Grumpy >_>

So i 'liked' the head i first did until i finally textured it. As you see below it's a laughable attempt towards Deans concept. So i'm grumpy and have been thinking whether i should redo a head. I came to my conclusion, i'm redoing it.

Heres the blueprints for it. I'm attempting to get it done over tonight and tomorrow, unwrapped and then finally textured within mudbox. God help me! :3 Hey, atleast it shows i'm critical on my own work. also i'd like to have a go at something really organic and less polys than the previous head i did. The more i do stuff like this though it's going to get better and better and i will improve. I've already decided to leave the top of her head off for now. The blueprint is more or less a sketch it isn't perfect but it's to keep my imagination in line.

Wish me luck, i'll get pics up for you guys. Sorry i aint posted on my blog for a while i admit i was being bad enjoying my christmas drunkness :P

Progress

I know the legs are off colour at the moment. I had to do them in class without my graphics tablet. It wasn't to bad but it would have been much more handier to have better blends with my graphics tablet. Ontop of that I need to play around with the colours and add stuff in via photoshop. Nothing is finished these are just progress screenies I will add more soon. She looks to human right now and some bits i'm not overly lighting. that's where more editing is involved.

So far...!

I know it's not fully complete just yet but I'm almost there with it. It's rather daunting when something ballses up on you .....the bloody arms ext. Anyway ignore the hands for now I'm working on them and her feet and calculating how her posture should be along with maybe a longer torso. I just need to figure some stuff out a little. Here are some screen grabs anyways.

Almost done!

Yeh the model is almost done. Gona need some cleaning up but certain places aren't completed yet like the top half and the legs. I might be working more into the gauntlets. The skin does have a Turbo Smooth on but looks around the same without just a little more jaggedy lol but it's able to be taken off anyways. Ontop of all that her helmet still under construction.

Show you lot more tomorrow when I get it finished or close.

Internet Fixed, for now?

Yeh I had the guy come out and apparently it was a area issue. Annoying as hell having the internet act worse than dial up. So I did start modelling my character and here are some screenies of what I have done so far. Doesn't seem like much right now but thats due to me trying to get the armour curved right. Still needs some work so I can unwrap that bit and move on to her legs.

Me and my comp fell out!

Yeh as it says. I'm so angry with my computer! then to add to it where having internet trouble again so I'm waiting for the dude to come out tomorrow and fix the problem. Annoying as hell when I'm trying to get my work together and I'm suffering constant lag. God knows what it is I might have to wipe my whole drive or something.

Anyway I have my first characters blueprints completed. I had to restart the other ones I did where terrible lmao. Ontop of that I am also fixing up my character head and plotting blueprints for her helmet. I'm glad to say I am about to start the 3d on my character finally.

sorry there isn't any images right now I'll get you all some tomorow.

character Head - Hero

So I started modelling my characters head. So far it seems ok but It just doesn't seem to go to the standard I want yet. I'm debating a few things on it right now and I may have to come into college to find out from Dean where I could improve the model. I think the cheek areas need some sorting out it either looks to much or to flat i might have to look around at a little reference on this. Im also porbably leaving the top of her head. Nobody will ever see it due to her helmet so yeh poly saving for my scene. I'm still wandering whether maybe modeling the top of her head might be nice and then playing round it it in mud box. Who knows? I'll ask Deans advice. I did look at my first character model, good god, who let me hand that thing in? hahaha. The topology is not very neat and I've got some crazy things going on. The only thing that is good on the model is the nose. Anyhow, here is pics and comparison to how I have improved a little.

Om nom nom mudbox om nom nom

I guess i thought i'd have more of a play around and actually record it too. Still not the best at the program but I'm trying to get to know what tools are best for me. The wax is pretty good i'd say for building up flesh or the bulge.

Heres a pic and a video.

Man to Female

I had more of a play around with standard human body, changed it to a female just so i could have a play around and then finally posed it quick to get used to the tools, having way to much fun in this program it's almost deadly.

Mudbox = Lottie addicted

Oh no I can't get off the thing i love playing around in it haha. I created the guy in class today and the girl before using the practice head. I had a play round with painting on her face too.

Time can suck!

Wish I had more time on this but you know it's finished now and done and out the way and potrays what I wanted it to. So enjoy guys :D

Constructing Final Digital Piece

It's not the best thing in the universe but it does get the point across. Still requires a bit more time and effort so bare with me. Thought I'd get a progress image up for you guys. The planet I did myself I will hand that in aswell along with my work.

Design Document Template.

So like, well, I missed last year on a lesson explaining this whole template thing so I'm a little confused but Chris helped me out a little over msn. Anyway I designed a quick background. I could do better but I'm limited in what I can use. I don't want to go over the top either. So It's ok. Not my best or anything but I can live with it I guess.

The reason it's nothing spectacular is because the images I tried to use where basically to small and pixels. I did my best to fit in a nice template anyway I'm up to my eyeballs trying to complete work for once. So forgive me if it's not the best thing ever. I'll take some advice though if anybody has any to offer to me.

Finished 'bad guy'

Like I said I have a week to finish all this stuff so I am just blocking out the characters best I can. they are not perfect but hey it gets the whole point across and that's, well, the point right? So you know i hope you guys like and as I usually say things can be changed overtime ect.

Hmmm....Evil....YAY

So i've been working on the evil guy today. I've worked a little less stressed out today on him now my other is out the way so I am actually adding a lot more detail into this peice to show of my skills a little. Anyway here is a sneak peak. The white rope bit is actually a spine i just habn't worked into it yet.

It'll have to do!

Well, I like it. I actually wasn't going to do these characters done up so I'm proud I am doing them. Even if they are blocky it's something else to show the effort I'm trying to put into creating my characters. So I hope you guys like it. The weapon is blocky because well, I aint even designed her a weapon yet. The blocky idea I sketched in I like but you know there is room for change at this stage.

The golden colour on her armour is interesting, it's the same colour as the character in the original game joust. It might not be a perfect piece but I know I will go back if I get slightly tired of modelling and build it up more and more and make it into a great piece hopefully.

Back to basics?

So i have my hero almost completed, the base that is before any patterns are to be added ect. I'm going to take the drawing back down into grayscale and clean it up, give some defined edges to the piece and fix anything that looks off. Then final work up the colour again and try to keep my pallet generic. I have some colours I do actually like at the moment on her so I will be making a small pallet of colours to use for her tonight. I will post up a few images later of what I have achieved so far. The lack of definition seemed to make me not like the drawing I was doing but now I know the problem it can be fixed by putting some effort into it.

Thanks everyone who gave me the flu too -cry-.

Lineart or not?

I'm not sure whether to use line art or what. This peice is tiring me out a little, I'm finding it hard to like for some reason and I can't put my finger on it. I don't think it's the colours or anything I think it lacks maybe some definition?

Anyway I desperately need your guys opinions! -cry-

And snap went the bloody pen!

>.> yes my graphics pen decided to break however it's been sort of celotaped a little now for a quick fix and luckily a bloody good fix. Anyway i have done quite a bit of work however I keep seeming to restart things. It's like I keep thinking what I do isn't good enough so I am just going with these pieces I have done so far. they will be completed by the end of this week hopefully.

The first one is the female hero. I went for the auburn sort of hair like back in medieval Britain, It is a nice touch I reckon. Ignore the sleezy cross on the shield bit, it's just plonked there for now lol.

The second piece is the dark mount he is almost done and I have started the bird but he is half done at the moment. I'm worrying over colours a lot so you know shout at me if it seems a bit shit.

I am having a ramble now too because my bloody computer is too slow when drawing it's making my life hell I swear but you know I decided to make the files big....-cry-

Pull It together!

So i have my mounts finally sorted. I really like them. I kept the bird close to the original game and added in my own ideas for a futuristic machine bird. As I am doing all this I am planning on the shapes I will be using to model both creatures & characters. So here is a basic lookout to what I have been doing this week.

I hope you guys like what I have so far. Most of it is a block out though. It's better to show what I am doing though and show the process and get opinions. I also am a week behind on this so I'm having a little freak out on getting this concept done and dusted, you know, I wanted it to be a great piece and not shobby.

The colours i used from a sunset picture to get a pallete, may pale them down eventually, clouds should be in the distance anyways.

Mount Designs

So I have designed several mounts. I wanted to keep things similar to joust but try to maybe take a different approach on things. So I just drew several animals that came to my mind. I am no animal artist but I did thoroughly enjoy it when i got into it eventually. I find doing stuff like this expands my knowledge and can even help within my character design for inhuman beings and such and such. I have really tried hard even though I know I was going to struggle on this aspect. So you know if you try your best stuff comes out eventually.

Here are a small bunch of concepts I did for mounts!

Dino Fail ?

Anyway i thought i'd put this up so far. She might change, i havn't put much effort into her due to i might get told she isn't good for a main char ect ect.

Also the dino looks a bit turkey like at the moment so thats due for change too. I like the face so far ect. Hopefully update my comp next week I have been lagging crazy lol!

Continuing with the drawing!

According to the timetable I set myself I am actually behind by a week, however, I have managed to try and figure out a way to step around this problem. I'm going to try and just get both character done digitally next week I will set myself 2 days for each piece and maybe more if need be I shouldn't panic myself to much though it will just cause more problems during the future and i have set myself 2 weeks to create blueprints for all 4 things I will be modelling. I personally don't think I need as much time doing this.

So I have been drawing female characters. Dean liked the idea i show both my skills modelling male and female. I like this idea too although I still am making my mind up a little on the aspect. This is what is troubling me a little. I drew up a idea for a female character. In my mind it lacks something. I'm not sure what I just look at her and find her a little plain and boring. I used aspects from my thumbnails but she just isn't something I think is worth trying on but this is when i finally pull out that eraser of mine and change things on her before I scan her in...

Something else also, with the mounts I only feel strong with the dinosaur so far. I'm not sure why but it fits well with my whole ideas and can give me a good chance to do some really organic modelling. I wanted to add character as well...i was thinking maybe having the dino muzzled some how so it can't bite the rider ect but shouldn't a jouster feel with their mount? Maybe they are bonded or something along the lines that way.

So it's been a eventful week I guess. I'm still struggling on creating my characters though. I'm just like will this be good, will that be better and then tangling myself up on what to come up with and any ideas i do some up with I am like...well maybe that isn't good enough.

Free for change!

Well I like the below image to a extent however it is just too mad in a way. The background seems very harsh compared to the rest of the image. It's just almost to bright. So I'm going to start some quick research into how character artists/concept artists present their work. For one, doing this will help me achieve something more acceptable to hand in. I don't want to be handing something that looks a mess in.

So expect a few more character sheets soon presented a little better.

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.