I used the website http://lovecastle.org/draw/ to get my references. And it's great!! You can put how long you want the image to stay, and there are different categories of photos you can choose. Hands, horses, cats, heads, draped figures, and naked figures. :) This is becoming my favorite place to go now.
A quick sketch that may possibly represent a 3d scene that my friend and I will work on in the next month. I'm doing the human character, she will be doing the environment.
I'll talk about school next time, but Winter Break has started and I'm in a drawing mood.
Thank you ABC Family channel for showing me UP twice in one night, and making me see that Russel has a cute bright face mode. BTW, I just noticed that the old man parked the derigible in a handicap parking spot at the very end of the movie.
No time for long descriptions, but here is my "last" DFG assignment for the year. I designed a boss character for some imaginary video game. I will be modeling and animating this character next semester. Looking forward to it!! Now to finish off my last 3D project for the semester..... Wish me luck!
The assignment was to pick an existing game and draw an environment based on it. I chose Bioshock & Journey, because I couldn't make up my mind.
Progress work:
I first started out with thumbnails, just to get the general composition of the illustration. I liked the buried look for my building, so I came up with these three. I liked having the pillars frame the scene. I wasn't sure what kind of pillars, but definitely something Art Deco, for the sake of Bioshock. The idea was that I would have some kind of Art Deco architecture in a Journey like desert environment. I kept a faint backstory idea that the ocean had dried up, and turned into a desert.
I decided that Journey alone wasn't interesting enough, because the main goal of this concept art was that I would eventually make it in 3D. I didn't see enough sculptural detail in Journey for it to give me the opportunity to have a portfolio worthy scene. Journey looks more like a lighting and physics game, than something that showcase high poly modeling.
Once I chose which thumbnail to develop further, I started with a line drawing to begin my blocking.
I felt that the dome was taking up too much of the visual space, so I trimmed it into a cylinder shaped "dome". I also added a tiny "dome" in the background to balance the composition.
I wasn't quite feeling the last drawing, and my teacher suggested to lower the character to make the dome feel BIGGER! I went back to the round dome just because I liked that shape better. Moved the smaller dome closer, and turned the pipes in the last drawing into glass walkways.
Then I started coloring it! I found out that I had some trouble trying to develop a scene completely in black and white. I normally can draw a scene in value with my pencil, or even on Photoshop, but I was in quite an artist rut! The only time things seemed to have been going right was when I just went straight into blocking flat(ish) colors. I added some water to emphasize the dried up ocean idea.
As I entered polishing stages with my illustration, I realized that logically, there would be trees and bushes around the desert stream, but I didn't want to add that kind of visual noise. Journey is completely void of nature and almost empty. So I removed the water, researched more Art Deco styles and architecture, and sweetened up the illustration!
I have been so busy that I haven't had time to make a blog post. I feel guilty about my time right now! But as a personal thing, I really want to reflect on what happened.
I finished my Drawing for Games texture/silhouette assignment. Instead of the render shading that I wanted to do, I ended up just putting flat shades onto my drawings to fill the minimum requirement of the assignment. I spent alot of time on the line drawing by re-drawing & redesigning all of my chosen concepts on paper with pencil, inking them on paper, then fixing up the lineart in photoshop.
I also spent alot of time on my 3D assignment instead of Drawing for Games, because there was a modeling crit due for my still life scene.
The still life project is over now. Overall the project was challenging, frustrating at times, fun, and a work in progress...still. I didn't pass the assignment due to bad tessellation, texturing, and lighting. I modeled just fine, just my end result did not reflect the beauty my high poly models had. I have a lot to go with texturing and high to low poly baking.
I've also come to realize that I tend to start strong in a project, then crash somewhere near the end. I should really be crashing at the beginning, if anywhere. I need to work on my timing and texturing.
Here are some pictures from the still life project "Vanitas":
And the final product:
Project had to be under 7k polygons, a total of 4096 pixels for texture, a skull, a peeled citrus, a vessel, and a cloth with recognizable folds.
I will continue to make my still life look better, but for now we are on to our next project: Realistic Environment. We had to choose an existing game so that we have a definite style we are emulating, so I choose Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Just starting it now, so progress pictures on that some time later. I am also starting concept drawings for my fantastic environment, which will (for now) be based on Bioshock.
I have some older pictures of what happened with my 1st 3D assignment, "Modular Kit Construction" and the "What happened here?" concept art.
For my modular kit, I also need to work on that when I have time (2nd priority to my Still Life, because I actually passed the modular assignment) so that it can eventually become a portfolio piece. My concept art was ok. Not my favorite, but a good first try on doing something was not really a matte painting, but kinda was.
Cruise pool deck, Modular Kit
What happened here?! Location + Disaster =
Abandoned coast of Hawaii, 10 years after a nuclear war.
Hawaii being rediscovered after 100 years.
What have I learned?
Work it harder, make it better, do it faster, makes us
stronger;
more than ever hour after our work is never over.
So alot went on this week, personal and school related.
I am happy to say that my dad is doing well after experiencing some discomfort earlier in the week! I thank God always for watching over my parents. Sadly, my dog passed away recently (marked in my last post), but he will always be with me in my memories. My dad put together a wonderful frame for my words of reflection.
For my Drawing for Games class, I've developed 50 silhouettes! It was a fun process.
And then from 10 of those silhouettes and 5 other sketches, I came up with these!
There will be more of these silly looking characters later!
My modular project came to a completion, and it was alright for a project we were basically given a weekend to do. I learned alot of optimization skills, and experienced many mistakes that will make me more prepared on my next assignment. (Check the grid sizes first, then see if its all to scale with the player!) I will post up pictures once I update it later on this week.
Our next assignment is a 3D Still life, so some small scale details will be the main focus! Whipping the good ol Zbrush program out, and testing my sculpting skills.
We have been the best of friends since my early years of Highschool. He was intelligent. He was fast. And he was very small. We named him Sable because of his dark hair that was not quite black, but a very dark brown. He had a mate named Tory, who was 2x his size, and had 5 children (1 of which we kept for a while, named Tess). All of his children, even the runt of the litter, was bigger than him. He was a miniature Pomeranian.
He was a smart dog because no matter what barricade we used to keep him away from the bedrooms, he would sneak thru the smallest hole in the corner, or bounce off the gate enough times to make it fall over. He would do whatever he could to get to my room. He slept on my bed whenever I could sneak him into my room. He would hide food or pig ears in my room, and sometimes inside my shoes, because his wife was a greedy eater and eat his food. He would always listen when me or my parents called him. We trusted him outside with no leash because he was that good. He had a bad habit of peeing over anything plastic in the house. He has been to an Anime convention, and got to sleep in a hotel. He went with us almost everywhere, except into restaurants.
He passed away 4am, Wednesday, August 32st, 2011, due to health complications. My mother was a trooper who went all the way to another city by metro train to get him to see a doctor. She was told she needed an appointment by 2 places, but one place finally took him. He had my mother at his side, and she never gave up on him.
My dad reminded me of the movie "All Dogs Go To Heaven", and he said that Sable is definately there and will be waiting for me. I hope he has fun playing with the angels. Goodbye, Sable. I love you.
Starting the school year as a JUNIOR! Only 2 more years from now til I graduate...heh!
And within this week, I've already bought Corel Painter 12 (for $10!), have my 1st big assignment due next week, and up to neck in HW! I've also just recently told myself that I actually really love MODELING!
I hope I can consistently show what I will be doing this year. I know there will be alot of amazing things happening this year! So maybe blogging once a week!
I have a modular building assignment that I will getting my butt in gear on as soon as I finish this post. Cruise Ship Pool Deck was my choice. I have to create 2 differently organized pool environments in 2 weeks. This week was already taken up to do research and start on the building blocks. I have to have blocked out the 2 pool environments by this Saturday, so.....by tomorrow! Wish me fun and good health! lol.
My schedule for this year is pretty sweet:
Working my 2 times a week job in the office, so I really need to organize my time well. (Blogging is a good use of my time, im sure.)
Marty is an awesome teacher, who came from an Art Director job at Midway. I look forward to improving my skills greatly with him as my teacher.
Cooksey is awesome too! He majored in Philosophy, quickly got into computer scripting, and is constantly updating the curriculum for Ringling's Game Art Major. His mind is open and very knowledgeable.
Jason Bennett is new to the Ringling Faculty, but hes got great skills and is fresh from the industry. Ringling Alumna. He will make a great concept teacher. I'm excited!
Ok, well time to eat and get back to the grind. Next week!
Don't have any school work to show you at the moment. Too lazy to get back into dem old files. They are like haunted grounds with memories of late nights, lack of sleep, and looming deadlines. But what the heck?! That just represents what the industry is like too! Kinda scary. Tho it's actually "fun" while doing it, the aftertaste is so bitter.
Sooo... Instead of going into haunted files, I am here with a wip teaser. Heeya!
My Summer House! Its like being inside The Sims build mode, but in the EXTREME. Create EVERYTHING from scratch, AND make it functional functional funtional funal funnel CAKE.
An illustration for my 3d sidescroller game.
It still needs a lot more work, cuz I believe this illustration is going to have the title on it, so I need some title space. Not to mention, I'm going to remove the dood in the middle. But I actually like having a character in the middle. :(
I made my setting in somewhat a cave like location. Ofcourse why is there moving platforms in a cave? ...You tell ME and Ill let ya know if you got it. ;)
Below this point are 3 illustrations that show how to interact the physics obstacles.
Not no way, no how near done. But this was just to show off my color scheme and design for the texturing process. Still needs more modeling! ALOT more. And shes only asian FOR NOW. I tried to fix her face last minute, and it turned asian on me.
