Back in business!

After a long week of Animex talks, workshops and networking events, I'm finally back at my computer to update this blog! It slipped by the wayside as deadline for the first semester drew near, so I'll start off with some of the finished paintings and speed paints from then, and at the bottom I'll show some of my Animex sketches.

These are a mix of character and enviros from the Excelsior brief as they appear in the final submission, along with a compilation of sketchbook work from the visual development. 

Gryphon final painting- This was a somewhat arduous painting. I can't say I'm exactly a fan of painting fur and feathers and somehow mixing the two. 

Taken from T.S. Eliot's "Preludes" - the line "The Shower's Beat" inspired this painting

Now that that semester 1's briefs are all concluded, We have three more (with a fourth yet unknown) for the second semester. So far we have received assignments from:

1. Pete Amachree : The "what if" roman history brief, of "What if the Romans discovered and developed practical uses for electricity?" 
2. Ron Ashtiani : NeoRacer brief, Car concept with weapon variations, or Eden environment race track
3. Shelly Page : Dreamworks character brief, design a character from the list for a new setting
4. Jack Couvela : Mysterious Ubisoft brief ~~

 I'll be updating at least once a week now for the next semester with work any of these assignments (or anymore that we receive.)

Edit: I forgot about the Animex sketches, I'll add them in during the week since I don't own a scanner :)

Drawing for Concept Artists Week 4- Identify resources and demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of techniques required for a range of drawing tasks

a quick painting over of the gryphon in the style of the american bald eagle, a lioness and the secretary bird. 

Feedback:

• Chunkier feet!
• Give him more of a feathery ruff/mane looking effect to reinforce the join between fur and feather
• Look into albino lions/fur patterns
• Will the tail be fur or feathers?

Next we were to draw the cityscape using our previous drawing and our imaginations as the only reference

Instead of a life model this week, we did conceptual work based on a still life set up in front of us, and had to imagine it as a cityscape using the various media provided. And then we were left to combine the three into one with photoshop, as a potentially new way to arrive at a finished product.

Since the overlay and multiply blending layer modes result in quite loud colours, I collapsed the layers and ran a gradient map layer, collapsed it and painted quite loosely over the top to try and bring it all together without getting tied down in small details. 

Life Drawing for concept artists week 3

For Dave this week, musculature maps of our creatures. 

• Lost some of its sleekness from the side view to the front view
• widen the hips and make the feet chunkier

Life drawing with Maggie in afternoon

Life drawing for concept artists; week 2

First off, I received some great feedback from Dave on the Gryphon skeletons and also to further the assignment for next week by creating a muscle map on top of the skeleton (front and side views); paying attention to where the bone pushes through the muscle and can be seen through the skin, eg pelvis.

•  Size of the skull with regards to how intelligent I want it to seem
• Wingspan to bulk of gryphon
• define wing bones/scapulae/clavicle -sternum from a front facing view
• begin to think of possible plumages and how the feathers join with the fur
• Tail variations, though a long tail presumably for balance.
• Movement; How would it walk/fly?

Next, Maggie took us for two hours of life drawing, similar to last week's class, with an hour of short fast poses and a final 50 minute costumed pose, with a focus on details and intricacies. 

 (click to enlarge)

Since we had much more time for the "long" pose, (50 mins), I decided to thumbnail it out and get the general angles and placement of the figure sorted before I dove in on the actual page.

Its scribbly and messy but it definitely helped me register the whole figure, not to mention solve a few problems early on, rather than having to fight it out at the larger scale. 

(50 minute costumed pose)

As a change of pace, we then visited the Maggi Cullen exhibition Constantine gallery in Middlesbrough Tower for an hour, with the instruction to pick some of the exhibits and draw from them.

"Morris Men" - Maggi Cullen

-Sam

Gryphon skeleton assignment

(click images for larger version)

For drawing for concept artists last week, I received the assignment "draw the skeleton for a fantasy creature, but make it believable".

I'm not quite sure I've managed the last part, but I chose the Gryphon/Griffin; head, wings and front legs of an eagle/bird of prey, with the hindquarters and tail of a lion. It wasn't until i started gathering avian skeletons like an estranged beachcomber, did I realise how weird this creature is. First off, its got two sets of back legs- how am I to make that work? Also following some research into pegasi and the wingspan required to lift an average sized horse, I decided that my gryphon would be about the size of a dog. (and then started pulling some personality from dogs as well in the poses.)

Drawing for Concept artists, week 1

Yesterday, we had a 6 hour class titled "Drawing for Concept artists", and as you might expect it focused on drawing ability. For this class, the Games Art (MA) and Concept art (MA) are joined together, so we started by giving short presentations of our work up until now as introductions. Then we had to show 8 nudes (of varying weight/race/gender/age/pose) that we'd drawn from imagination- My attempt is below.

Then we had a life drawing session, and it was ...definitely different, at any rate. I'm now pretty glad I kept the sessions with Claire and Michael up over the summer. Especially one exercise, when Maggie, the tutor, played Macklemore through the soundsystem and asked the model to walk/dance to the beat in a circle, giving us only 5 seconds at the most to get the gesture down before she moved again.

 I just grabbed a conté randomly when we started so these didn't come out the greatest when I photographed them, well enough to get the idea across, I hope.







This next exercise involved the model walking forwards but each step drawn needed to be connected by the previous foot- I think  like the 2nd one the best, though I didn't manage my space properly and didn't fit in the feet.

The next assignment for this class is to draw about 3 sheets worth of skeleton designs for a fictional creature, the kicker is that no matter how fantastic the creature, the skeleton must work. But I will cross that bridge when i come to it- probably after I've finished the Blue Beetle assignment for tomorrow's Character & Environment Design seminar.

- Sam.