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.

Design Brief: Blue Beetle rework day 1

Today I got my first brief from Nigel- To take Ditko's (dorky) 1960's version of the Blue Beetle, and re-imagine it as a concept for a live action film for an adult audience. It also must have some kind of Egyptian twist to it. And we cannot draw ideas from the DC/more recent blue beetles. We've got 3 days to come up with as many variations and ideas- not finished illustrations- as we can. Designs for the character, his flying beetle vehicle and his gun (optional) are specified on the brief.

Starting off by brainstorming out some things in my sketchbook at Southfields during lunch. A nice twist on this brief is that it isn't too constricting- the setting isn't described at all, nor does it specify that Blue should be a hero, or even human for that matter. My prior knowledge of this guy is based entirely on the much more recent "Young Justice" cartoon. If you can't read my chickenscratch at the side, don't worry, its just my way of jumping between trains of thought (something you might already be aware of if you've talked to me irl).

I'm pretty interested in the thought of a 1930's explorer in egypt idea, finds the scarab and gets cursed...or something. Another idea is an almost Kick Ass-ish teenage vigilante, though for an adult audience that may not be the right path to follow. Looking into scarabs and different types of beetles, different time settings/locations, age and gender of the BB, Dystopian post-apocalyptic future BB, incorporating the 60's version's chainmail  and goggles into the look, - And also remembering that he has a vehicle and gun to feature in also.   

-Sam




 (Unrelated blog running postit note:  I'll be setting all of the older posts as hidden/private so its clear what is my postgrad work.)

I return to education! But first! A recap!

I guess I'll just have to accept my fate as an unpredictable blogger, who often leaves large gaps of deadzone between well documented..uh.. "stuff". (Stuff that we're going to call work.)

Most of the work I've done since June (the last update! oops) has been life drawing and the world-building concept project I mentioned in the last post, Oculus Sclera.

These can all be found in my portfolio site at, probably, higher resolutions. I never decided whether this would be a game, animation or comic, so I just designed and wrote til I got an idea of the world I wanted to make.  Basicly, a peacekeeping force known as Oculus protected a royal family of the largest kingdom, but they got betrayed and all but destroyed. Years pass, and it falls to the two characters Howland and Jessica to take back the kingdom from the evil faction. 

 

The Oculus Sclera is the reborn organization, of which Jessica and Howland are the main members. I decided early on that Howland would be a talented magic user, while Jessica's ability lay in her martial prowess, and together they could pull off combos and synchronized fighting styles. 

Another thing I knew from the get-go was that, while Jessica would be the melee combatant, she wouldn't be totally heavily armored. But she wouldn't be boob-window, here stab me in the midriff, chainmail bikini clad. So I tried to come up with some alternate styles. The first is the ceremonial Oculus clothing which is very similar for both male and female- coat, sash and boots. Though the male version includes a blindfold (for plot reasons). 

They would each have the basic "?" looking staff weapon that would transform into, in Jessica's case, swords, bows and polearms and for Howland, a series of elementally themed staves. art wise, I came up with about 15 or so silhouettes but only developed this one, Siren. This was the first time I had attempted anything like this so it was an excellent learning experience. It certainly gave me focus, to have all the pieces drawing from a single world concept. 

While I had a pretty good idea for the OS magi, the Mundus remained pretty badly described in my notes. So while exploring the idea of what was originally a mecha design for something else, it became more of a weird magitechnical golem. The Mundus then solidified as faction that combined technological advances and previously known magical enchantments, while holding firm "mundane" beliefs. ie, magic users shouldn't rule as "absolute power corrupts absolutely" etc. The above golem would be piloted remotely by the Mundus leader, a surprisingly young man who was disfigured and has turned to experimenting on himself and others for "the greater good of the kingdom".

Anyway, moving on from the OS work, as you can see if you checked out my portfolio, it was only a means to an end. Getting into my choice of masters of art course (MA). I was successful in my application! (huzzah!) And I'm now living in Middlesbrough, in the North East of England. The course title is Ma Concept art for animation and video games, and I'll be studying here for 12 months to graduate next September.

Classes are to start this coming Monday and I'm very excited! I'll be bringing this blog back to life as I write about my experiences and reflect on what I've learned during the week.
I've set a rather lofty goal for myself, however. To work my damnest and during easter 2014, submit my work to imaginefx to see if I meet the standard. I have a few other goals in mind, but each is more distant, and at the moment they would be impossible for me. First, get into imagineFX, then to paint a MTG card design, and finally, someday, work for Arenanet. Getting a degree out of this course is a nice side effect.

-Sam

Ps. If I get a spare chance, I'll update the layout/background of this site, its just a liiiiiittle bit dated I feel.

This week's life drawing!

This week I was trying a different approach. This class is structured to be untutored and the poses are usually a mix of long and short. Previously, I've drawn messily in conté and then smudged it together for a colorful mess, which while usually looking good, is a lot of fun to explore. This week I wanted to do something more restrained and also something without construction lines. So using a 0.2 fineliner pen, I drew Clare from various angles and tried to get the form and proportions down before blocking in some shadows. I think i need to work on the lines of these shadows though since they leave the figure looking carved or angular. 

Next are some more random sketchbook pages from drawing in the various Clements coffee shops around Belfast! Drawing with a morning coffee is an excellent thing! Also some drawings of various fantasy and not so fantasy weapons, I was playing with designs for more silhouettes for my Oculus Sclera project (Which I will write up and explain in their own posts! If you're interested in worldbuilding, maybe you'll find it interesting?)

I'll be back on thursday, or sooner! With more sketchbookery and mmmmmmaybe print designs! Woohoo!

-
Online Portfolio!

Oh. Its you. It's been a long time. How have you been?

Haha, excuse my Portal 2 reference, but it has been just shy of a year since I last updated this blog. Things got a bit hectic there towards the end of last year, with moving house, living with friends and moving back, then my application for the MA didn't go through for February. Since then, however, I've been trying to draw and print more, so that I can re-apply for the same MA in September. I now have life classes twice a week, one being a regular fine art untutored session, and the other being 3 hours of fast paced gesturing and sketching; a tutored club in the University of Ulster for Life drawing in Animation.
Printmaking got set aside while I've been focusing on strengthening my anatomy and drawing technique, but with the R.U.A's annual exhibition open submission date looming, I'm thinking of a few new plate ideas- perhaps I'll get three pieces in, who knows?

Portfolio wise, the previous content wasn't close enough to the requirements for the course, so between now and August, I plan on developing on the things which I lack. Namely, Character design, weapon/vehicle design and environment concepts- with several variations thereof.
To this end, I've chosen a short story I wrote when I was younger to be the setting that ties my designs together. I think it'll do the overall portfolio good to have some connecting theme, and to give myself an anchor as to not get too bogged down with small details.

Thats it for now! If you wanna check out some of the work I've done since I started my life drawing classes, check out THIS LINK RIGHT HERE. It will take you to the tumblr tag "Sam's draws" on my non-srs-bsns tumblr.

Thank you for reading!

Old post short title

First an apology, I have been neglecting this blog and my art of late. I haven't been able to finish things or follow through with ideas and its been really frustrating; there has been a personal matter that has been really stressing me out recently also. I'm trying to follow Neil Gaiman's advice that I should use the bad times to "make good art"  but so far I've only managed pretentious scribbles and other rubbish.

thanks for taking the time to look :)

Sketchbook update

I didn't like how the design for the White Walkers and tried to get my image from the books on paper. Something like the figure above. 

Miscellaneous sketchbookery. I got some cheapy fibre pens so I could add a bitta colour into stuff. Limited palettes show I'm not a master of colour choices lol