Sketches

Beginning to sketch character designs I started on this sketch of a man quickly trying out the idea of him having painted skin - like the prisoners in Apocalypto - and I found that I really liked the way the quick and rough painting made the paint look like it had been loosely applied. This would be a much nicer effect than to have perfectly done paint (like Mel Gibsons immaculate Braveheart makeup) The bright colours also make the character stand out much more. 

From this I then looked at how different colours would look on the character as well as using different shapes to make the character look more interesting since he would have very few clothes to do this. 

I also started exploring different looks for the characters face to try and get a heroic look. I want him to look tough but not overly brutal, as that could take away too much from making the antagonists seem evil.

And some more designs for the characters clothing. Trying out more subtle and exaggerated looks

Research

I started off by looking into Mayan clothing and jewellery. A great inspiration was the film Apocalypto, which features very realistic designs and clearly shows the brutal and violent side to Mayan culture. This gave me the idea that although my character was to be a hero, maybe they wouldn't be the kind of hero that our culture is used to. A mayan hero would probably be very savage and warlike so I would like to try and show that. But to also emphasise his heroic status I thought of how in greek sculptures they modelled them to be their idea of the perfect and ideal proportions.

Looking at the Mayan costumes in both Apocalypto and other images it was clear that they didn't wear much in the way of clothing and that feathers and jewellery would also play a large part in their outfit. Colour was also an import aspect with reds, greens and blues being the most commonly used colours.

I also looked into Mayan weapons and symbolism to make my designs more realistic. I like the large simple shapes of the spear and the Maquahuitl, a sword like weapon used by Aztec and Mayan warriors. These would make really nice silhouettes and are easily recognisable as being from those cultures.

3d character modelling

So I chose to do the 3d character modelling brief. While I liked the environment modelling and concept art briefs I will be doing a whole module based around building an environment next semester so it would be good to use this chance to try out something else. This means that I will need to design, model and texture both low and high poly versions of the character. We were given 3 different character types to choose from -

a hero warrior based off of ancient Mayan culture
an aggressive and brutish antagonist based off of celtic culture
or a peaceful eldar figure based on futuristic technology

I eventually decided on the Mayan character as that is something that has always interested me and I think there is the potential for a lot of really interesting design choices

Week 5 - CAP Brief

We finally got our CAP briefs and there are a lot to choose from. I'm most interested in the concept art ones as well as the 3d modelling ones, which include both environment art and character art.

I really like the environment art brief as it has the added challenge of following some concept art that has already been created and making a scene from that. This is a skill that would be very useful to show when trying to actually get work as an environment artist.

And the character modelling brief also interests me as character art has generally been an area that I either avoid or just don't get a lot of experience with

Sketching

Some doodles in my sketchbook of some environments. 

I love the west coast of Scotland and the rugged pebble beaches covered in rocks of all shapes and sizes, with seaweed, old fishing equipment and all sorts of other tuff washed up by the tide. I would like to try and finish this in photoshop, focusing mostly on the different textures and colours

Conceptart.org do an environment of the week challenge and their current one was to create an environment based around a pagoda. I like trying these when I have time, even if its just a sketch or two, to try and force myself into looking at all sorts of different things I would never have thought of. In this case I spent a lot of time looking at zen gardens and shinto temples

Week 3 - Live Drawing

For week 3 we were sent out to find a place to sit and draw people as they went about their lives. So we would have only a few seconds to get the basic movement and pose of people before they were gone or had moved to a different pose. This task was pretty fun trying to show as much of these peoples movement as possible. I also found it to be very difficult trying to find someone who would be interesting to draw and then by the time I did they were gone before I could start drawing. I think I was trying to get too much unnecesary detail, as looking at other artists attempts at this all thats needed to get the idea across can be as little as a couple of lines. Though as the task went on I do believe that my drawings got a bit less fussy and I stopped caring about smaller details. More practice doing this would be great as I also found that the first few drawings felt pretty awkward trying not to stare too much at people having their coffee. There were definitely a few lecturers from uni clearly knew they were being drawn..  

Week 2 - Still Life

This week we were given a group of objects to practice our still life drawing. I got a ball of wool, a pair of trainers and a disco ball... This group was pretty interesting to try and draw as they were all so different to each other. I tried to draw quite loosely and to try to focus on what I thought was the main thing about each of these. So the ball of wool was a mess of lines going everywhere, the disco ball was a whole bunch of mirrors stuff on the ball reflecting different shades of what was around it and the shoes were there too I suppose. I think the shoes are what gave me the most difficulty on this task as drawing them I tried to focus on their shape and tone, but that led to my drawing style becoming more and more tight and trying to get things to be too perfect. This had the problem of both making the drawing overall less expressive and loose, as well as not being as accurate as it should instead have been, due to having a limited time and trying to get as much done in that time.

If I were to attempt this drawing again I would change the medium I was using to something like charcoal and work on a much larger scale. This would force me to be more loose with my drawing and hopefully make for a more cohesive piece, with things like the cotton wool and disco ball not just looking messy. Instead I would like them to be a bit more abstract and get across the general idea of what each thing was a bit better.

Week 1 - Perspective Drawing

For our first Computer Arts practice lab we were tasked with going and finding somewhere within the campus to practice our perspective drawings.  

I was pretty happy with this. It had been a long time since I had tried to do a perspective drawing, but once I got started it all began to come back to me. I think I used the construction lines properly to get the right scale and perspective, especially on things like the pillars, which I was expecting to be a nightmare to draw. I think the actual drawing could be a lot nicer however. A lot of the lines could be a bit more confident and less sketchy, and seeing as how this is a drawing showing the architecture of the building, a ruler would have been very useful! The drawing could also benefit from having some more time spent adding tone and shading to try and get a better sense of scale. Right now, it seems very flat with only the actual perspective drawing to give the piece any depth to it