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

New Post.

Herro. This is a short one. Just to say i'm alive, back in falmouth, getting back into the swing of things and I have some work to show. There'll be a massive post soon when the studio and my brian are sorted out so that I can scan all of the bits and pieces I have lying around. Little post is better than no post!

So i've finished 3 paintings, each containing 2 characters. So that's sort of 6 paintings! (If i'm kind to myself.) That's alright really, I reckon. I got some sketches and stuff done too and a very rough story board. As ever i'm sort of happy with my paintings but still wish I was better. Practic makes perfect though right? I think i've realised that i'm not as skilled as I would like to think. I think I have the eye for things, but when I start the painting I get stuck often, or have to cop out and make things look cartoony. I want to change this by doing some studies when I can, and also try paintings where I'm tied down by absolutely nothing. No deadlines, no sketches, I think i'd make some nice stuff if it were entirely experimental. Cause even though I have free reign with this project, I am still limited by the fact that these paintings have a purpose, they are concept art. They need to be readable and show snapshots of the characters. I mean I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving areas completely unfinished or go off on a tangent somewhere and have inconsistensies in the series of images. Talking crap now.

Anyway. I've 'finished' the 3rd of my paintings just moments ago. I spent today on the background...which was possibly a massive waste of time, but I've not been sure what angle I would take for the background, and i've been waiting til i've completed more because I would like some sort of cohesion with the pieces. So here're the Bards. I think i'll keep that traditional RPG class name because they are quite modern looking characters sorta. I have 3 variants because i've been going a bit nuts and i'm not sure which one looks best. Here's the first:



These are the colours and stuff that I put down myself.

Here's the second:



This is with an overlay, but I think it's my favourite of the three as it stands today.

Finally, here's the third:



This one's mental, so I'm pretty sure it won't get used, but I like it anyway. Also i've not tweaked it, it's just the same overlay as before but on Exclusion or something.

There's a chance I may even go in a completely different direction when I've got the whole set of images together, too. I think i'll leave the other two completed Illus background-less until i've done the rest, and tweak them when i'm done. Speaking of those, i've never actually uploaded them... I think I will now, even though I feel that they need quite a lot of polisihing before they are finished. So let's call them work in progress.

Brawlers:



Businesspeople:




Both need level adjustments because I painted them on a wonky laptop screen which threw the balance completely. The laptop also had a lower resolution which I think is obvious when you compare these to the bard pictures. I won't make any excuses anyway, it should be fairly simple to sort out what I want to do. It's just finding the time and effort.

I seem to be working quite slow lately, but at least i'm enjoying it.

I'll leave you with some images that I downloaded earlier, I'm gonna get into the habit of downloading the awesome that I find when I find it, then i'll post it up here. I think these images may be one of the reasons I went a bit mental with the background of the bard images, so they should fit here quite nicely.







Jesus christ, how good are they? I absolutely love the play with the colours. Sort of very experimental but at the same time they're valid concept art I think, if even only for the atmosphere that is created. Anyway I love them, check out the guy who painted them's blog over here -----> http://crayonboxofdoom.blogspot.com/

london postings.

Almost exactly a month after my previous post, I return. I'm not sure whether I should apologise for the lack of posting or if it's sort of warranted due to my situation... I think i'll go with the former for now, and say sorry for being crap. I haven't decided yet whether i'm doing badly or not. This is possibly because I decided to abandom my schedule for the summer, and therefore don't really know where I could/should/would be. Initially I had planned to complete all concept art and have my models animation ready for my return to falmouth. I ended up forgetting that, not due to unfeasability (although this more than likely would've been the case) but more to allow myself a little (a LOT) more freedom as far as concept art goes after a chat with Andy on the situation. In hindsight i've definitely created less work by not abiding to my former schedule, but just like the Talking Dog project I probably would've failed the schedule and just gotten myself worried. None of this is really making sense, but my feelings right now are fine. I've just completed my first full character concept, I have 2 months til I return to uni, one til I return to falmouth, and i feel comfortable.

Like I said, i've not decided yet whether i've been working enough. But I have been working, even though i've not been posting. If you've not yet guessed, this will probably be a ridiculously long post :P Quickly, my current situation is as follows. I'm living in my girlfriend's house in London, painting when she's at work and relaxing the rest of the time. I'll be here for the next 4-5 weeks until the 25th when I leave for Leeds Festival. I'll be returning home to Wales right after, around the 1st of Sept, then heading straight to Fal shortly after that. I'm thinking my return to fal will be when the work really starts to get going. I'm painting here but I find that I thrive in the studio environment and when I return I will be completely focused on work. I'm really looking forward to that, and REALLY want to make something I can be proud to show at the end of the year.

Workwise: I'm fairly happy with the concepts i've been producing. I found it difficult to knock them out when I was in Wales but I just about managed it, and have started the painting. I'm not sure how I feel about my first completed concept yet, but at the very least it's not bad, passable. I think i'll have a more cohesive idea when everything starts coming together. (Read through to the bottom to check him out :D)

INSPIRATION

Alright here's a little section on the things that've been exciting me recently. I've been compiling some images but sadly I left them on my computer at home, but I'll chuck them up when I get the chance. For now check this out.

Illustrative Rendering in Team Fortress 2 ---LINK

Team Fortress 2 is a game that i've never actually played. I've only seen videos but nevertheless I think it's a brilliant game, but solely from a visual standpoint. And judging by the hype the people love it for the gameplay, too. When searching for concept art from the game on a whim, I came across the brilliant article above ^^^. If you take a read through it covers most visual aspects of the game, in a reasonable amount of detail. I'd love to find out more about the modeling and rigging procedures but I'm thrilled to get any sort of insight into the production of REAL games.

GAYYYYY I literally just wrote a load of other crap and the blog fucked it up -.- ugh. Oh well, look at the pretty pictures -.-



Also read this: http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=4338&page=2

and this is important: The look needed to be inspirational and it needed to project "fun" rather than "hardcore."

Quoted from the above page. This is what I want!!

lovely stuff. Check out the links for moar.

Gotta cut this short, BRB!

EDIT: Kind of lost my thread, I know I posted this ages ago and I stopped cause I was interrupted by 3 girls who were also staying in Hannah's house at the same time as me. They came home and were living in the living room where the computer is.. blahblah. It really is quite difficult to post here, so i'm not gonna give myself a hard time about this being the second time that i've visited here lol. I'll just carry on with chatting crap.

I was initially going to use this post to chat about the artists that i'd been admiring on Conceptart.org along with that article above and some other game concept art, but shinier things have caught my eye since then, so i'll talk about the other stuff another time :D But make sure to check out that link^ awesome stuff.

Final Fantasy XIV Online

This is one of the games that i'm most hyped for currently. (I really buy into hype lol.. can't help myself, I even think that sometimes I enjoy the hype more than the actual games.) I am an avid fan of the Final Fantasy Series and I ploughed far too many hours into Square Enix's last online FF. Obviously i'm going to be dying to play the next one. Well, sort of. Massively Multiplayer Online RPGS (MMORPGS) are double edged swords. Horribly addictive but brilliantly rewarding, they can eat your life if you're not careful. But i digress, i'll just chat about this from an aesthetic standpoint.

There is little known about the game at this point, but recently the WEBSITE was updated with a nice little bit of information, and some beautiful artwork.





These are some of the character models, you can get some higher res pictures on the site itself, but anyway I bloody love them. Sadly this is probably my inner fanboy talking but I can't silence him D: I won't bother pouring over them but I just love them, and the rest of the aesthetic of the game. Make sure to check the link and check out the landscapes as well. Beautiful stuff.

Here's a gameplay vid which excites me even more!



However shakily recorded and pixelated it might be, just looked at that green grass and the blue shadows of the mountains. Amazing. The gameplay may look a little static which might be strange to those not used tothe genre, but look at the animation of the Dodo enemies. LOOK at the detail of the environment! I love it all, it'd be amazing to be creating that one day...

Finally, here are some of the paintings that i've been doing while in London. None are finished but let me know what you think. Many more will be popping up when I return to falmouth! :D

Hmmm... looking at those pictures on this computer does not please me at all... they look horrible. I can only hope that that is a result of the compression from uploading and not what they actually look like on a non-laptop computer. :////

EDIT: Taken them down cause they look so bad!

Hey there.

Hello invisible blog readers. I'm back in Wales and stuffs been happening, let's talk.

The most noteable thing is that i've not really done a whooole lot of work i suppose, but it's not all so bad, well, that's because i'm in a good mood today, but whatever. I went out last night with my friends, got drunk, came home this morning and was really in the mood to draw. So i tried out a new technique, as i've had little success trying to get some drawings done the other ways. I put on The Warriors, a film which i've wanted to watch for a while, and one that I don't care about so much as to have to watch all of it, and sketched away. It was awesome. And the film just gave me so many ideas, I bloody love the visual style of the film, the gangs, everything really.


Christ, how awesome is that poster? I'm gonna buy it :D

Here are some stills I found online.


Some of The Warriors. Look how awesome their hair is!


The badass riffs leader, dunno his name but I like his face and his shades. The shades are super reflective... i like this...


This guy has a massive chin, I think that's why they hired him to be the baddy.

On the site that I went on about The Warriors there was a section called Costume. Of course I clicked it because I love their look and stuff, and I was surprised to find the costume designs for the characters. I was even more surprised though, to find that the drawings are actually pretty crappy. I've seen this before, where I love the finished piece but the initial designs are pretty bad. Last time I noticed was on the space marine for the Starcraft game. Anyway, I just thought it was interesting so here you go.




Lastly, here's the list of all of the awesome gangs in the film, or the ones conceived at least. I'll post it in its entirety for the sheer brilliance of how many there are.

The Alleycats,
The Amsterdam All-Stars,
The Baseball Furies,
The Black Hands,
The Blackjacks,
The Big Trains,
The Boppers,
The Boyle Avenue Runners,
The Charlemagnes,
The Colt 45's,
The Dealers,
The Delaney Rovers,
The Dingos,
The E Street Shufflers,
The Easy Aces,
The Electric Eliminators,
The Eighth Avenue Apaches,
The Fastballs,
The Fifth Street Bombers,
The Filmores,
The Firetasters,
The Five Points,
The Gerrards,
The Gladiators,
The Go Hards,
The Gun Hill Dancers,
The Gramercy Riffs,
The High Hats,
The High Rollers,
The Homeboys,
The Hoplites,
The Howitzers,
The Huks,
The Hurricanes,
The Imps,
The Jesters,
The Jones Street Boys,
The Judas Bunch,
The Jupiters,
The Knockdowns,
The Knuckles,
The Lizzies,
The Locos,
The Magicians,
The Meatpackers,
The Moonrunners,
The Napoleons,
The Nickel Steaks,
The Nightriders,
The Ninth Avenue Razors,
The Orphans,
The Panzers,
The Phillies,
The Plainsmen,
The Punks,
The Queen's Bridge Mutilators,
The Real Boys,
The Red Hook Shooters,
The Roadmasters,
The Rogues,
The Romans,
The Runaways,
The Saracens,
The Saratogas,
The Savage Huns,
The Shanghai Sultans,
The Southern Cross,
The Speedwagons,
The Stevedores,
The Stilletos,
The Stonebreakers,
The Terriers,
The Turks,
The Turnbull AC's,
The Van Cortlandt Rangers,
The Warriors,
The Whispers,
The Xenophones,
The Xylophones,
The Yo-Yo's,
The Youngbloods,
The Zodiacs,
The Zulus.

lolz.

Basically what i'd love to borrow from The Warriors is the overflowing character that the gangs have. Am I overstating the film? I dunno but I love them anyway. God i'm talking crap today.

Just a little info about what i've been up to and i'm done. I've not updated since I came back from uni for a few reasons. One is that i've found it hard to get work done, but using my new found technique I think the rest will go beautifully :D I've also actually been away from my house a lot too, though. I went to Tenby and Swansea, each for two days with friends. Good times were had. I feel positive for the rest of my holidays, and I feel full of passion for my project as well :) That'll do for now, laters x

EDIT: Actually, one more thing. Look how awesome the Misfits look in this video. More character that I love. I might give one of the musicians a misfits t-shirt :D