Another one down

Range 1920s.

I've been using Blurb and trying to get everything compiled for a book. I think this software was made by someone who despises the world. It's sinfully painful to get it working at times.

I've stopped thinking about how much time is left. I really am too nervous to consider it. I'm just trawling through and hoping I get enough done. It's not worth the terror of counting the days.

One down, millions to go

I finished the Eastern Fantasy Support. It brilliantly crashed a whole lot so about half of the video is missing (hooray!) but at least the picture is done. I spent a long time perusing Japanese pictures when drawing it. It was really, really hard to pin down what makes a traditional Japanese picture look like a traditional Japanese picture, but I think I hit at least some of the key points:

1) Canvas texture

2) Background (Will pop one in later)

3) Calligraphic lineart - though a lot of pictures had quite simple lineart, it helps to make it look authentic anyway

4) Pure black hues

5) Smoothy straighty "wavy" lines - I really can't describe it. It's just something I tried to get a feel for.

The basic idea behind this character is that he's a Houngan sur pwen from Africa who was taken to and raised in Japan. The skull is a mix of a Gashadokuro and a fetish used for healing, protection, divining and other things.

Maybe I can do 3D after all!

Sorry for being arrogant, but I'm really proud of myself!! I can't believe how well it turned out. I know it's not brilliant by normal standards, but considering I was so unconfident in my 3D ability, I think it's so much better than anything I've done in 3D before. I'm so pleased!!!

I did have to use a tutorial to do it, which I was grumbly about at first. I tried not to be overly dependent on it so I did my own model rather than the one in it. I feel like, if you follow some tutorials exactly, you don't learn how to do anything for yourself; you just learn how to make the thing in the pictures. By doing this model, I had to think how I could apply what I was learning and how to actually use it myself. I really felt like a learnt a lot too.

3Dizzle

If you like uncanny valley, you're going to love this.

 

It's not finished, but I don't think it's going to look a lot more different. I tried really hard on it, and even though it is a bit eerie, I'm happy with how it came out. I figure it makes a good addition to my Honours too!

It's taken two days so far, and while that isn't a very long time, I think doing a body will take up too much longer when there are other things I ought to be doing.

I'll post wireframes and the UV when it's all done. Hopefully it'll only take a few minutes tomorrow, then I can get back to those final pieces.

Horrible Week

Between taking care of an invalid and intense landlord drama, I haven't had a productive week unfortunately.

In short, I no longer have a decent connection to the internet.

We had an email about the degree show from Craig today, and apparently everyone who requested a monitor will have to share one with up to 3 other people. I felt a bit bad that, as a character artist, I get equal allowance as a 3D modeller, so I offered up my space to give someone a better go.

We had an Honours pin up on Monday. It was nice seeing all the work on the wall, but I wish there was a bit more. I put up my favourite characters and got to work on the 1920s background. The past few attempts I had were just awful and I felt a bit miserable doing them, but the one from Monday went a lot more smoothly. It's not finished, but I felt a lot more in the zone and I think it's already a big improvement over the others.

Jennifer

I should mention that the monster here is just the mouth thing, not really the girl. 

Jennifer is a parasite that lives in the mouths of its victims. It spreads its eggs to new hosts, where it grows more parts. I guess it's a zooid of sorts in that they're individual organisms, but they act as one unit. I think Jennifer could do with more detail, like little barbs or sacs to make it a bit more gross, but I'm happy for now!

Toby

Next monster done. I used a different style for both him and the background. I want it to be like an archive made by many people; someone sees a monster, draws it, puts it in the book. I hope they're looking okay so far.

Reginald

It was suggested a while ago that I do monster pictures for my Honours. I did my first one today.

I'm no good at naming things so for now, all the monsters are going to have regular names, like Alan and Kevin and Tim.

This one is Reginald.

Reginald is based off a monster in a nightmare I had recently. I don't really remember what happened; something to do with hell, and he was turning everything hellish and scary and trying to take people with him. 

I don't much like the background, but Josh and Rhoda said that it's good to have backgrounds for characters sometimes. It shows context and atmosphere. So, I gave it a go, and I guess it gets the feel across!

I also didit in a sketchier style for 2 reasons:

1) I'm better at it than super-polished things

2) I think it gives a nicer look for a monster book; like someone saw it, drew it and documented it rather than it just being a glamour shot.

So yeah.

Please tell Reginald what you think of him.

Great song, or GREATEST SONG

Just to make sure it works! Jack suggested saving it in chunks, lest I lose the vid. This way, I only lose a bit.

For some reason, none of the toolboxes show up and the bottom of the screen is cut off. I don't know why that is yet, but I'll try to figure it out for next time.

All the rest

I'm starting the final images soon so I'm uploading all the characters that I haven't yet. There are still 2 more waiting - 1920s Civilian and Eastern Fantasy Tank - and they are designed - but there are some things I want to change about the pictures. They'll be up soon though!

Well, it's time to have a go at the first proper picture. Wish me luck!

Eastern Fantasies

I began the new group last week. I got off to a slow start, mainly because of the research. I don't know a lot about Japan and I wanted to make sure it was fairly accurate aesthetically and historically. There are some sites that have a lot of good info - though some were a bit hard to find - so I've been trying to catch up now. So far, I've done Civilian, Range and Support, and I't part way through the Assassin. The colour scheme (If you couldn't tell) is black, white, red, yellow and a bit of pink.

Last of the Horrors

I really dislike this one, but there doesn't seem to be much I can do for it. That's pretty much what it does, there aren't more poses than that and it's just a shadow. Shadows don't have shading since they are shading. It makes it look flat and messy and horrible, but what can I do?? I think the final image could look okay, but there's not much I can do concept-wise.

Horror Batch

I'm having a great time with these characters, I really am. I'm a sucker for horror, so getting to do this team now has been a bit of a pick-me-up.

Time's running out so I'm not spending as long on these design sheets. I'm aiming for 1.5 - 2 finished per day. That way, I get plenty of time to do my finished pieces. This means cutting it down to 1 coloured picture, several finished linearts and maybe a shaded one if it seems to need it. I'm trying to get some essential poses and things down so there's a decent reference there rather than a set of useless images.

Anyway, here are the Civilian, Range, Support and Tank!

EDIT: Looking back, they seem a little bare. I might add more pictures, especially on the Civilian and Support.

Characters

I finished the Western Fantasies and I moved onto Horror. It's a lot harder than I thought. I did the Soldier, and now I'm on the Tank. I can't think of many (Or any) poses for it as it's just a big lumbering... thing. Also, I want to have detail on it that'll take forever to draw. I'm not going to go all out at this stage because it's too much, and hopefully it won't drag me down too much on the final image.

Looking at the WFantasies again, I think the Tank needs to be bigger. The problem is that I was relying on her summons to be the 'bigness' of her, but when they're not with her, she looks very small. I'm thinking more armour will help. Maybe I should make her something other than human, then add some extra details to make her seem a little more punchy.

I need to find the time to fix up both of those Soldiers too. Panic is really beginning to set in now.

Applied!

Application is sent away. I'm not going to check over anything because it's too late to see if it's okay, and if there are any stupid mistakes I'm just going to feel awful about it.

I'm terrified.

Here's the revised Range picture. I think it looks a lot better now. The background makes more sense. It's  a shame to discard the old one, so maybe I can use it for a different picture!

Maybe Enough

I've got 6 images together for my portfolio. I'll see if I can squeeze anything else in,  but if not, I think this is an acceptable amount.

I thought it'd be best to refer to my Range as Sniper, just to be sure they get what she is. Range is kind of vague.

I have to include a covering letter and a CV. I don't really like doing either because
A) I never know what to put in a covering letter
B) I don't particularly like publishing my botched A Level results
C) I really don't want to be judged for these things over my pictures.

Criticism would be appreciated, but I'm hoping I don't have to change something that would take me hours to fix. If it comes to that, I'll just have to switch pictures.

Western Fantasy Range

Hoping to use this in my portfolio.

Western Fantasies

I started work on the Western fantasy characters, mainly assassin and civilian. Since we have flat viewings approaching (props to landlord for being so vague with the actual days of them), I had to take out my wireless again. Jack's been nice enough to let me borrow his computer to upload this.

The memory stick digested the assassin so the Photoshop file's now flattened. I might have a deflattened one somewhere if I'm lucky.

I kind of hit a snag with outfits for both of them, as neither really looked like proper Western fantasy. After doing some research, I realised that I think it's because they weren't revealing enough. I'm not a major fan of pointlessly sexy outfits, but without it, it didn't look right. So, I gave the assassin an exposed middle and the civilian some cleavage and hips.

And yeah, their proportions are odd, but I'm trying to go for two completely new fantasy creatures. I don't want to hog Jack's PC for too long so I won't go into depth, but basically

assassin = extra long legs, kind of short torso, wide glarey eyes.

civ = big head, long neck, wiiiide hips, tiny hands and feet, looks like a goat.

Kindrits

For Futures, we had to make a poster for a game relating to what we thought would be popular in our essays. I spent a decent amount of time on it, and finished it yesterday evening at about 9ish. I was then up until 2am trying to get a name for it.

That's FIVE HOURS.

In the end (With help from Jack in the form of names like 'Twid'), I came to Kindrits. The idea behind the game is that, as a rite of passage, everyone is paired with a soul-mate type creature that you're bound to for life; like a shared destiny thing. The name is a mix of kindred and rite to show that you get your familiar when you earn it, and it makes you whole.

It's not flashy, deep or clever, but it's aimed at kids who just want to sink their teeth into a fun hook, so I figure the best way to do that is with just showing off what the game involves: swords and a magic pet.

geedeedee

Not sure how much we're expected to have done tomorrow, but hopefully I've done enough. I'm annoyed with how long it's taking though. In my timetable thing, I said I wanted to have done a whole level - all three tiers - the finished story and more characters before Christmas. Well, it's now after Christmas and I've only done an isometric plan of one tier, half the story and very little on the characters. I definitely thought it'd be easier than it was. I guess I forgot that one level with 3 tiers = 3 levels.

I'm quite happy with the plan though. I told Stu I'd only done 1 new picture for GDD, which is only sort of a half truth. While it is only 1 picture, it's one big plan with at least 4 screenshots and a walkthrough. Not great, but not too bad. It currently looks like this:

The original is ridiculously big: 10,000x10,000 pixels and 600mb. Hopefully I can keep adding more to it tonight.

I decided to do the bosses based on the chakras. The good news is that it gives me a base to start designing. The bad news is that I have 9 levels planned, but there are only 7 chakras. I'll have to work around that somehow. I'm thinking that I could use the Third Eye as a three-in-one sort of chakra - two bosses could be first and second eyes maybe.