Character and Creature Design WIP

I'm a little behind right now because I've been busy with other class projects. But I've got a good start so far, I think. 

I did some research on desert wildlife and hunted down a lot of animal reference material for creature design. So I took a few animals and start playing with their designs, mixing some together or exaggerating proportion and scale.

I'm a lot more comfortable with creature design than human design for some reason, it might have to do with my not being afraid of messing with animal anatomy. With people I'm a little hesitant to push proportions and and gestures, which I really need to work on; I might do some really wacky characters just to get out of the uncomfortable zone. You can see it in my character silhouettes that the people look a lot more stiff than the creatures do.

Anyway before I get started on doing environments for the next step of my project I want to get a solid design for my main character and a villain. I also want to have a couple semi-rendered sketches for each of the creature silhouettes I did, and explore their designs more; sort of like what I have below for the nomad sketches.

Scaled to size

Silhouette designs for the nomad

Sketching the Nomad in a couple different designs. Trying to find a good solid design between them all

Concept Piece for printing

So we had to make something 2'x3' to be printed.

I decided to draw my Nomad character on his giant lizard mount. The focus is really the lizard, because I find creature design a lot more fun for some reason.

Colored

Black/White

Line Drawing

Final Project idea refined

After thinking it over for a bit I decided to stick with my original final project idea. The sci-fi western game I'm calling Project Nomad. I just have the most ideas running through my head when it comes to this idea, and it will still be fun to work on. I'll still do some personal work on the side for the internship portfolio.

For my goals I realized that the biggest one I have is to get back to a good work flow that fits me. Working on fundamentals (ie. composition, perspective, color, etc.) is still important to me; and I'll try to find a way I can incorporate these practices with my project. Third I think I want to fiddle with some of the story, and do some storyboards.

Since it looks like we have just 3 weeks to work on this project, I need to set a realistic goal for what I will produce. That way it won't kill me.

• A couple character designs (2-3) w/turnarounds (Hero, Villain, Civilian?).
• A couple creature designs because they are really the most fun to create.
• Some Environment stuff
• 1 exterior set w/perspective
• 1 interior set w/perspective
• OPTIONAL: 1-2 Landscape paintings w/color
• Some vehicle designs w/textures (Amount doesn't matter, have fun and experiment).
• Some weapon designs w/textures (Amount doesn't matter, have fun and experiment).

The Timeline. This is difficult because I often multitask and will jump between areas.

(Assuming) Week of

• Feb 25  - Characters & Creatures
• Mar 4   - Environments
• Mar 11 - Vehicles & Weapons
• Finals    - Document concepts for professional portfolio and presentation.

Research to be done. First I think I'll do some fun research and watch some western and post-apocalyptic stuff, for things like the story, sets, culture, and the mood. Second I'll do some costume and equipment research for the character stuff. I'll also study wildlife, the animals and plants for more realistic creature and environment design. Lastly I'll research real life weapons and vehicles to learn how they work, which will help me create fake but believable designs; if they look like they would work then job done.

Art 348 Self-Assessment

Frazetta!

• For the most part my work is progressing well. I've been more dedicated this term than I have in the past. Outside of our class assignments I've been doing a lot "studies" on my own time; things like reading books and studying other artists and trying to emulate their work.
• I know I still have a lot to improve on, and I'm very determined to strengthen my weaknesses. I still need to work on perspective, color, composition... I basically need to strengthen and master the fundamentals. I would like to see my work totally evolve in all aspects. I want my stuff to start looking professional. 
• Aside from technical skill, I feel pretty good about my knowledge concerning Character and Environment design and how to improve further. I'm actually really interested in learning more about storyboard stuff because I want to do more comic book stuff, also I've been thinking about experimenting with 2D animation. 
• I've got a couple final project ideas. The Nomad project (Game), Carceri (Game), Dead Beats (Comic), Mark of the Macabre (Comic), Internship Portfolio. 
• I look at a lot of artists, you can find a list of current artists at the bottom of my blog. I also look at an assortment of artists from older generations and the Old Masters. Frank Frazetta, Piranesi (recently), Rembrandt, Goya, Durer, etc. Aspects of their work I would like to emulate? I think the phrase "Fantastic Believability" sums up what they all have in their work that I want to have in mine. They understood what it took to make a captivating piece of art. I'm really interested in finding out what it takes as well.

A whole mess of Environment stuff

Film Still Studies

 From the Movie (Trailer) Cloud Atlas. Studying Light, Color, and Composition.

Environment Thumbnail sketches