After sucessfully going through each online tutorial about rigging and controlling my Mammoo character the only video left to watch was the housekeeping one. The first thing I did rather than follow along with what the tutorial told me to do was just to listen to it as I wanted to know what it was we were cleaning up on our character. After watching the final tutorial I had decided that I didn't want to do as the video had instructed me to do as the point of that particular tutorial was to show how to lock off a characters movement for a more humanoid feel to it. My character, Mammoo, was not designed in mind to be human nor have human movements as he was designed for cartoony, wobbly movements. I knew that locking off Mammoos joints would not do him justice, especially in his arms as I designed them to look like winter scarfs.
I have tested Mammoos controllers for any unwelcome spiking or distortion in his geometry but because I have properly weight painted him this has not caused any problems. He can however be rotated a full 360 degrees on his upper spine controllers and as a resort become somewhat grape shaped, curling into himself but I think I prefer him with these minor faults to allow for ultimate freedom of movement rather than locking off his joints and resticting him.
I will however follow this tutorial to the letter when creating more rigid creatures in Maya as part of my modelling in my own time for portfolio use and feel that although I havnt applied its uses in this perticular character I have certainly learned from it and will apply what I have learned from it in the future.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Mammoo Modelling - Finished Result
This is the finished design of my Mammoo character, now that its fully rigged, weight painted, UV mapped and constrained he cane move freely in many different poses whilst looking bright and colour. I'm really happy with this character as I spent a lot of time refining it in order to make it the best of my ability and even though some parts of it's making up to this point have been nothing short of hell I'm proud that I've managed to stick to it and create a fully functioning character that I'm very happy with.
However, if I had the time to do so I would make a few changes to how Mammoo looks. Firstly I would turn his tail into an actual piece of geometry as when I was modelling him I forgot to add his tail, meaning it had to be drawn on when he was UV mapped. Another thing I would improve would be his general look, I already adore how he looks now but if I could I would deffinately make him more true to his design that I initially made and add the stray wooly strands that sit on top of his head and around his legs. I did infact create the ones for his head through extrusion of the faces however when smoothed it didn't look right so I deleted them, I believe they would have looked better if i had more time to add the little extras that I drew him with but overall I'm still happy with his final outcome.
Mammoo Modelling - Weight Painting
After making all of the controllers It was time to start weight painting my Mammoo character, prior to this I had never done any weight painting before so at this point I was quite nervous as I'd heard about the horror stories from other class mates about the problems they had faced when weight painting, however I tried not to let the nerves get in my way and started to paint onto the character.
Once I got the hang of it I was actually very happy to do the weight painting of my character without the help of the tutorial that had been put up for us to aid us and in all honesty I found it to be a very relaxing experience much like UV mapping my character prior to starting this.
The only problems I had when I painted the weights onto the character happened on the first time of me working with weight paint for the first time, noticing that some parts of the mesh on the character were spiking and moulding erratically into odd shapes whenever Mammoo's joints were manipulated in certain ways. I soon corrected this however by flicking through each joint chain and seeing which part of y characters body was spiking due to not having any or enough influence of the weight paints on the skin.
All in all I really enjoyed weight painting, I found it to be relaxing painting in the influences onto the character but at the same time having the challenge of correctly weight painting the body in order to avoid polygon spiking. I look forward to chances to do it again.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Mammoo Modelling - Controllers & Rigging
As with my Alien model, I had to create my own version of a skeletal rig for my Mammoo character. The overall look of the rig looks very similar to the alien model apart from a few changes that I have had to make in order to accomodate the shape and design of my own character.
The controllers that I used for this model are also very similar to that of the alien model and like the Mammoo skeleton have a few differences from the other excersise.
One of the main differences between the alien rig and my own characters rig is the head. Unlike the alien, Mammoo's face was made through UV mapping not modelling and thus cannot be controlled like the other parts of its body can. Due to its lack of posable facial features this meant that I left out the eye, jaw and eyebrow controllers that had been previously put into the other model.
Another difference between my character and the alien was in the legs. Where the alien had an assortment of knee, ankle and foot joints in order to make it move in a more humanoid fashion, my characters stumpy build and marching walk meant that only the hip and feet controls were needed for it to walk as I wanted it to. The lesser amount of joints gave him the marching cartoony walk that I wanted him to have.
The final difference is in Mammoo's hands. Because his fingers resemble the tassles of a winter scarf he needed individual finger joints putting into his wrist, this differs from the alien who had more of a mitten-like shaped hand and lacked fingers to control.
Compared to my alien character I've enjoyed rigging this character a lot more as its challenged me to modify the rig we were already taught about and to really consider the movements of my character. In the future I will experiment with more of my own characters and perhaps make it even more challenging for myself by adding more legs to a creature ect.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
NEST Competition - Down But Not Out
So recently I decided to join the competition for designing the new cover of the college's new student magazine, NEST. The guidelines for the competition were simple, stating that the subject matter could be as loosely or closely related to the word "Nest" as we wanted and that it had to be A5 in size.
I went ahead and made my design for the competition which consisted of two birds of paradise sitting inside a giant lettuce looking nest which was surrounded by various tropical flora.
The back cover of my design was a similar look to the front, except rather than two birds of paradise I designed two eggs sat inside the lettuce nest instead.
This was the first real competition that I have entered so I was quiet nervous when I started it at first, especially knowing that I didn't have nearly as much time as the other contestants who had found out about the competition sooner than I. Thankfully I didn't let my nerves get the better of my skill and got to work, soon after my design was complete and was safely submitted to the judges to be reviewed.
After waiting anxiously for the results and going over in my head all the things that I could have done better with the picture, the email was sent to me with the results saying that my design hadn't been chosen. This time.
Although my design didn't get chosen for NEST this time i'm honestly not put down by it at all, if anything Its made me more anxious and pumped up to try even harder and now that I've recently learnt some very useful new Photoshop skills under my belt I'll be able to use them next time and I'll just keep trying until my design is on the front cover of the NEST magazine.
I think nest time I'll try for a more concept-arty approach to put my new skills to the test.
If at first you don't succeed, try and try again!
I went ahead and made my design for the competition which consisted of two birds of paradise sitting inside a giant lettuce looking nest which was surrounded by various tropical flora.
The back cover of my design was a similar look to the front, except rather than two birds of paradise I designed two eggs sat inside the lettuce nest instead.
This was the first real competition that I have entered so I was quiet nervous when I started it at first, especially knowing that I didn't have nearly as much time as the other contestants who had found out about the competition sooner than I. Thankfully I didn't let my nerves get the better of my skill and got to work, soon after my design was complete and was safely submitted to the judges to be reviewed.
After waiting anxiously for the results and going over in my head all the things that I could have done better with the picture, the email was sent to me with the results saying that my design hadn't been chosen. This time.
Although my design didn't get chosen for NEST this time i'm honestly not put down by it at all, if anything Its made me more anxious and pumped up to try even harder and now that I've recently learnt some very useful new Photoshop skills under my belt I'll be able to use them next time and I'll just keep trying until my design is on the front cover of the NEST magazine.
I think nest time I'll try for a more concept-arty approach to put my new skills to the test.
If at first you don't succeed, try and try again!
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
My New Toy - FIMO Modelling Clay
hontor.deviantart.com
Recently I've been thinking a lot about expanding the media that I use in my artwork, be it with traditional artwork, painting or other. Not too long ago I decided to buy myself some FIMO modelling clay to try and make some little sculptures and models s an outlet for broadening my work as an artist.
One of my main influences in deciding to try and make sculptures and models was looking at the work of a Russian sculptor and artist, Hontor. I first came across Hontor when I discovered a beautifully crafted sculptor of his on DeviantArt that is now in a private collection in the Netherlands so I decided to look through his gallery to see what else he has made and what I found was truly beautiful.
The picture shown above is one of his latest works, a small white and blue dragon that I believe has already been sold and is in yet another private collection somewhere in the world. What attracts me most to his work are the patterns on the dragons body that make up his scales and mane. The way that he hand makes each swirled design to put onto the model he is making makes it stand out and just in general i believe makes it better.
Other works of his that use this similar layering style I've shown below:
I am going to try and recreate this layered, detailed pattern in my own little models when I begin making them. I am hoping that should I make enough of a high enough standard I will attempt to make my own commission work and sell them at a later date. Very excited to start it all soon.
Recently I've been thinking a lot about expanding the media that I use in my artwork, be it with traditional artwork, painting or other. Not too long ago I decided to buy myself some FIMO modelling clay to try and make some little sculptures and models s an outlet for broadening my work as an artist.
One of my main influences in deciding to try and make sculptures and models was looking at the work of a Russian sculptor and artist, Hontor. I first came across Hontor when I discovered a beautifully crafted sculptor of his on DeviantArt that is now in a private collection in the Netherlands so I decided to look through his gallery to see what else he has made and what I found was truly beautiful.
The picture shown above is one of his latest works, a small white and blue dragon that I believe has already been sold and is in yet another private collection somewhere in the world. What attracts me most to his work are the patterns on the dragons body that make up his scales and mane. The way that he hand makes each swirled design to put onto the model he is making makes it stand out and just in general i believe makes it better.
Other works of his that use this similar layering style I've shown below:
I am going to try and recreate this layered, detailed pattern in my own little models when I begin making them. I am hoping that should I make enough of a high enough standard I will attempt to make my own commission work and sell them at a later date. Very excited to start it all soon.
Mammoo Modelling - Animating
After my character was fully rigged, weight painted and UV mapped it was time to begin animating. Before I started animating I was actually quite nervous because prior to this module I had only really properly animated one other time last year and I found it to be quite hard to grasp and do properly. This was still the case this time as well but only in the beginning, the more I practiced and asked questions to others around me who knew more about it the more confident in myself I became and soon enough I was able to successfully animate my character.
It wasn't without its difficulties though as I had to adapt to my new skills fast this didn't really give me the time I wanted or needed to properly appreciate and play around with the new skills that I had learned. The character itself was relatively easy to animate once I got going, his rigging was similar to that of the previous Alien model I had made but lacked some of the others skeleton making it over all easier to animate without worrying about problems with facial rigging.
I wouldn't really say that anything during the animating process held me back but there was a few things that I needed to keep a careful eye on to make sure that nothing went wrong such as the fact that I hadn't locked off any of the joints on my character. I knew that I would have to take into account that its points of articulation had no real end so when animating I made sure that when the Mammoo character was looking up his body made no harsh movements with only minor twists to his torso and head to avoid him folding in on himself.
Overall I really enjoyed animating this character and I feel a lot more confident in my animating abilities than I did when I first started this module, animating is now something that I can look forward to in the future rather than dread and feel nervous about. I am genuinely proud when I look at my character in motion and have put up some videos showing some playblasts of his movements when he was still a work in progress.
This first video shows Mammoos walk cycle, walking over to his fishing box, when I first animated him he was a bit slippy and seemed to slide around the scene when he turned rather than walking, this is the refined result which im happy with.
It wasn't without its difficulties though as I had to adapt to my new skills fast this didn't really give me the time I wanted or needed to properly appreciate and play around with the new skills that I had learned. The character itself was relatively easy to animate once I got going, his rigging was similar to that of the previous Alien model I had made but lacked some of the others skeleton making it over all easier to animate without worrying about problems with facial rigging.
I wouldn't really say that anything during the animating process held me back but there was a few things that I needed to keep a careful eye on to make sure that nothing went wrong such as the fact that I hadn't locked off any of the joints on my character. I knew that I would have to take into account that its points of articulation had no real end so when animating I made sure that when the Mammoo character was looking up his body made no harsh movements with only minor twists to his torso and head to avoid him folding in on himself.
Overall I really enjoyed animating this character and I feel a lot more confident in my animating abilities than I did when I first started this module, animating is now something that I can look forward to in the future rather than dread and feel nervous about. I am genuinely proud when I look at my character in motion and have put up some videos showing some playblasts of his movements when he was still a work in progress.
For this scene I wanted to really try and capture the feel of Mammoo really struggling to get his catch out of the "lake". I tried to animate him showing the power and weight of whatever it is that is on the end of his fishing line and to show this power struggle between Mammoo and the mystery fishing rod catch.
This last playblast shows Mammoo picking up his fishing rod and moving his box out of the way. I had to improvise a lot for this scene as when I originally animated him he was too far away and too fat to pick up his fishing rod (the place where he first sits down was meant to be his final placement before picking up the rod) I had to instead modify this and make him look like he couldn't reach his rod and instead shimmies on his bottom to be closer to the rod so that he can begin fishing.
Mammoo Modelling - UV Mapping
When it came to this part of making my Mammoo character I was really nervous and reluctant to start UV mapping as previously I hadn't had very much experience in UV mapping at all and had only really done tile mapping on my character last year - Pirannah Petey. I had watched the other people do their UV mapping prior to this module and it looked extremely confusing and stressful but there was no other way around it so it was now or never.
At first UV mapping was everything I thought it would be, confusing, stressful and time consuming. However with a bit of help and guidance I began to take the hang of how to unwrap and plainar map my characters geometry in order to paint on it and I soon found it to be a quite therapeutic way to spend my time working.
At first UV mapping was everything I thought it would be, confusing, stressful and time consuming. However with a bit of help and guidance I began to take the hang of how to unwrap and plainar map my characters geometry in order to paint on it and I soon found it to be a quite therapeutic way to spend my time working.
Above shows my process of making the UV map to get my character looking bright and bold. The bottom two images show my IN and OUT files that I refined with and without the geometry grid. The first first mapping image I made sure to label every piece of netting so that I knew what to paint in what colour. I then refined this in the very bottom image to add on bits such as the tail, fur, face and boots.
Despite being quite scared about starting the UV mapping process I've actually learned a lot of the experience and enjoyed this part of making my character the most so far.
Thought Bubble Stall Idea
Because I've been trying to vary my artwork into different medias I had the idea of trying to create art that is good enough to be sold at next years Thought Bubble 2013 festival. Not only would this bring in money but would more than likely give my artwork the publicity and notification it needs by the general public as well as good networking opportunities by being surrounded by other artists who have years of experience behind their belt.
Although Thought Bubble 2013 is still a long way away I have already emailed inquiries to the people who organize the stalls and artists of Thought Bubble in the hopes of them giving me the information I need and hopefully allowing me to fill out an application form to rent a table for the weekend on the Festival week.
There isn't really much else to say about this so far as its still very early days but I'm still very excited to receive a reply and it gives me the boost I need to use this upcoming year to better myself as much as I can in order to attract as many people as possible and to get my work noticed.
Although Thought Bubble 2013 is still a long way away I have already emailed inquiries to the people who organize the stalls and artists of Thought Bubble in the hopes of them giving me the information I need and hopefully allowing me to fill out an application form to rent a table for the weekend on the Festival week.
There isn't really much else to say about this so far as its still very early days but I'm still very excited to receive a reply and it gives me the boost I need to use this upcoming year to better myself as much as I can in order to attract as many people as possible and to get my work noticed.
Mammoo Modelling - Getting Started
After successfully finishing the Alien project it was time for me to begin making the geometry for my Mammoo character, I was really excited to start modelling this character as I had already fallen in love with his design and couldn't wait to make it into a fully functioning three dimensional model.
It turned out to be easier said than done to start off with as I was still basing my own knowledge of the alien geometry to create a shape that could be mirrored to create its final geometry. However I didn't at first take into account that my Mammoo wasn't symmetrical and upon observing the shape of his body more carefully I decided to restart his geometry and use one solid shape rather than cutting a shape down the middle to mirror it. The results are shown below.
Although challenging at times I've really enjoyed modelling Mammoo and found the whole experience of making his shape to be fresh and new compared to the more humanoid models that I've had to previously make. Although he was challenging to create at times I enjoyed having to think about how the shape may effect his movement and how to attempt to recreate his shape shown in the concept art. In the future I will attempt more wooly looking creatures and further my knowledge of modelling more unconventional shapes.
"Train Your Brain" - Deviantart Competition
Recently an advertisement appeared on deviantART promoting an upcoming new competition for artists of all mediums. After reading through it and the many various categories that you could enter in I came across the 2D entry section. The criteria was quite loose, stating that they wanted to see some sort of character or landscape concept art and that other than that we were free to do as we pleased so long as there were no character turnarounds as they were exempt from this competition.
I had a think about what it was that I could design, what things I could possibly create or sketch up when I realised that I already had a piece of recently created concept art that had both character and landscapes in; my Sunset Samurai picture.
Although it was already a week or so old by this point I figured why not? It matched the criteria that deviantART wanted and there was nothing to tell me otherwise so I went ahead and submitted it.
Truthfully I knew I wouldn't win, why would I? I looked through all the other submissions into the category that I was in and I knew that already I didn't stand a chance. Some of the work was truly remarkable and very inspiring to look at, some of which gave me ideas to consider in the future.
I think what I really wanted out of submitting my work was to just have to courage to let a mass of other artists see my work, to have it looked at and maybe even appreciated for what it was.
I don't expect that I'll get any feedback when there are so many other submissions that are stunning but I'm still glad that I went ahead and did it, it made me feel proud that I actually opened myself up at bit and allowed my work to be the subject of so many eyes of the world.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Thought Bubble Feedback
While I was at the annual Leeds Thought Bubble festival I decided to save some of my concept art onto my phone and show the people it who were running the art stalls.
I was extremely nervous at first because these people already had solid places in their own industries and were already very well known by the people who worked with them as well as the general public, but that same reason that made me so nervous to approach them was also the same reason that made me want to have them look at my work.
My thoughts were that maybe if they saw my work and gave me advice then I could better myself a lot faster by knowing what it is that people enjoy looking at in the kinds of art that I do. Not only that but because it is essentially one enormous networking event I thought it would be a good idea to try and get talking to as many people running the stalls as possible in order to possibly try to make connections for the future providing that I made a good enough impression with my artwork.
Upon showing them my work the feedback I got was overall positive. I showed them my samurai picture as well as a few other similar concepts that I had sketched out. The feedback was generally the same, they liked the depth of the work. I was surprised to hear that as depth isn't really something that I would say that I pride myself in when it comes to my work but it was still very pleasing to hear none the less. It got me thinking that I should definitely try to develop my artwork with regards as to how dynamic it is, be in landscape or the characters actions in shot as well as the overall emotion that I'm trying to get across in my work.
At the end of it all I spoke to some extremely influential people who's work I loved looking at, I even got the personal business cards of some of them and will send them emails with more of my work in the future so that I can get more feedback.
Overall Thought Bubble has been a very successful event for me this year and I can't wait for next years event to come back around so that i can do the same again but with hopefully more improved artwork with more practice.
I was extremely nervous at first because these people already had solid places in their own industries and were already very well known by the people who worked with them as well as the general public, but that same reason that made me so nervous to approach them was also the same reason that made me want to have them look at my work.
My thoughts were that maybe if they saw my work and gave me advice then I could better myself a lot faster by knowing what it is that people enjoy looking at in the kinds of art that I do. Not only that but because it is essentially one enormous networking event I thought it would be a good idea to try and get talking to as many people running the stalls as possible in order to possibly try to make connections for the future providing that I made a good enough impression with my artwork.
Upon showing them my work the feedback I got was overall positive. I showed them my samurai picture as well as a few other similar concepts that I had sketched out. The feedback was generally the same, they liked the depth of the work. I was surprised to hear that as depth isn't really something that I would say that I pride myself in when it comes to my work but it was still very pleasing to hear none the less. It got me thinking that I should definitely try to develop my artwork with regards as to how dynamic it is, be in landscape or the characters actions in shot as well as the overall emotion that I'm trying to get across in my work.
At the end of it all I spoke to some extremely influential people who's work I loved looking at, I even got the personal business cards of some of them and will send them emails with more of my work in the future so that I can get more feedback.
Overall Thought Bubble has been a very successful event for me this year and I can't wait for next years event to come back around so that i can do the same again but with hopefully more improved artwork with more practice.
Texture Brush Tuition & New Practice
Recently I've started using a lot more texture brushes in the production of my work. I've found that they are proving to be extremely useful in making quick work of normally quite drawn out things such as drawing rocks or trees.
Over the past few weeks I have been downloading several different kinds of texture brush packs, both professional and public made in order to see which ones work for me and why they work for me.
The results that I've had from downloading each pack as varied from artist to artist, some of which had not correctly configured the brush presets so came out as big blurs. Other texture packs worked well on a one click basis but lacked in quality so didn't bode well when trying to do high resolution art work.
Some others were just generally nice to use on one click basis and also as actual dominant drawing tools rather than using the standard circular hard edge brush to get the work done which created some nice looking misty edges of test work.
As of yet I've yet to actually create a committed texture brush picture. Although I enjoy using texture brushes and they do at times cut out the middle man of having to draw every little thing in a picture thats also the one thing that I really don't like about texture brushes. Its good that it cuts down time needed to draw repeated things such as trees but thats also the most rewarding thing about making a picture; to successfully create something that you wouldn't normally be able to make or wouldn't want to make.
Because I'm in two minds of texture brushes still I'm going to look up tutorials of how to make my own committed texture brushes to use as substitutes for my circular hard brush rather than one-click-does-all tree brushes. Even still I'm glad that I've experimented with other brushes and different mediums of photoshop so to speak.
Over the past few weeks I have been downloading several different kinds of texture brush packs, both professional and public made in order to see which ones work for me and why they work for me.
The results that I've had from downloading each pack as varied from artist to artist, some of which had not correctly configured the brush presets so came out as big blurs. Other texture packs worked well on a one click basis but lacked in quality so didn't bode well when trying to do high resolution art work.
Some others were just generally nice to use on one click basis and also as actual dominant drawing tools rather than using the standard circular hard edge brush to get the work done which created some nice looking misty edges of test work.
As of yet I've yet to actually create a committed texture brush picture. Although I enjoy using texture brushes and they do at times cut out the middle man of having to draw every little thing in a picture thats also the one thing that I really don't like about texture brushes. Its good that it cuts down time needed to draw repeated things such as trees but thats also the most rewarding thing about making a picture; to successfully create something that you wouldn't normally be able to make or wouldn't want to make.
Because I'm in two minds of texture brushes still I'm going to look up tutorials of how to make my own committed texture brushes to use as substitutes for my circular hard brush rather than one-click-does-all tree brushes. Even still I'm glad that I've experimented with other brushes and different mediums of photoshop so to speak.
Doncaster Reptile Expo - Scaly New Inspiration?
Over the weekend I attended the Doncaster reptile expo in the hopes of finding my hognose a colour morph mate for the future as well searching for some new inspiration for creature art in the future.
The day started off well with a free raffle where our entry tags each had their own serial numbers on that we could check with a selection of reptile related prizes. One of which was a heat mat which I won, happy days!
After checking at the raffle stall for any more prizes we went into the main hall to witness thousands of different snakes, reptiles and insects being sold on individual stalls. Originally I was on the hunt for the Hognose stall and nothing else but I soon found myself getting wrapped up in the many different varieties of animals that were on sale and it began to give me new inspirations for creature concept art.
From the whole day my two favourite creatures that I saw were the hognose morphs which I already had a natural interest in related to the breeding program I'm making for them and also the Mantid stall.
The Mantid stall had a vast variety of different breeds of stick insect and praying mantis, my favourite being an adult female Dead Leaf Mantis which found its way onto my hand and happily sat with me as I browsed the rest of the stock.
The sheer amount of creatures around the arena almost overloaded my mind with concept ideas, so much so that I eventually began thinking of horrific Mantis-Snake hybrids to create into concept art which I have still yet to do.
The day all in all was a brilliant experience and I will be sure to go to more exotic animal expos in the future to further my imagination and ideas for newer, freakier concept art.
The day started off well with a free raffle where our entry tags each had their own serial numbers on that we could check with a selection of reptile related prizes. One of which was a heat mat which I won, happy days!
After checking at the raffle stall for any more prizes we went into the main hall to witness thousands of different snakes, reptiles and insects being sold on individual stalls. Originally I was on the hunt for the Hognose stall and nothing else but I soon found myself getting wrapped up in the many different varieties of animals that were on sale and it began to give me new inspirations for creature concept art.
From the whole day my two favourite creatures that I saw were the hognose morphs which I already had a natural interest in related to the breeding program I'm making for them and also the Mantid stall.
The Mantid stall had a vast variety of different breeds of stick insect and praying mantis, my favourite being an adult female Dead Leaf Mantis which found its way onto my hand and happily sat with me as I browsed the rest of the stock.
The day all in all was a brilliant experience and I will be sure to go to more exotic animal expos in the future to further my imagination and ideas for newer, freakier concept art.
Food For Thought Bubble
Recently I attended the 2012 Thought Bubble Festival and like last years event, it was amazing.
This year I went as Batman villain, Harley Quinn in the style of the Arkham City video game.
I only went for one day this year as I had another expo to attend the next day but I still could not have enjoyed it any more than I did.
What I enjoyed about the festival this year was that there were a few artists that I had previously spoken to the year before who's ideas where still in development or still being put to the test in the publishing stage, this year I saw most, if not all of those previous artists with their now published comics and books on sale and ready to buy. This made me happy as it gave me hope and the aim to continue persevering throughout my education and career in order to get to where i want to be.
This year I also met some concept artists who had worked in the video games industry, contributing to games such as Tomb Raider and Halo, meeting them really got me excited as I was able to sit with and talk to people who were already masters of their trade and had solid foundations in the industry that I wanted to be a part of.
On the whole the festival this year seemed to give me more inspiration to use on the whole to go towards my artwork and the boost I need to use different medias of work to attract different audiences.
Below are a few photos that were taken on the day of the Thought Bubble Festival:
This year I went as Batman villain, Harley Quinn in the style of the Arkham City video game.
I only went for one day this year as I had another expo to attend the next day but I still could not have enjoyed it any more than I did.
What I enjoyed about the festival this year was that there were a few artists that I had previously spoken to the year before who's ideas where still in development or still being put to the test in the publishing stage, this year I saw most, if not all of those previous artists with their now published comics and books on sale and ready to buy. This made me happy as it gave me hope and the aim to continue persevering throughout my education and career in order to get to where i want to be.
This year I also met some concept artists who had worked in the video games industry, contributing to games such as Tomb Raider and Halo, meeting them really got me excited as I was able to sit with and talk to people who were already masters of their trade and had solid foundations in the industry that I wanted to be a part of.
On the whole the festival this year seemed to give me more inspiration to use on the whole to go towards my artwork and the boost I need to use different medias of work to attract different audiences.
Below are a few photos that were taken on the day of the Thought Bubble Festival:
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| Harley Quinn - (Batman) & Genderbend Tank Girl - (Tank Girl) |
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| Green Arrow - (Green Arrow), BLU Spy-Crab - (Team Fortress 2) & Harley Quinn - (Batman) |
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| Harley Quinn & The Joker - (Batman) |
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Concept Art Progress
This is my latest piece of concept art and I'm actually extremely happy about how it turned out.
The picture itself is based off of a tutorial that I saw about a horseman leaping over logs in a forest which made me also want to create a forest horseman scene. I haven't actually used any reference from the video other than the inspiration that it gave me upon viewing it.
The picture itself was mapped out loosely to begin with, trying to map out rules of thirds, colour schemes and other such positions. After that I proceeded to use custom brushes to make outlines of treetops, bushes and leaves that would be littered throughout the trees and floor of the forest itself.
This was all done in grey scale, the reason behind doing everything in grey scale first was that it is a lot simpler to match colours for prospective desaturated colour theory in this way before actually having to pick true colours straight from the pallet which, for me, often causes confusion.
After I had finished the grey scale mapping I made a new layer and switched my layer type from normal to 'Overlay.'
In Overlay mode I was able to use various soft and harsher brushes to colour over the grey scale map of the work in true colour and thus was able to make a beautiful evening glow about the work. In my artwork I often prize myself with drawing at dawn or dusk as I love the colours that the sky produces when free from clouds.
I know that I still have a very long way to go before I can be truly happy with my work but I feel like I have made some sort of improvement in my work through the use of my custom brushes and grey scale work, regardless I will continue to develop and try to define my work and style into true concept art.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
NEST Competition - Finished Back Cover
Above is my finished back cover for the NEST competition. Rather than the two birds of paradise at the front I have chosen to turn them both into eggs sitting inside the lettuce nest instead.
Although this back cover is more simple than the front I'd like to think that I've used suitable matching colours for the eggs as I did with the birds in order to make them the focus of the attention and not the flora surrounding them.
If I had to change something about this design I think I would have made it more active, more lively, as right now I feel that there is a lot less going on in this back cover design than there is compared to the front where there were lots of plants and flowers ect.
However I did not have enough time to make this back cover any more lively so have had to keep it this way. Next time I will be sure to look out for this competition as soon as it begins so I have extra time to refine both front and back designs to avoid the sense of lacking that I feel in this one.
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