far.

    The second character was based off a triangle.  Similar to the Pyramid Head off Silent Hill 2, his entire head uses the triangle as a base shape. But with his tail eventually being made up of separate rectangles, I envision my character to be a villain who can be relied upon - a bounty hunter maybe? Although I don't believe it is my best piece of work, I can understand why most people preferred this character - it's the most interesting. 

         Conclusively, I am overjoyed with the work I produced for this task and will eventually use it for my final portfolio hand in at the end of the semester. However, by the time I handed in these two pieces of character work, I was assigned another task - to design and develop a clay model to increase my understanding on 3D space.

NEXT POST: TASK 5 - CLAY MODEL (HAND-IN)

TASK 4: DEVELOPING SILHOUETTES

         Recently, I was assigned the task of designing and developing two unique characters that incorporate the use of shape and silhouette work. Before I could successfully design these two characters I needed a rich plethora of ideas so that my final two ideas where accomplished ones. Obviously some of the ideas would be terrible, but through that, I could learn from my mistakes and at the very least, have two effective silhouette templates to work from - I needed to brainstorm these ideas, just as you should when designing anything from an essay to a game idea. No more is there proof of this than my initial blind attempts below - a fat teacher and an octopus head with a woolly hat that uses its one seamless tentacle to stick to the ground and roll around... I know... terrible. (I still have a guilty pleasure for the octopus head though).

     After realising these ideas, although amusing, where lazy attempts at shape and silhouette work, I decided to start over and brainstorm before continuing. This brainstorm is below.

     The result of this brainstorm was as expected - a variety of different characters, completely unique to each other, that use a different shape as a bases. Although a couple are less successful than the others (the top right and the bottom right), most of them are realised silhouettes that I could easily work with. From these, I have decided to use the top left and the bottom left silhouettes as they are contrasting of each other in terms of shape and character (the top left uses circle as a bases and the bottom left uses the triangle as a bases). However, eventually I will work on the others as a personal showcase of my, hopefully, increased talents in the future.

     I now need to interpret these two chosen silhouettes in both black and white line drawings and in fully coloured with lighted pieces. Once done, I will have two characters to hand in and full fill the task's criteria.

NEXT POST: TASK 4 - SILHOUETTE AND SHAPE (HAND-IN)

SILHOUETTE AND SHAPE ATTEMPT

          In the most recent lecture, I learned two things - how shape can define a character and two, how using silhouettes can be an effective aid for good character design.

    The first of which was shape. In this 30 minute lecture, I learned how different base shapes (triangles, square, circles etc.) can define a single character because of how as humans perceive shape. For example, a character designed using the triangle as a base shape will reflect a villainous character, because of the harsh corners where as a character designed using a circle as a base would be a nice, trusting character because of the elegant shape and ease on the eye.

    One of the best examples of good character design using shape is Silent Hill's iconic villain, "Pyramid Head" or "The Bogeyman".

    There is a clear focus on triangles here, with the head being the obvious vocal point. What is interesting (as my tutor stated) is that the body itself is very elegant. His theory for this is that the Pyramid Head is quite a sexual character, as the game has many sexual themes. It is because of this blatant but unique take on a character that Pyramid Head is so recognisable - the use of shape has resulted in great character design.

     With this knowledge in mind and this example to solidify its effective use, the tutor moved onwards to the use of silhouette in conjunction to shape and how developing a silhouette based of a single shape can help in practising good character design. I was tasked at using shape and silhouette to design a character - I chose the circle as a bases. We had to draw the silhouette, use that silhouette as a bases to develop a full line drawing and finally, colour and light him. The result is below.

    Yes, the drawing was awful and yes, the character is generic and boring, but never the less the technique worked. I had created a character with circle as the bases and successfully represented the shape's common associations when used in character design - a happy go lucky, trustworthy person.

        Now that I had practised the techniques taught to me with success, I was set the next task - to use silhouette and shape to design and develop two different characters using two different shapes as a bases. This task would take my vague experience and knowledge of shape and silhouette in character design and develop and refine it to the next level.

NEXT POST: TASK 4 - DEVELOPING SILHOUETTES

TASK 3: COLOUR AND LIGHTING (HAND-IN)

        Following the hand-in for Task 2 and learning rendering techniques. I was set the third task - to demonstrate my talent in colour and lighting. Struggling to come up with ideas, my tutor set me the task of presenting the same image 6 times. Each image would have a different lighting source. The final hand-in is below as a .gif (to show development) and as a .jpeg.

    My personal goal, is to complete each task achieving its independent goal to the best of my ability, but to simultaneously demonstrate everything else I have learned previous to that task. In this task, I believe I have done that and in result, it is my best piece of work to date on this course. I have implemented everything I have learned as of yet - proportion, detailing, line theory, colour and lighting  Because of this, each piece has improved in quality, making each piece not just an exhibited for what I have recently learned, but as comprehensive demonstration of my talent so far.

    Each face has a different lighting source. Purposely, I added parts to the image so I could represent different textures through lighting and colour. I have the face, the jacket and the sword. This way, each face would represent the lighting source clearly. I believe it is a successful attempt to demonstrate my understanding of lighting and colouring. Now all I need to do is develop my ability to draw 'characters' in the true sense, rather than the generic 'perfect' characters I have drawn so far.

NEXT POST: SILHOUETTE AND SHAPE ATTEMPT

TASK 2: BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOSHOP (HAND-IN)

          Before learning the rendering techniques and practising them on various templates, I was given the second task of drawing an entire black and white image of myself on Photoshop. This image had to include a full body drawing (to demonstrate body proportion), a front view of the head (to demonstrate head proportions and facial detailing) and a side view of the head (to demonstrate proportions and profiling). The final hand in for this task is below.

        I had learned how to draw the body, the head, the face, the hands, the feet and even the clothes. And from theses lessons, I believe I have managed to complete this task successfully  Yes, there are a few flaws - the overall body is too two-dimensional and the full body face is a little vague. But these are things I can eventually improve on. In terms of the faces, I believe I have successfully exhibited my skill level at this present time. As an additional note, I developed this piece whilst learning the basics of lighting and thus, I decided to add in some basic monochrome lighting to add depth to the piece (even if I forgot the light the side view...).

NEXT POST: TASK 3 - COLOUR AND LIGHTING (HAND-IN)

COLOUR AND LIGHTING ATTEMPTS

   In the same lecture I had learned how to render art with the use of colour. Now that had been done, my tutor gave me multiple template images that I could choose from to practice the techniques I had learned. These template images were more complex than the sphere and thus, would challenge me more with the task of rendering complex lighting.

I had two attempts in this lecture to practice my use of colour and lighting. The first was just to practice the use of colour and the second was to practice the use of colour to represent light.

This first attempt had me using colour in a pre drawn image to understand how contrasting colours work. With shadows already pre drawn into the template image, the focal point was using the colour effectively. I already had experience in using colour, so I knew not to use solid colours entirely, therefore all the colours here are pastel, with the pre drawn shadows giving the impression of a lighting source.

    This second attempt was more of a challenge. I had to use colour alone in a blank template image to represent lighting. Here, both my skills in digital colouring and lighting where put to the test. However I wanted to re-attempt cell shading. Therefore in this image I used my preferred technique on the first Golbin and Cell Shading on the second goblin.

    Although not complete, the first Goblin came out pretty well (with a little assistance from my tutor). The shading below the nose, between the brows and most importantly the cheekbones are perfect. I replicated this effect on the arms and with success. 

    The second Golbin was more an attempt to refine my Cell Shading skills - an attempt that paid off. If you open the image in full you can see at this point, I have managed to significantly improve my technique. And by imagining one light source for the second Goblin, I managed to successfully render the entire Golbin.

          Overall, in these two attempts I managed to take what I had newly learned in the sphere rendering exercise, and adapt my knowledge to a more complex situation. I should now be able to successfully colour and render my art from now on - giving my art depth and character. Something all my work has been lacking as of yet.

NEXT POST: TASK 2 - BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOSHOP (HAND-IN)

LEARNING RENDERING TECHNIQUES

        Now that I had learned how to draw the body successfully when considering proportions and perspectives, it was now time to fill in between the lines, literally. The next step was learning how to use colour and lighting techniques to add some perspective to the drawing - to make them appear 3D in a 2D plain. The use of both of these in conjunction is the art of 'Rendering'.

I had one task that would demonstrate and develop rendering skills - to render two balls with two difference rendering techniques. This would develop my skills in colouring and lighting with the use colour. The result is below.

    The first technique is more realistic. Starting with a base colour, (usually the darkest shade) I would increase to a brighter shade. Whilst incrementally building up the colour, I would add layers whilst simultaneously turning down the opacity of the colour so that there would be a seamless transition between the multiple shades. The result is above - a smooth ball that ranges from dark to light to represent a lighted sphere. I believe this study was a success and is a personal preference of mine considering I am more of a Realism artist.

    The second study was an attempt at cell shading - a technique in gaming or animation that has a cartoon like appearance with its instantaneous jumps between shades. This is used often in games to produce a desired visual design whilst saving processor space. The study speaks for itself, but I have to admit it was a terrible attempt at cell shading.

    Now that I know how to colour and light an object digitally and found a personally preferred technique, I can apply it to my work to develop and therefore improve. 

NEXT POST: LIGHTING AND COLOUR ATTEMPTS

LEARNING LINE THEORY

          Today, as a sub-lesson, I learnt about Line theory and how the use of line art emphasises certain parts of the drawing - how commonly, it is used to highlight the sides of an object or person that has nothing behind it that isn't connected to the object in question. For example, the shoulder of a person would use such a technique as nothing could be behind it. That is, unless the person is wearing something that overlaps the shoulder - in this case, that piece of clothing would use this technique instead. 

My first and only attempt so far is below.

    With a little use from pastel colour also, I have highlighted the shape of the head and the face. The reason for using the same weight line for the face as well, was because I believe the shape of the face along with the facial features themselves say a lot about the character. This, with the additional coloured backdrop works effectively in contrast to the monochrome head - producing an effective study. One, that I shall adopt for most future work, when relevant.

NEXT POST: LEARNING RENDERING TECHNIQUES

LIFE CLASS DRAWINGS

 I found that the proportion of the body was easy to master with self initiated practice, however drawing the body with a perspective in a 3D space was something entirely different, it needed something more - life class drawings. I had my first experience in a life drawing class recently with a male model - a middle aged man. During a 2 hour session, we were tasked with analysing multiple poses and sketching them within a time frame - some 5 minutes, some 10 minutes and so on. The aim here was not to create a visual masterpiece and become a pioneer for fine art, but to successfully study the human body at different perspectives, taking into account the position of the model. Below are theses studies.

    My primary goal here was to study the arms and their relative proportion with the body when not directly to the side. I believe I succeeded here, but another succession was that the body has character.  It has imperfections. This is a successful study for me, as most of my characters are perfectly proportioned - the ideal body.

    I usually revert to drawing characters from the front  simply because its the simple and most effective option for me. However, characters aren't always head on in a static pose - sometimes the 'character' is in the pose. They way they stand tells us something about the character  Thus, I believe this study is again successful as the various positions of the arms are hard to portray on a 2D plain. Here, you can tell the model is holding a stick in front of himself with his arm on his hip. 

    Again, the same pose as the previous two, only from a different angle. This pose allowed me to study the back and shoulders and how they change in relation to the characters pose. This, of all of the studies, is my favourite, as it incorporates successful body proportion, the character of the pose and successful perspective work.

    The back view was a chance to study the body from an angle I hadn't yet. I had the chance study the back and shoulders again, along with the legs and how they change with the pose. This is another personal favourite of mine and I will keep it for future reference.

    A new pose and a new chance to practice the front view. This is my most successful attempt at a front pose to date. I personally believe the proportion and character are perfect. This, along with what I believe to be successful perspective work, make this study a success - I ought to use a variety of poses more often.

    This pose challenged me with complex body shape and proportion, forcing me to move out of my comfort zone - drawing standing characters. My real struggle here was perfecting the legs and arms. Here, I believe I have come close to it, although my worry, is that when it comes to drawing clothed characters, I won't find the same success.

    The same pose but this time, nothing new here only that it isn't a successful study like the last. A few flaws in the arm length and the body I believe effect the study. However, the perspective work is fine and in this study, I learned from mistakes.

      Another front view, only the model had sat down, leaning against the wall head on. The task here was to represent this pose through perspective - it had to appear 3D. In all, when working on perspective, this is my best work. The hardest part was representing the left leg in an upright position without making it look like the leg was just shorter than the other.

     This final pose was similar to the first, only here, the model was slightly leaning forward, putting an emphasis on the waist line and the legs. I tried my best to portray this pose with mostly success. The model is slightly leaning, but not as much as the model actually was.


        Overall, this Life Drawing class was more successful that I originally envisioned. Throughout all my experience as a drawer, I had stayed in my comfort zone, only drawing static, front view poses with no depth or real character. Over the past few weeks working on proportions I had to chance to polish my skills with this class, but adding character and perspective. Now my drawings should be much more successful and ultimately, more realistic.

NEXT POST: ASSIGNMENT 1 - LEARNING LINE THEORY

TASK 1: YOURSELF AS A CHARACTER (HAND-IN)

        After my first initial attempt at this assignment I ironed out the flaws in my proportion, from this I then began to start the final draft of the first assignment by utilising what I've learnt in the workshops and what I've learnt from practice whilst ensuring I was fulfilling the criteria the assignment sheet asked for. I developed three drawings for the assignment as asked for - a full body sketch and the face with a front and side view. These drawings are below;

      Personally I believe this body drawing is a success, however there is clear roam for improvement. These potential improvements do not lie within the proportion, but within the technique, as although it does look fine when demonstrating proportion, it still clearly isn't as realistic as it could be. This is a result of the face lacking detail, the body looking too two-dimensional, and the clothes (which although a success) needing a slight improvement. Regardless, I hope I get a good marking in this, as I still believe it demonstrates all that I have learnt over the previous two weeks.

   The front view and side view of the head had been done to the best of my ability, and in result the drawings are something I can be proud of. If I would have drawn these a few weeks earlier than I did, certainly the results would not of been the same. However, although I believe the level of detail, the proportion and the shading are fine, the eyes are the assignment's only flaw. Although the eyes are better than I could ever accomplish before the classes, they are still not at the standard they could be - this is something I need to work on. 

   I have high hopes that I'll gain a good mark here, however even if I don't, I know personally that I've progressed rapidly since I started this course. Being able to translate this progress digitally however is a entirely different question.

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