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.