Mindless Scribbles

Desperately had to get away from what I've been doing in my designs so far, which essentially has just been thinking of a random character then applying tribal stereotypes to it. This is always my biggest crime and it ends here!
I did a few pages of quick sketches based on all the statues and masks from the museum. Even though this took about half an hour all in all it has probably been the most important part of my project so far. Here are the pages.

A couple of great ones here I think, all of them are strong shapes and that's what i need more of in my work.

Love the circled guy in the top left, brimming with personality, not a particularly happy one but personality non the less. he would probably make for a good protagonist.

Quite like the obvious bad guy in the top left and the old woman/man in centre right.

Anyway, as I said, doing this was so important, why start from scratch when there are hundreds of great character ideas that have already been made buy these people over the years. All I have to do is adapt them to my purpose.

What Am I Doing?

Well thanks to my tutor Steve for this little doozy, also mad props to Andy for seriously getting into this photography session. Thought getting into character might help and obviously i have no reserves about making an absolute tit of my self. Crafted an amazing mask in a matter of minutes, surprising I know, considering the quality, and threw together a tasty grass skirt both entirely made from a poster tube and pizza boxes. To be honest i don't think words can really explain any of this so just have a gander.

Hey, another weirdo!

One man party

Hero pose

 Well apart from being a whole lot of fun this also reinforced the importance of poses, even with an emotionless face they can get a story or a feeling across. Also without these i would never of thought of having the arms coming out of the side of the mask, probably would of insisted on having a neck making the character freaking huge.
Next week?      I have no idea.

MUSE-eum

Check me out. Headed myself down to the museum, took some sneaky snaps of anything that had a face. Got those creative juices flowing. I was so inspired in fact I just booked myself a ticket to Africa for three days next month to go live with a local tribe. Okay maybe not but check these guys out.

Pre-Research Mind Poop

If my years of having art teachers telling me to "do more research!!" has taught me anything it's that I should go ahead and just do some work without any research. You know, just to get some mind morsels out on the plate. Needed some ideas for guys, 'guy-deas' if you will. Heres a couple.

As you can see, one of these guys is not necessarily a guy. Just trying to get a few style ideas flowin'. But of course I'm gunna be needin' some of that all important research.

Specialist Study II: The Workoning

The beginning of the end is upon us, Specialist Study 2 is here so repent your sins and get ready to enjoy nil sleeps.
Here's my aims for the next few months, set out in the What? How? When? format as requested by my tutor.

What?

I plan to extend the skills that I practiced in SS1, these included trying to create a professional looking character for a video game that was relatable and accessible to all. I was pleased with how it turned out but that was a single, stand alone character. So for this project I aim to do the same but create a few characters and a landscape that all derive from the same "world". I still need to keep in mind everything I learned previously about poses and anatomy but this time i wish to get a little more experimental with my methods and take some real risks that will hopefully produce better results. I will be concentrating on tribe culture because I believe it has a rich background that spans vast time periods and all over the globe, also it is not a genre that has become stagnant and doesn't have to many stereotypes attached to it. The characters will also be having "alter egos" that have been probably drug induced from a 'coming of age' ceremony, so this will also give opportunity to get a little freaky.

How?

 The main thing I want to change about this project is the approach I take to where i get my ideas from and the techniques I use to render the designs. I was all too safe in my last project and need to get my hands dirty. I will be exploring colour by using materials such as ink, pastel, paint and hopefully whatever else I can get my hands on. Also for the initial designs I will be keeping they're personalities in mind but I want the culture to truly inspire they're appearance. This project needs to be a lot more informed by research, this will be done by trips to museums and hopefully compiling vast amounts of documentary footage. 

When?

Here's a tasty little plan I've thrown together for the coming months

Not Bad, Not Bad At All

Well here it is, my final gift to 'Specialist Study 1'. I've had a great time this module and i'm so happy with my choices. I'm way more confident then when I started this thing and hopefully it shows. Can't wait to get stuck into 'SS2' and push myself even further. Heres the big finish.

Anticlimax? 

Well I assure you she looks pretty sweet printed out on A3 and mounted. Im really pleased with how this turned out. I think the poses capture her personality which is what this whole thing was about but also she has a very striking, memorable look. I'm happy with how the whole page is put together as well, i need to work on my complimentary colours but i love the variety in rendering.    

Here we go...

The end is nigh end i've started work on my final piece, I'm sticking to the plan i've had all along of one page with a main pose fully rendered with an alternate pose, probably shaded, and one or two head shots just sketched. I'm really starting to feel like i wen't in completely the right direction with this project and i'm so glad that I spent time practicing stuff that will hopefully make this piece come out swingin. First things first i needed the main pose so once again prepare for me to look incredible.

 As you can see I'm not getting much information about the female from these but these are just for general stance ideas and hopefully my previous training would fill in the gaps. Heres the initial sketch then the fully rendered one.

I'm a pretty big fan of this, I think it fits in with all the feedback i got about her looking to "American", i've taken back some of the colours but with some variation in there. I also think the hoodie works really well to create a more defined silhouette. I painted this all by freehand this time and i think the work really shows through. My god i'm gunna have to get faster though. 

Procrastination Station

With all this figure work i wanted to make sure my head stuff wasn't lagging, probably not the best idea about a week before deadline but hey, it's all art right? I thought the best way to get people to look at my stuff was to do pictures of the people I wanted to look at my stuff, you know, really appeal to everyones egotistical side. I think it was a good idea, definitely the way to moneys in future i think. Anyway heres the three pages of caricatures i did, If you're not in my class you most likely won't know anyone, i suggest you get over it.

I was very happy with these, obviously they ain't perfect but i've always had a problem with creating radically different faces and this really helped, especially with general head shapes and noses. I feel like i've got a whole library of noses stored away in my noggin now. So helpful. 

I wanted to colour some but I didn't want to spend to much time veering off course with these so I thought back to the research I did and the two-tone shading technique and decided there's no way it could take that long.

Now these i like, it only took a few minutes to do each one and it makes such a difference. I will probably use this method for one of the alternate poses on my final piece.

Let's copy me some styles!

One of the main things I really wanted to get at least slightly, kinda, sort of, a little bit competent at was rendering. I've done a bit in the past but it's always come out quite bright and very cartoon like. I wanted to have a look around and see how the big boys are doing it. And no, I won't be saying "big boys" again.
I found a couple of pieces, well pretty much several websites full, of work I loved and because i'm a sharer let you in one it.

A very different take on 'Robocop' here, at a glance this looks so detailed but if you look closer it's very sketchy and probably took around half an hour. He's using large brushstrokes but with shading in all the right places. And again. there's only a handful of colours here, It's almost just shaded with blue but it looks perfect. Gunna have to get a bit rougher with my colouring for more effect perhaps.

Here we've got some semi-detailed sketches but looks how much depth is added just by using a couple of tones to separate the different areas. Sean Galloway often uses a similar technique and i think I may give it a bash myself.

 I'm not that drawn in by the subject matter of this, little but too "destroy the ring" for me but that speaks for the rendering. Again as soon as you focus on the robe you can pick out almost every simple stroke but the colours are so complementary that it takes a while to hit you. Oh yeah and the background is ace, the sketched figures in the background would probably take me around 3 days.
So basically i'm gunna try and loosen up a bit for my final piece and hopefully avoid that 'happy american' feel.

Less Is More, I Think.

Since showing my first attempt at rendering my emo i've been kinda sidetracked from colouring in by actually still trying to get my drawing right. However I can't use that excuse forever and it is something I would really love to get better at.
Trying to take on board "The Galloway Method" I discussed in my last blog I re-did the girl a little so she has a lot of the same attributes but they don't interupt the flow of the lines as much. I did kinda fell back on a standard pose again but I knew I was gunna use it to test out colours so I needed one that kept everything visable. Heres the first pencil and my inking with the graphics tablet.

As you can see most of her clothes and accessories stay with the line of her body shape, this does look good but I'm not it would be appropriate for a video game, thinks its more on the animation side. Good technique though, I will definitely be doing this again. Gotta keep practicing the inking though, it is tough. It may look identical to you but that's another hours work between these two.

And this is my Render, I tried to take on board everything everyone said about my last one, mainly the colours and the feet.

I do like this a lot but there's still work to be done. I need to stop bein' such a little bitch when it comes to shading and highlighting, gotta have more contrast. I'll run it by the class tomorrow and see what they say and because I've still got the file on separate layers I can tweak any suggestions they have. Bring it on.