These are layouts for an upcoming animation I’m working on. I’ll definitely need to work on brush economy in the future, as well as detailing and texture. Plotting out all the graphic aspects were fun and challenging. I hope to be doing more of these soon!
I felt a bit uncreative/unproductive today, so I felt it was a good time to post one of these-especially since I just finished off my sketchbook ( always exiting) It just struck me that I don’t put backgrounds in these. Perhaps because as thumbs, they don’t read to anyone but myself. Ill go work on that...
First pic is a compilation of most of the stuff I made in 3D modeling class last year. My new pic is some lighting experiments I did in stop-motion class. I found it fun and challenging. More soon!
I'd have to say that I learned alot on this pic. That is to say, it turned out pretty badly, in my opinion. Today, I was experimenting with super-clean linework, and simple gradients. On top of that, I used some pretty blurring tools, and of course, a gradient map ( cause id be nothing without it). One of these days, I'll have to do something with actual local colour. Finally, if my compositional conventions werent obvious before, im sure they are now. I have quite a bit more study and practice ahead of me!
I’m trying to break out of my painting habits, so I’m turning to that graphic UPA influence stuff you find in Samurai Jack and Dexter’s Lab and such. Its so.... fun and caricatured! I cant get enough lately. I did this in about two hours, mabey less. My Dad bought a new house recently, and the one visit I made to the basement left an impression on me.
This took a while! I was working on edge sharpness and local colour- two things I’ve been having a lot of trouble with on background, I don’t think ill do many realistic backgrounds like this for a while. They’re fun to spend hours on rendering, but I want to focus more on broader stuff like composition, colour and value. As with my last painting, there are a lot of things id like to have done to this image, but I didn’t want to spend another solid week on it. Painting always seems to slow down the farther into it I get, and I need to draw the line somewhere, before I stop time completely! Oh, another thing. I might as well call attention to this myself, cause someone will notice, but I didn’t clean up the sketch I used as my base, and as such, the perspective is pretty wonky. Hell, I don’t think I even used vanishing points. So pretty embarrassing, considering I’m supposed to love perspective...
Today, I was experimenting with focal points; as a panned background, I'd expect there would have to be multiple points of interest for your eye to travel with as the BG pans. I'm having a big problem with local colour, vs light colour, which I'll work on very soon. I stopped working on this one pretty quickley, cause detailing got tedious, and i wanted to move on-I'll have to work on efficiency and systems soon. Enjooooy!
What did you THINK that title said! Just my style to finally get a day off work, and then go home and draw...where I work. I’ve been planning on making a picture since I started at my summer job. The materials, the lighting, and the opportunity to swing its atmosphere any which way was too irresistible to pass up! This is probably one of the more involved paintings I’ve worked on recently, and in truth, it's not as done as I'd like it to be. But I thought “ It's never going to be done for the amount of polish you want to put on it” so i put it down, in favour of moving on to other things.
Today I’ll be posting something a bit different from usual. I want to say a few things about Irrational Games’ upcoming game Bioshock Infinite. Overall, this game looks very skilfully constructed; flavourful locations, and characters full of personality and texture. Then we have this woman, Elizabeth, who plays the female sidekick. Im horrified at this woman’s appearance! Her design, while possibly appropriate for a different game, does not fit with the rest of the world. I’ve listed off my major problems in the accompanying picture, as well as a minimalist solution. Regardless of her role in the story, superficially, she’s sending a lot of mixed messages. Firstly, if you’ve heard her voice, (follow the youtube link and skip to the end) it’s very husky, for a young woman; That would imply maturity. In my opinion everything the voice actress sells the intended personality of the character the best. Consider Elizabeth’s face- how old does it look, in the context of a realistic world? And then there’s her assets. In the link I’ve included, her breasts actually get MORE screen time then her face! This...display confuses me. Is she a competent, complex ally? A naive shut-in, or a Halloween whore? In a recent preview on IGN, Irrational Games mention decision making in moral grey areas, mature themes and a push to hit mature audiences. I don’t understand why they would need to squeeze sex appeal into it so clumsily, especially considering they didn’t need to for previous successes like Bioshock. Moreover this appears to be the only female character shown in the entire game! The changes I have proposed hopefully keep in mind the ease of changing a character that so far into production. For example, I have not modified any part of the body that would influence the follow-through animation on the cloth. I would like to think the feel of the character is less confusing, and pushes it more towards “ competent ally” while maintaining most aspects of the original design. The head and eyes would be more difficult, since they animates so differently, and so often. The likelihood of these changes being implemented are slim, considering footage has already been released in a polished, publicised way. So even if the studio was made aware of these concerns, I doubt they would make the changes. So yes. In conclusion, the current design of Elizabeth does not fit within the feel of the rest of the game.
Gee, writing blog posts is a lot like writing essays...
This is the last portfolio I handed in for second year. I'm still not at all happy with where I am, but I'll work on concepts over the summer and get to extra-life whenever I can to try and fix that.
I thought I'd do some creature design, since we had a similar assignment coming up in Lifedrawing class. I didn't use it, but it was fun to do, and useful, since i hadnt done anything like it before. something ive been considering latley is breaking out of what i usually do and experimenting with things i havnt tried before. at the same time, id like to, erm, do the opposite and find a system to produce quality stuff more quickley. Kind of an opposing set of goals, but I'm hoping the contrast might help me grasp them faster.
Reading week is over! I spent it back home, doing far less homework than i should have been. I got re-aquainted with my pencil crayons, which are still one of my favorite mediums. of course, i went right for the harder materials- I'm not sure if i like the final result of this; further experimentation is definitley required.
I watched the special features of the collectors edition of Avatar. I particularley enjoyed how Cameron gave credit to all of his team, and his attention to realism in his fantasy setting. even if i didnt like the films story, I can appreciate its creation.
I also made a flour sack! i was having trouble with some major principals of drawing, so I thought the best way to overcome it would be to draw straight from the source. I'm not the best sewer, but I think it'll serve its purpose. Like usual, I'm going to try and post more, more often.
I finally finished a sketchbook. I'm thinking post at least one of these every time i do. THINGS I LEARNED: too many 3/4 views of heads. I'm going to make an effort to do more in-context drawings, and more environmental stuff. More to come sooooon!
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
This was the latest Background that I painted for school. i must still have minecraft on the brain...
Today, I was experimenting with focal points; as a panned background, I'd expect there would have to be multiple points of interest for your eye to travel with as the BG pans. I'm having a big problem with local colour, vs light colour, which I'll work on very soon. I stopped working on this one pretty quickley, cause detailing got tedious, and i wanted to move on-I'll have to work on efficiency and systems soon. Enjooooy!
This is the last portfolio I handed in for second year. I'm still not at all happy with where I am, but I'll work on concepts over the summer and get to extra-life whenever I can to try and fix that.
Reading week is over! I spent it back home, doing far less homework than i should have been. I got re-aquainted with my pencil crayons, which are still one of my favorite mediums. of course, i went right for the harder materials- I'm not sure if i like the final result of this; further experimentation is definitley required.
Of course, it's just a layout
Just a quickie I did today. I'd imagine him being the biggest loser ever, even when he got super powers. He probably brings his poke walker with him on missions!
This was the final layout for my victorian project this semester, which I'm sure y'all havn't seen much of so far. The big theme of this assignment was "textures"- could you tell? This was one of those pictures where i would have loved to spend more time on, but couldn't afford to, which is why it has a few rough spots. I'm thinking of posting a big dump of all the stuffIi did at school recentley, in celebration of summer starting. I'm looking forward to learning a whole lot more over the summer!
