Process Showing?

Well I finished one design sheet. 1 I say I got like 3 or 4 more to do maybe more of all my characters. I thought I would have a play around and show my originality. The coloured guy can be easily turned back into black and white if there is problems or people think it takes away to much from the rest of the characters. I rather like it though It shows a process and shows that I am actually thinking of ideas ect.

So you guys can tell me what you think please and give opinions, please note these are not finished characters they are just my ideas so far with a splash of colour I guess.

Presentation comes first!

Sorry I haven't updated this place yet. I'm currently working on presenting some images which will hopefully be ready by tomorrow night. I wanted to get a tasted and use all this pre production to warm up my skills a little with drawing so I have decided I might make little colour experiments in my presented images. You know, it's just to see if I can get my shading, colours ect right for armour and what not. I still haven't decided on a hero yet but that will come during next week in my digital piece stage.

So this week I need to finish presenting my images. I need to start my dinosaur & whatever creatures I'm going to draw soon as well. I did give myself quite a bit of work to do but I'm enjoying it and that's the main thing.

So hopefully I may have a image ready to go up tonight for a taster of the work I'm doing at home.

My scanner sucks lately. I didn't play with the settings much to show the pencil better. Anyway this is what i have created today. These are just the basic sketches or silhouette that I have come up with. I will be doing more tomorrow hopefully I made sure I finished four tonight and put down any ideas that came across my mind. I spent less than 5 minutes on most and took Stas's advice. I think I like this better than what I usually do. It just gives me so much more freedom than trapping myself to one figure throughout the drawing when I can recreate different poses for different sort of characters.

As you probably notice most of them look a little menacing so far but there is room for more as I am doing more work tomorrow to get next week booming with ideas. Now I did some research along the mounts so I have freed myself up around 2 days next week so I can do more character silhouettes and hopefully get a idea by the end of next week along with mounts.

So my drawings, well, I like a few of them so far. Some are not as strong as others but this is where improvement can be made. Taking more extraordinary bits from other thumbnails and merging them into another character. I seemed to have a lot of use of using skulls for armour. I think I am going dino crazy! But yeh I like the idea of a thick skull covering near the pauldrons maybe to give extra protection.

As you can also see the first image is much more detailed. This is just a sum up of the ideas i have so far. By no means does it mean I will be using him I just really bonded at the time with the idea and got a little carried away. I kept his helmet similar to the actual game helmet and had the idea of him having many feathers ect over him or what not.

So I worked hard today and will be continuing tomorrow I will post up my progress for you guys to see. It would be nice if people commented some feedback on what they like so far. (Or hate >.>)

Research - Jousting & Armour

So yeh i also saved a few videos into my favourites. I thought you know...good ld jousting tournaments but it'd be cool to see actual decent impact and de-horsing. Sounds kinda mean of me but stuff like this shows the true nature of jousting. It isn't just all friendly. It helps me portray how my characters will be. Even if he's a good guy he's not gonna be a puff! So yeh I looked into some videos and I noticed how some jousters have extremely heavy weight armour which seems to restrict their movement a lot however some jousters seem to have a lot more freedom in their armour.

You know watching that video made me think OW! There is a little bit in it where the guy shows his arm. Even though he was fully armoured the lance completely smashed into his arm causing severe bruising. Seeing this video is making my mind fill with so many ideas. I know I am not recreating the game but you can just see the potential with modern day graphics how something could become a brilliant game that people would love (and relieve stress haha).

Now I found this other video It is extremely helpful towards my character design. He explains what armour is classed good enough for jousting in how he prefers to joust and the little bits and bobs that are needed under armour. Like he says I wouldn't fancy having my skin trapped in a steel plate. Owch! This is great information though towards creating my character I know how he should look and know what he should be wearing and then maybe I could take a twist on everything when i merge ideas together.

More Research - Mounts

So I've been sat here just thinking after a lesson we had today. I want a little break from my characters for a few hours but wanted to be actually making good use of my time. So I thought well lets go and have a look around you tube and see if i can find anything interesting on dinosaurs. I know for a fact i want the evil guy riding some sort of pre historic beast. I think it fits in well. It'd be cool to give it cybernetic wings of some sort too but this is where my concepting and ideas move together.

Anyway I found a interesting little documentary on you tube about a bird dinosaur with four wings. I thought it was something completely unique I have never heard of it before but the documentary was a good 50 minutes explaining the bone movement ect and how it flew with 4 wings. I think this would be a great idea for a concept design for a ostrich mount. Me and Dean discussed the ostrich...it just doesn't seem fierce enough so i did decide it may be best to change the idea a little.

So I went on and watched another decent documentary on dinosaurs once again. I know for a fact Joust is set around the time of dinos so it's a great thing to just look into what stuff was there back then after all the riders do have pre historic mounts....including the ostrich which I personally find 'ok' but not very good as a mount after looking in me research. Most people fall off the things. I guess that why they made them robots maybe they where programmed to be good!

So moving on i looked at a quick video of someone riding a ostrich. Yeh, you can ride one. Could you joust on one though? To me it just seems like a awkward mount to joust on....she can hardly hold herself upright and someone has to hold her back. I don't think it's overly fit in a way because it can't even flap it's wings to fly up. I mean the concept is good I guess and looking at the cover art for Joust they are robotic...so like i said maybe there is some mechanics going on in there? You never know. I had the idea though...keep the ostriches and ect...maybe let the players choose the mounts they wish to ride in game. It'd give me more opportunity to change ideas then without ruining the whole concept.

Thumbnail Sketches

So I am beginning to do the thumbnail designs for my work. I did want to do this all free hand however because my time is limited to the end of this week I need to think on what will give me the best results in the quickest pace. I'm no perfect concept artist or a master or anything so i don't need perfect drawings or anything spectacular. As a striving character designer I want to show my basic ideas and to be honest I will be sticking with my guns. I don't want to try anything new this isn't the time or place for stressing myself out and spending to much time on a peice. It isn't worth it.

So I will be repeating this 'template' I have hand drawn and eventually I will be building up armour on the character. I think this template is fine for now if I had more time I would surely try to free hand the lot of them but I want the character finalised at the end of this week but this doesn't mean it will be rushed or anything. I find this way of doing a character simpler for myself and it usually turns out pretty decent.

So is this it? No, I'm going to do several character sheets for each character genre. (Evil & Good). Then it will be built up and finally I will come up with a nice character sheets at around week 6 then finally blueprints will be created so I can get ready for modelling each character.

Anyway back to what I'm doing. I will be putting this character template within photoshop and then copy & pasting it several times over a page. It will be then printed out and I can just let my imagination run wild and add armour ect to each little figure until I come out with something I like best.

So I'm going to get to work and hopefully have a few sheets of thumbnails up soon.

Beginning the work!

So i have sorted out my rationale. I now know I'm going to be sticking with my idea and I can't change it. To be honest i think the topic I have chosen has really got my mind working. After a good nights sleep and a cup of tea I've had many ideas pop into my head today.

So last week I managed to complete what I set out to do. My research is done. Not that I'm stopping but the basic researching of the game and armour is just about done to a expectable standard however I will be adding to the research constantly over the next 2 weeks before I finally have my set ideas. There isn't really a end to research when doing first concepts. Anything can be handy for reference or just to see how something works. As i said to my tutor, I don't want a knight that can bend every bone in his body fluently in armour...it just doesn't fit I also don't fancy seeing a guy half naked jousting j-style unless he fancies having half his limbs torn in half because jousting is pretty brutal. So along with my research I managed to get some basic brainstorms done. I just jotted down ideas that came up into my head and anything i learnt from research. I did do a little pondering into the weapons they used and realised that they usually had second weapons and little things built into their gauntlets called gadling spikes. Basically like studs, but I'm sure it'd hurt being smacked in the face with those things if your helmet fell off during a jousting battle.

I thought it was a great idea to go and have a search around a few armoury sites. Rob sent me one before too which I'm taking a good look at. It's useful for understanding which bits are which. Pauldrons, gauntlets, chest plate all that stuff. It's handy to have a little knowledge. I found a great site of a man actually creating a helmet from steel. It was fascinating to watch him create it and gave me a insight on how i could create a decent looking helmet in 3d and maybe have bits that could move to cover the characters face ect. These are usually called frog mouth helms according to my research. Apparently a lance went through a kings eye or something along the lines. I forgot his name lol...

So this week it's time for the sketching. I did have a bit of block going on due to being tired and grumpy. I was sat in class and nothing much came to mind, I was finding it hard to concentrate but finally got to grips a little after some sleep. So this week is basically concepting, gathering research on my characters and by the end of this week hopefully having 2 characters i like ready and if not i can compromise into next week when i am concepting mounts and obviously researching them as i have already gathered some extensive research on dinosaurs ect.

I also needed to think, because i am having 2 characters built I thought around the 5th/6th week in pre production i would try and get a basic body modelled out and a basic head. Then during production I can easily work into a base model to save me time in the long run. I had a few thoughts also, maybe just keep the helmets on the characters so the head doesn't have to be insanely detailed but I know I have a strong point in my head modelling and it would be nice if the helmets could be removed in the renders and the characters rigged maybe holding the helmet. I wanted the evil guy though to be more 'organic' like his armour is sort of built into him like some sort of half dino man or something mad! This needs to be sorted out though I want to explore as much as I can but i do like the idea of him having smashed armour from jousting however his skin is that thick and his bones that thick that it hardly effects him but this is defiantly something that can be looked into.

So hopefully I managed to get these damn concepts done! I'm going to be working on them everyday just putting anything that comes into my mind down. I don't want a idea that goes to waste anything is good at this point I think and everything can be changed at this point.

Also the images I have up top are from research. I really feel inspired on the third image, the golden gilding upon the steel is a brilliant idea for the good guy to make him look like a true knight. I was thinking something along the lines of those colours for him, bright and dark contrast well for each character to show their true nature ect.

What Is Joust?

Well looking around the net for a good few hours with my cup of tea (yay) I have managed to gather some basic research. Mostly just on Jousting. Coming back though I am now looking along the game. There isn't a lot to it really with it being a old game but here is some information i have gathered.

Joust, what is it? - Joust basically a arcade game and to put everything in basic context you just fly around on either a ostrich (if you player 1) or a stork (player 2) whilst wielding a lance and kicking ass. Now the enemy computer simulator is a knight mounted upon giant buzzards . You get different speed levels and the game is pretty much static, you get the platforms and a pit of lava beneath everything. Obviously if your bird decides it's lazy today and you fall in the lava ya dead! So according to my research you can control the flight levels on your characters ect ect.

So reading this it gives me a basic idea, the videos i have watched seem to help out also. Watching people playing the game was rather amusing it seems rather frustrating. So back to my original plan. Create a character, well, update a old school character.

Throughout today I have been constantly battling out in my head. What's the best thing to do? Scrap the birds that they originally had in the game or would that actually effect future for the game if it was ever released if I was working for their company. I mean it could be like instead of having guns in Call of Duty lets just give them bananas. I understand that changing the mounts could be a way of putting more of my imagination through however I think if I did change the birds it might not be a good idea. It'd be great if I could have opinions on this. If I was to keep the birds I would probably change them a little add my own stuff into it. I think this is something that needs to be discussed with people and could probably be a good idea to add into my presentation so that people in my class can give me a little guidance.

Anyway, moving on from that. My two main characters. A good guy, a evil guy, the game gives me the perfect opportunity to do this. Looking at the cover art a swell it lets more ideas flow into my head. So I think I have that bit sorted and can start researching around a little. When looking at images of jousting i liked the black and white going on with the decoration ect but I know this isn't very original but i could easily start from there and manipulate things. I know for a fact I want a colour scheme for both characters before I do any digital pieces. It's my downfall and I need to just stick with colours I put down for myself.

So any suggestions or opinions I would love to have!

Fresh Start: Planning

So we got the basic's given to us and thats it now it is all of our own backs. So I've thought about my idea and i like where it is going so far so it's a definite for me and I'm going to stick with it now and see what i can produce. My idea flows quite well there is enough room for change if need be such as mounts could become anything out my imagination but obviously I'm going to reel myself in a little at first and just list down basic animals and then work from that starting block.

So this week i think it's wise i just start getting anything out my head down on paper. I don't want to leave myself dawdling around there isn't any point so i am going to start sketching out crap. (literally lol). I want to just keep my ideas fluid even if it's scribble as long as I can actually see the sort of character I'm going to build up his attitude through stance and the weight from his weapon ect. I don't want a character standing up perfectly straight without any strain from his weapon it just looks to fake for my liking and it's something I have never thought on before but it could actually help bring my characters to life. Maybe I could be going to far here but I just think it's time to understand things a little better and why I have the chance now I think I am going to take it and push anything I can out of my head.

So basically, Joust, what do I think? Well first off Knights, horses, weapons all sorts pops up into my head. Now think about this, if I can take that lot and just manipulate it and make it more imaginative. Maybe it could go along the lines of armoured old guys with bin lids jousting with their walking sticks. Haha, joking but it's still a idea right? This is what I'm trying to do. I want to manipulate something without ruining the whole aspect or point.

Now the first thing I could do before drawing is actually looking around and researching a little into the game Joust and the obvious medieval jousting. This will give me a basic understanding. How will my character be? Will he be full of himself? Weary? You know all this stuff, battle scared? Rough looking? Long Hair? No hair? You know this stuff just gives me the basics for my character silhouette and thats the first aspect that drives my mind crazy and gets me going on creating and using my imagination.

I think the best thing to do is start a small brainstorm this week naming everything from my research and then I will start sketching out my first basic silhouette. Just body structure, no detail, maybe a bit of stance and character to them it's amazing what you can put on stuff like this. Even if it's the worst scribble in the world I know I can revamp it up to a digital piece worth looking at.

So my list of things to do this week are:

1 - Gather the basic research on the game & jousting (just the basics for now)

2 - Brainstorm my Ideas.

3 - Start basic sketching of Ideas. (Preferably a good wad of paper on this)

4 - Compare my ideas & mix and match (So take one drawing and another and mix together)

This is what I will be doing this week.