Tuesday 30 October 2012

Character Design Project: Alien character thumbs 2

After talking to Justin, it has been decided that Alien's body would be based on the below right image. This was based on an idea that I had which to experiment with different insect parts and mircroscopic creatures together on Photoshop and see what Alien structure I can make out of it. It was quite fun exploring around different images and overlaying them . These are all the thumbs that I made out of from the experiment.

(Right: The chosen Alien body shape)


And here are the images that I played around with on Photoshop to get these Alien ideas.







Character Design Project: Class Week 4

Today, we've been told to bring in an interesting object that have no character in them so that we can make out our own. To start things off, we've been given a location and have to come up as many objects and give them character using what that object has and not just adding a set of eyes or mouth. For me I had "Garden" so I've drawn up a list of things which could be found in the garden and began to give them character. 


After drawing up these ideas, we've to choose a hero, sidekick and a villain from the lot. I've chosen a spade due to the shape and could take advantage of the wooden stick. As for the enemy, I've chosen a toolbox which can unleash his trowel and saw henchmen. For the sidekick, I've picked out a watering can only this one would be a "Damsel in distress" type with its flowery pattern and feminine postures. These would have to be developed later. I've imagined what these would look if they were in an animation, so below I've pictured how the evil toolbox would look laughing and in its dominant pose, the watering can in its sad and happy state. The spade in a heroic pose and how it looks smart (with a metal "shirt" added) and also how the spade would look if it drove in a "Wagon-mobile" going at high speeds.


Next, using our objects, we've to create a character and give it personality in them. I had brought in a purple a little brush with flips inside out. Using the idea of it being able to open and close, I gave it a dog like personality using the hinge acting as a little tail. We;ve also had to think of a villain to contrast it. I thogut of a little blusher with a brush which acts as its ally.


Character Design Project: Alien body drawings

After looking up some body structures of insects and germs (Thanks Sammy!!), I had a go a drawing some "insectoid" like alien structure. I got carried away with drawing just the head but more will be up soon!! :D


Monday 29 October 2012

Saturday 27 October 2012

Character Design Project: Odin and Alien Abody shapes

Based on Justin's advice on trying out with the basic shape layouts for my Hero, I gave it a go. From my synopsis, my hero is Odin, the top gun God. Since being the highest rank of all Gods, Odin has a strong big body structure so I've started shaping out big muscular body shapes of him. As for the alien, I was playing around different shapes as well as the legs to see what I can come up with. 


Hero Body shapes

Alien Body Shapes

Wednesday 24 October 2012

Character Design Project: Story Synopsis draft 1


For many years, the Vikings believed that the Giants roamed the earth. Later, a group came along and considered themselves to be “The Vanir Gods”, making the people of earth believe them to be their high and mighty Gods as well as their ancestors.  The Vanir Gods treated the people well, until the people began to realize that more and more of their kind began to disappear. The Vanir Gods hide every possible ways on the disappearances, so Odin, one of the strongest people found out the reason of their people’s disappearances. He found that the Gods that they worshiped and had cared for so long were in fact Aliens after seeing strange technology the people had never seen before. The people of earth waged a war lead by Odin against The Vanir Gods, avenging those that went missing. In the end, the people of Earth won and the Aliens defeated and later left the planet. Odin became hailed by the people as their new God and the people of earth in this era became known as The Aesir Gods.

Tuesday 23 October 2012

Character Design Project: Class Week 3

Today, following up from last week's tutorial on basic body shapes we followed the same idea only this time learning about the character including joints from scratch. This is hugely important when creating characters, similar to rigging. So to start things off, we randomly picked a character (I ended up with Danger Mouse again- but I like him!) and try to figure out the basic body proportions and joints made up of circles. Probably from last week's lesson on Danger Mouse it was quite simple for me to work out where things are, so just for fun I've played around with shapes of the body, making Danger Mouse short, skinny, feminine or even baby. 


Next, using the same idea we've to recreate a distinct character based on what we get. I've got a wizard so I tried to keep the costume simple: A wizard hat, wand, coat, pants and shoes. I felt drawing a baby version of this was very fun especially with its over sized hats. 



I've also asked Justin on some advice in terms of my story. It turned out that from my previous post, the idea of two version of Norse Gods, the Vanirs Gods are  aliens which have roamed the earth as “the ancestors and higher people” until the Aesir came (the proper Gods that we all know), and a battle rages between the two clans until one wins. Though the story still needs some re tweaking  I can start on the character shapes!! ^_^ Also before the lesson, I've thought about the viking costume and everything but this was just a small idea.



Critical Perspectives: Postmodernism- Seminar Notes

Postmodernism Seminar Notes- Godzilla (1954) vs Godzilla (1998)

Character Design Project: Silhouette designs

Going back to the basics before shedding out any finer details, I thought that it would be best if I start out with silhouettes. 


Also here's one that I did as a random quick drawing.

Monday 22 October 2012

Character Design Project: More story ideas


The Vikings believed that the Giants roamed the earth and later a group of Gods, known as Vanirs. Vanir gods represent the older ancestors and higher ranked people whom the invading Indo Europeans encountered. In the end, the newcomers, the Aesir overcame and assimilated the Vanir.                   (http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/norsemyth/a/aa081799Norse.htm)

Story idea1 : Based on this myth, the Vanir gods could be instead be the aliens which have roamed the earth as “the ancestors and higher people” until the Aesir came, and followed in what they believed are the “Vanir’s traditions”.

Two identical probes landed on Mars in 1976 within weeks of each other, while their orbiter mother ships mapped the planet and made other measurements. The Viking 1 and 2 landers were the first spacecraft to take photographs from the surface of the Red Planet. Both carried a series of experiments to test for life in the soil. Despite early promising results, NASA scientists ultimately concluded they had not detected life.

Story idea 2: Perhaps that a space program codenamed “Viking” where an astronaut is sent to space unto an unknown planet and learn of its life there only to encounter warrior like aliens.

Mudbox Week 5: Projection painting anatomy

Today we've been using what we've learnt last week and apply these to our model and add some anatomy muscles on him. We've used a human anatomy image and prjection paint these onto the model. I've also sculpted out some muscles to make it look more convincing, the sides didn't turn out too well.



Friday 19 October 2012

Character Design Project: Photoshop Alien thumbnail

Today after taking on Photoshop Phil's advice on getting the proportions right and making the character in 3/4 view full. I focused on creating another alien thumb but this time trying to add the viking traits like big build and muscles etc into them. I've created this guy, which looks a bit "The Predator" thing, first this was done without Pen pressure added and later refined with the Pen pressure on.


refined- Pen pressure added and without thick lines

Original- quick drawing without pen pressure


Wednesday 17 October 2012

Character Design Project: Story Ideas

After our talk with Justin yesterday, to be able to create my character Justin advised me to look at Norse mythology especially on dragons. I thought I could expand this to help me with the story. So here are some story ideas based on the Norse mythology.

Tuesday 16 October 2012

Character Design Project: Class Week 2

Today, we focused on shapes and their meanings behind them like super heroes would mostly be comprised of squares to show power and dominance whereas friendly would be more round shapes and finer lines. To start things off, we've been given a character and we can either make it more evil/ friendly or even superhero kind. I've got Dr. Facilier from The Princess and the Frog, since the character is evil and is mostly made up of triangles, I recreated him in superhero and in friendly gentle giant style. 



Next, we did the same thing again only with a different character and instead of shapes, we're to recreate it in a more simpler tone and in a more realistic way. This time I had Danger Mouse,  from the Danger Mouse shows, recreating him simpler was quite tricky at first as he was already in its simplest form, but I've to simple him more down to the style of Hello Kitty. As with recreating him in a more realistic tone, I could've made him more realistic but ran out of time.



I've also asked for more advice on creating my Alien Viking, at the minute these images look too generic and not viking-like so Justin suggested that I have a look at viking tales and dragons to see if I can think of a story and build my character.


Monday 15 October 2012

Character Design Project: Viking and Alien Thumbs

I've looked at some Viking Armour and try to create characters separately  I think audience wise, I may go for the 5-10 years age group, where they style isn't too simple and too defined for the children.




Based on looking at my influence maps, here I've tried to combine different parts to see what I can come up with. I've been mostly trying to work out the legs from a chicken's anatomy and try to apply them onto my thumbnails. 













Mudbox Week 4: Maps and Displacement Maps

Learning today about maps, stencils, stamps and displacement maps.

Front

Back

Side

Character Design Project: Alien Influence Map

For my alien character, I am going to look at different animal parts like, birds, fish and lizards mostly and textures as an experiment.




Friday 12 October 2012

Character Design Project: First drawings

Today, I felt a bit lost as to how or where to start this project so I went to see Photoshop Phil today for some advice. I wasn't sure whether to have the two genres meshed together or have them as separate which would either mean Vikings are heroes and Aliens are bad or the other way round. I thought it would be interesting to see the two genres meshed together, so I was advised to start on pen and paper and draw out ideas for each genre and then later decide what can be meshed together and what not. I also asked how to change my cartoon style as I wanted to explore and tryout to draw something in a realistic way. Focusing on my previous alien drawing, I restarted it on a fresh slate and used the advice and tips from Photoshop Phil to recreate it only in a realistic style. I also thought about looking at different anatomies of animals to help me create an alien as to avoid falling into the "generic alien" area. I'm really happy in being able to "break free" of the cartoony style and recreating a previous drawing into a realistic way. Hopefully I'll be able to use this in this project!! Anyway, here are the drawings from today before meeting with Photoshop Phil and after (which also includes an image of combined parts to form an alien on the top right!) Influence maps will come. ^_^ 


The improved realistic version! ^_^

The original

One of the first drawings