Gold Guns Girls

Hiya. Back again on a Friday oh yeaah (I might brag about this every week... It'll be a sad day when I miss my first weekly blog.) Been getting on with business this week. Finished my Mascot, and i've even almost finished off my bad guy. It's really strange how I work. I probably took a week and a half on the Mascot (if not more... I don't want to think about it though) and then I go and blast out a fairly detailed painting of another character in almost 2 days. Why is this? Anyway, that's all that i've been up to work-wise as far as I can remember. I'm hoping *fingers crossssed* that the studio will all be lovely and shiny and working by the time I get in on Monday morning. Even though I can work perfectly fine without Windows 7 etc, I just feel a little left out with computers that aren't what they're meant to be. I'm contemplating buying Windows 7 myself actually, since it's only 30 quid for us students and the amount of praise i've been hearing (and it's shiny). Anyway let's get onto the pikchars::::



Mascot, of course. To be honest i'm really happy with the way that this one came out. I think it may actually be my favourite at the minute. Re-doing the entire thing definitely paid dividends. The reason I like it is probably because of the rendering that I achieved on the armour, notice the shine on the breast plates etc lol. It may be a strange reason but it's just that I managed to achieve pretty much exactly the material that I wanted to portray, and that's pretty cool for me. It's something that i've been trying to push for in most of my paintings and this time it worked out. I feel like a lot of the materials I paint look exactly the same, and I achieved something this time round. I also like the background. It should be obvious that i've been experimenting with the backgrounds on all of these paintings, and also that i've really been into the dissolve layer function. The desaturated green towards the lower half of the painting doesn't really make the character stand out as it possibly should, but I find it creates an interesting effect. Also, not to keep blabbing on but I purposely left the lower half of the character loose. Even if it was mostly because I had been painting the Mascot for farrrr too long, it was also interesting for me to see whether your eye was drawn to the detail in the upper half of the body or not. I still can't decide, but i'm happy with it anyway (maybe all apart from the rendering on the legs, light source is a little confusing there...) Woo!



This is the Baddie! He needs a name still though. Actually this is the sketch, just in case you cared at all.



And here's where i'm at now. Character is pretty much done, and the background is half done. I did something differently with this painting. Should be fairly easy to spot, but I tried out a more menacing, dramatic lighting, compared to the fairly soft, top down lighting in the other pieces. I think I managed this alright, although my lack of knowledge/experience with the sort of thing made me a little uncertain of a few things. I think his face may be a fair bit more dramatically lit than the rest of the body. First time anyway so I guess it's alright. With this guy I tried to make him both goofy and a little bit grotesque. That's the reason for the lighting, the pale arms, dodgy face etc. Worked alright I think, definitely handy as a painting exercise too. He's not completely finished, but I should be able to deal with him in an hour or something on monday, lovely jubbly. Might even start modeling for Andy!

That's it for work, not including sparse dissertation readings (that're actually very very interesting surprisingly, thanks to great writers), so now for some inspiration i've come across this week.

Making of N0X-2292 (part 1) from Slipgatecentral on Vimeo.

Making of N0X-2292 (part 2) from Slipgatecentral on Vimeo.

The above videos are just bloody god damned hell amazing. Really blew my mind when I first watched them. It's strange really, and a little sad, for reasons I will explain. This model was submitted to Dominance War IV and when I was browsing through the winners, I almost completely disregarded it along with a friend, because it seemed to be similar to things we'd seen before, namely in Metal Gear Solid and stuff. So i never paid it much attention, found a few other things which I thought were better, and forgot about it. Then later in the week I came across these videos, and as I said they blew me away. The INSANE level of detail that the model has, and the fact that it is almost entirely built in Maya is crazy. Watch the videos and you'll see what i'm on about. The 'rigs' are just great too, even though they aren't technically rigs. They move beautifully, just like real machines would, and this is a skill which I am completely devoid of. Maybe I should study some mechanics. The other great thing is the amount of time and effort this guy has gone through making the video. Not just to showcase his work but to educate others along the way, and I think that's just great. A big thanks to this guy, I am really inspired. His website is here: slipgatecentral.livejournal.com and vimeo page here: http://vimeo.com/slipgatecentral Where you can find a few more great videos.

That's it for this week. See you soon xx

brap brap.

Almost let it slip there! Wasn't in uni for very long on Friday so I didn't have time to do a blog, but I pulled it out of the bag and here I am on sunday night (H).

This Wednesday (?) we had our presentation thingy. Was a tiny bit nervous and did a fairly poor presentation but it wasn't marked or anything, and was more of a 'look at this stuff' then a pitch or anything like that, so no biggie. But after that, a previous chat with Georg and a post chat with Andy, i've now come to the conclusion that i'm no longer making a film. But i'm really positive about what i'm doing in place, which is creating some awesome models! This way I can make sure that I really produce some cracking models, and have noone to blame but myself if I don't pull it out of the bag. I plan to come to terms with Mudbox along the way, really get down to some good texturing and maybe even produce some fairly complex rigs, for the experience and for the benefit of animators. A new thought i've also been considering is that since these models are for a computer game, then perhaps I should attempt to make hi-res AND lo-res versions. Although I have very little idea what i'd be letting myself in for with this, I think it'd be a massive bonus for my portfolio.

Anyway i'll cut this really short cause it's super late. Here are the paintings i've been working on this week. I've been painting the Mascot, this was the first sketch, which i did in the middle of summer:



Pretty bland I guess. That led to this:



But I was not feeling it at all, so I ended up scrapping it completely and starting again. Here is where I currently am:



Definitely an improvement, but something still irks me. I almost feel as if I don't know my style yet, which is probably true. But i'll keep working on it and i'm sure something will appear. I do like his shiny armour at least. And i'm pretty sure the first attempt failed because I remember during drawing it, my heart wasn't in it, was low on motivation etc. I'm in a much better mindset right now, and really can't wait to make some models! :D

Good night, i'm tired.

Ello ello!

Yessssssss, keeping up my routine (H). So what's been happening this week? Well I finished the Nerds, including a background which took far longer than it should have, and i've also managed to clean up all of the other pictures :D The laptop ones you know, and they look much better with nice finished backgrounds. Just finished the Brawlers a minute ago. Apart from that, nothing much else... although! Blogs aren't being graded anymore! I cannae believe it. Just as i'm getting back into it :( At least they will apparently count as a nice production report though, and if I maintain this blog throughout the year and submit it as a production report I would expect to get a first for that bit. I would be very angry if not. I enjoy this rambling anyway, so i'll keep it up.

little note for me so I don't forget: http://danielprimed.com/

So here are my workings from the week:



Finished nerdies.



Finished Businesspeople (or Lawyers?) Looking a little evil here... there was talk about turning them into badguys...



First finished version of the Brawlers, although I felt the background was a bit dark, so...



I lightened it up a little...



Then i plapped the word BRA WLE RS in the background, which I think looks pretty cool, although i'm not sure which version i'll eventually settle for. Thinking about making a little scroll or something too to put on all of the paintings for the character class names.

In other news, there's talk of me not actually making a finished film :/ Instead, I would be producing some beautiful fully animateable models, and also helping out on another student's film. This idea came about from a chat with Georg, because I really am giving myself one hell of a task if I want to fully realise the film I have in my head. I still believe (possibly wrongly) that I could do it... but the only thing i'm not sold on is the animating, and the story. I know I could make some really nice models if given the time, but then if I really push myself and do that, and end up having them playing out an awful script that noone cares about... would maybe even cheapen them. Perhaps it would be better simply to create the models. I'm gonna have a big think about it, perhaps test out a schedule and chat to the tutors and stuff and i'll get back to you :D I do feel like I would be sad to see the film go, but at the end of the day i'm not planning on becoming a film director or indie animator or any of that jazz. Right now it seems my area will be concepts or modeling, and I can hone these skills without creating a finished film (although I do feel that it would be quite a beneficial experience to see a film through from start to finish.) That's enough rambling anyway. I'll see you next week :]

This Is Not A Post.

Ello. Looks like I managed to post again just as I planned :D. Alright what've I done this week... Well first i've managed to complete another character and a half :D I reckon that's pretty good going. Will give pix in a minute. We officially start the third year next Monday, then the Monday after that we have to present our stuff to the class. So my plan for next week is to firstly complete this Nerd pic with background et al, and then get to work on the two pictures that I painted on the lappy which are still a bit ropey. That way i'll have a nice collection of pictures to show and hopefully get some good feedback from. Basically I think i'm feeling pretty good about my work at the minute. I've not done a huge amount but at least i've done some, and what I have done I'm reasonably happy with. Let's think... I think I have maybe...3 more character class paintings to do. I could cut that down. Then I have the bad guys, I might be able to stick those both on the same painting, or just do two singulars... then I have location concept stuff, but I could get away with more sketchy stuff for that. And then I can get on with turn arounds and on to modeling. That sounds like kind of a lot, but if i'm smart and only do what's necessary then I could get modeling in no time :D

Anyway no more blabbing. That's pretty much all that's happened this week, apart from that time when I fell on my face in front of all the freshers. That was cool. Here's my painting anyway. Unfinished of course but the guy is done and the girl's face is kinda done. Will sort a bg out next week :)



There we go, see you next week. No wait, here's some awesome music to leave you with. Listen to these if you want to live (such great music):
http://hypem.com/track/918951/Volcano+Choir+-+Island+IS
http://hypem.com/track/919680/Basement+Jaxx+-+My+Turn
http://hypem.com/track/920321/Florence+and+the+Machine+-+You+ve+Got+the+Love+The+xx+Remix+

kbye1