Sketchbook 11 - Character Design and Toys

First sketch was of a toy helicopter I used to play with as a kid, I wanted to go for a vehicle design, and my aim was to try and achieve perspective with as little guidelines as possible, I think it was a fairly successful attempt as a sketch, but I did have some trouble with the wheels.

 Here I sketched two character designs, the first a warrior woman of sorts, I still need alot of practice with female characters, but I'm ok with how this came out, I think the proportions fitted well, but I wasn't too pleased with the face at all, although the scan of the image takes away alot of the shading.

The next character was a alien/creature design, really rough but I fele it has quite a bit of character, I like the overal design, but once again the shading disappearing on the scan has annoyed me a bit.

 Here was a sketch of a Luke Skywalker figurine, not pleased with this one at all, admittedly I was tired when I did it, I don't like how the head came out at all, then again the model's face was somewhat melted. I think the body isn't too bad, but I could of done better overall.

Life Drawing 6 - Female Model

This week we had a female model posing. As with the male model, we had to draw her in different poses at different durations. The first image directly below was done with a single-line however, in order to just draw the silhouettte, had difficulty with this technique as I was tempted to simply draw all the features in, still it came out ok despite how difficult I found the task - especially in mapping the anatomy.

 

I was fairly happy with how my longer skecthes came out. I avoided drawing the face and mainly concentrated on the main proportions of the body, I was pleased with the results, I've learnt alot with these classes and I feel it's shown. I think the only real difficulty I had was with the legs and thigh, getting them at the right angle was difficult due to the perspective of the pose.



Sketchbook 10 - Broken Dragon and Monkey Man

 I found an old dragon toy I owned, however it was missing a few parts, but I decided to sketch it anyway as it made for an interesting design. I feel like my line work is getting stronger and I am happy with the piece, I fill the form came out strongly.

Here I drew a monkey man character hanging from a branch or pipe, I played with proportions on a bit for this one, but I like the overall composition and design. I'm also pleased with the shading as it is subtle but makes it stand out.

2d Lesson 11 - Harmonising and Speed painting

The first thing we had to do was a speed painting in an hour, based off a reference. I think the foregrount figure of the boy on the left came out well, but I had difficulty in doing the background, or at least getting it more realistic, but I did find an interesting technique when it came to making it less obstrusive, by using a grey fill on a opaque layer to flatten it down.

The second exercise was another speed painting done in 50 minutes. I had a bit more difficulty with this one due to the fact my monitor at the time's colour wasn't accurate so the image came out alot lighter than I expected. I like how the came out, however I feel I failed in regards to the composistion off the image (which was more at an angle) and I used too much yellow where I should of used blue. Still in future these mistakes will be the first things I focus on foremost.

Lastly is a painting I did using a limited colour swatch from a previous image - that consisted of mainly yellows, pinks, and muted purples. I'm in a mixed mindset with how this came out, I like the creature design, but I had difficulty painting within the limited colour scheme, but I feel it was able to achieve the exercise's goal.

3d Lesson 11 - Unwrap Model

This week I had to texture a pre-made model that hadn't been UV Unwrapped.

Using the UVW Unwrap tool, much like the same way I did for the t-shirt model. I had to find the seams in the model in order to texture it, I also used the relax tool to expand the map and pixels to prevent stretching.

I really disliked the model as it had terrible clipping and the textures poked through with rough edges. The eyes also bulged out and I couldn't fix it in the render. Still as an exercise I am satisfied with the texturing, there was a few stretching incidents, but it otherwise came out well.

 



Finally I did a quick exercise to produce a texture from a photo using Photoshop.

Using the grid overlay view and transform tool in photoshop, I was able to take a part of the bulding and skew it so that it was flat and not at an angle. I've done this before but I never thought to use the grid overlay before, and it was incredibly helpful, I'll definitely not overlook it in the future as it speeds up the process and makes the texture more accurate.

Then all I had to do was place the texture onto a box, and preserve the uvs so I can extrude the windows into the building.

This was a quick method to produce textures for buildings but I found it helpful and can see it coming in handy for creating low poly assests.

Games Encounters 3 - Atmosphere

Life Drawing 5 - Male Model

This week in life drawing, we had a male model posing, and had to produce timed sketches of him in different poses.

Initially I had difficulty but as I found as I did more drawing, it became easier to visualise the proportions, and break up the anatomy. I did find myself struggling with the perspective of most of the poses, and I found the proportions were even more difficulty to get accurate as I wasn't used to drawing this particular model's build.

Sketchbook 9 - Action Figure and Monsterscape

First sketch was of an action figure I've own for years, I felt it would be a good model as it has human proportions and an interesting character design. I'm fairly happy with how it came out as a sketch, I felt it rendered quite well, I'm confident that my shading technique is coming along.

This is a sketch of a cityscape being attacking by a giant monster. I was very happy with how the shading and texture came out on the monster, although the camera obscures this somewhat. My next aim will be to practice more with drawing humans in perspective.

2d Lesson 10 - Oil painting

 

This exercise was to paint up a character in photshop, using provided line art, with a particular technique.

I put in flat colours first, then added a base shadow, before rendering the light with a hard edged brush. I like this technique quite alot, it produces fast results, and has a nice distinct style.

I also learnt about mixing colours to create lighter and darker areas rather than just adding black or white, this was a really useful technique is it helps me keep the colours from washing out.

2d Lesson 9 - Character Design

In this lesson I  had to use Sculptriss to design a steam punk frog character.

I started with a basic sketch to give me a rough idea of what to make.

The Sculptriss program works in a similar way to Z-brush in the fact that we have to sculpt and mould the model, rather than work with polygons. I found it fun to use and the click and drag control scheme very user friendly.

Once I had a basic model done, I simply rendered it and took it into photoshop to be painted over. I found this a good way to quiclly design organic things and it eliminates the need for doing line art. I really enjoyed this method of designing characters and I hope to do more of it in the future.

As for the painting I was happy with my character's design, I had to create the model if photoshop when I did my paint over, but otherwise Sculptriss supplied a solid base. I think I maybe should add goggles to the frog or something to maybe make the Steampunk theme more obvious, but other than that I think it holds up as a concept well enough.

The Swordsman

Click for full image.

Another personal drawing I did, for a fantasy set of characters. I used the same techiniques as before, but this time tried painting with textures to add more detail to the armour.

Sketchbook 8 - Commuter and Banana Warrior

This was a quick sketch I did of a guy on the train as I was coming home. I didn't try to be too accurate with it instead I wanted to capture his form and defining features, as I wasn't certain as to when he would be getting off the train. I think it came out ok, but if I had more time I could of definitely refined it more.

This was a design for a banana warrior I came up with, I'm very happy with how it came out, I was pleased with the composition and shading and I feel like it could be a strong character design for a project in the future.

2d Lesson 8 - Bug Guy

In this lesson I was tasked with painting in a line art of a giant bug, using textures referenced from a photo of insects.

I found this to be a quick method of applying texture and material to an image, by layering the texture on and painting/smugding it into the painting. I used the textures exclusively on the bug, before adding in grass and a background. I added rain and a color filter for atmosphere.

I did not particular like this task too much, as I found painting with textures to be rather trial and error than an accurate method of painting. Although it produces nice texure and surface, I think in future I would rather paint using more traditional methods.

3d Lesson 10 - Texture Unwrapping

 



In today's lesson I used the UVW Unwrap tool to accurately edit and align textures to a model.

Starting with a cylinder I used the unwrap tool to move and position the uvw map so that the tin's base and sides were located separately.

 

Then all I had to do was to render the uvw map (which give me a wire frame image), and texture it in photo shop.

 

For the t-shirt, I had to pick either side of the t-shirt and apply a planar map to it, in order to create a copy for the front and back, as well as introducing seams.

 

 

Finally I positioned the back uvw map over the front, and using the stitching tools to stitch the seams together so the texture can pass through seamlessly, and without any misalignment.

Although a simple design, I like how the T-shirt came out, there wasn't a need to use a too busy texture, and I can see no stretching on the design. There are more automatd ways of doing this but I think overall this was a good introduction to using the UVW Unwrap.

Life Drawing Lesson 4 - Mixed Media

 

In my latest life drawing lesson, we had another skeleton installation set up, however this time we got the choice of what to draw and what media to use.

 

 I started off by sketching with pencil, the I added shadows using ink, before finally using charcoal to outline, and add a few minor details to the sketch.

I was very happy with how this piece of work came out, however I would of preferred the paper to be a bit thicker so I could make more use of shades with the ink, as most of it absorbed to be one shade.

Sketchbook 7 - Cathedral and Landscape

 When I was in Canterbury I decided to visit the cathedral. Whilst there I did a quick technical sketch of it in two point perspective, it was a challenge with all the buttresses and spires and I didn't completely finish it, but I feel I got the basic design down regardless.

 

This was a landscape sketch I did, I wanted to concentrate on creating tone and mood, and give it dusky feel. I'm fairly pleased with how it came out, although I failed at trying to create convincing water on the left where there was meant to be a river.