26/02/2016 - Minotaur Development

Week 07

Minotaur Development 

Over the past week I have been developing The Minotaur. I have divided his development into his head, torso and legs. My aim for the design of The Minotaur is a creature who is in pain and suffering from his hybrid features. 

Head

Here I tried to create a truly terrifying face for The Minotaur. I have tried several ways of combining bull and human features, some more successful than the others. The top design circled in green is circled because I like the aspect of his more human like neck being bent by a massive bull's head. I have also circled a couple of horn ideas I had because I like the direction I was going in, in terms of crooked, misdirected horns.

 Legs

Here I like the top right design (not circled) because of the deformed left leg and how it implies a limp. I also like the aspect of him having a hoof on one foot and one of his legs looking human but bending back the the back legs of a bull.

 Torso

I started of my development of the torso with quite an average size but soon began drawing him with a bit more fat on him. My reasoning for this was because he gets human sacrifices which I presume he eats. I am also liking the idea of giving him a strong arm and also a deformed arm with a little hoof on the end, this would show his strength but also his weakness. for the hands (bottom left), I have explored, like the feet, combining human and bull elements as a primary basis for designing them. My favourite is the one on the left, it does look a bit like a pig's trotter though which is something I would want to avoid in my final design.

17/02/2016 - Hunger Development

Week 06

"Hunger" Development

I have been working on this piece today, I have basically chosen the strongest silhouette and worked up some tone and details in it. I have circled the areas I think work well in green and the areas that don't work well in red. I will address these areas below.

Red Areas

Head:

I don't think the head is particularly bad but it doesn't exactly look correct yet, With the context of the body in place now I can easily draw up quick iterations to try out different ideas and shapes.

Right Leg:

I just need to try and mimic what I have done on the left leg, I think the lack of calf muscle here is the real problem that is preventing it from looking believable.

Right Foot:

The right foot has the same problem as the right leg, it just need to be more similar to the left to look convincing. 

Green Areas

Arms:

I really like how the arms have turned out here, there is something quite creepy about the way they came out from the shoulders.The thickness of the right arm though could do with being narrower to mimic the other arm which I prefer the look of.

Rib Cage:

Again, this looks good for now.

Broken Spine:

This part of her is something I like a lot, it shows her frailty but also her strength to keep manage to keep moving with such a grotesque feature. My intention with this design feature is to show that her malnutrition has given her week bones, this will emphasis her lack of food.

Left leg:

The lower left leg works well with the calf definition, I could though tweak the thigh to resemble that of the other leg.

Summary

I'm not really sure how I am going to colour her though. For next week I want to have worked into this design a lot more to have a much more refined character design for "Hunger"

10/02/2016 - Colour Palettes

Week 05

Colour Palettes

Below are my rough colour palettes for my three characters, I have done the process of putting some general pictures in a Photoshop  file and then using the colour picker tool to create some basic colour schemes, I then take a colour that I think matches the character best and use "Kuler" (https://color.adobe.com/) to find the best colour scheme. I only used this second step thought for The Arch Rogue because I felt he has the most potential with colour.

The Minotaur

Here there are a bunch of different browns/greys for The Minotaur. I also put a Greek actor in there to get a proximate skin colour. I'm happy with this rough colour scheme for my project.

"Hunger"

This colour Scheme is more for the environment that "Hunger" inhabits which I have still found to be useful for imagining the colour of "Hunger" herself, since there isnt really any colour described in the story. I imagine her as just be greys and black.

The Arch Rogue

Kuler - Shades of brown

My colour scheme for The Arch Rouge is going to consist of a range of browns as can be seen above. Hopefully in the next couple of week I will be able to try some of these colour schemes out.

10/02/2016 - Character Design Process Update

Week 05

Character Design Process Update

1 - Research Characters

2 -Moodboard every aspect I can think of

3 - Sketch from Moodboards

4 - Initial Sketches of characters

5 - Character refinements

6 - Colour studies

7 - Pose sheets

8 - Final character sheet
9 - Character Physical Pieces

This is my progress so far, It might seem like I have more to do than I have time to do it but now that I have the research done for each character my work flow will pick up and I should be able to produce work more efficiently using Photoshop. 

10/02/2016 - Stone Carving Moodboard

Week 05

Stone Carving Moodboard

This moodboard is for stone carvings to give me inspiration when I begin to carve my depiction of "Hunger" onto a small stone.

I do not own these images or hold the copyright for them, they have been purely put together in this moodboard for educational purposes

I acknowledge that I obviously wont be producing a stone carving design of a quality to challenge the images in my moodboard, I will only be using make shift tools, a mallet and a chisel.

03/02/2016 - The Arch Rogue Development

Week 04

The Arch Rogue Development

Today I have been developing The Arch Rogue, The areas circled in red are the ideas that I like and will move forward with in my design process. I have added a cape and a shoulder cover thing. All this is to add more complexity to the character. I also realised that the original image (top left) had the problem of the straight line from where his nose came out from, this was a problem because it limited the angle that I could draw him from without it looking unnatural having a straight line across his body. 

The Arch Rogue Development 01

The Arch Rogue Development 02

In this image above I have experimented more with the body proportions of the character, I have found that I prefer the original design above the rest because he isn't too tall and he isn't too stout, which seems to work the best compared against the designs that are extremely stout or extremely tall.

03/02/2016 - Vase Analysis

Week 04

Vase Analysis

Below is my basic analysis of a traditional Greek vase. There is a simple black background for the overall vase with yellow in the middle to give a space for the artists/potter to put their designs. The characters are then made up of black but there are yellow lines making up the details. Their are also patterns in various places to add more detail to the piece. This analysis was done before my talk with the lecturer when I was going to imitate this style, but now I am going to add my own artistic flair to it.

Below I have drawn over the lines of the vase making up the characters. I have gone over the outlines in red and the detail line in green. This was a good process for me as it gave me a feel for the proportions they used, for one, the calves are very pronounced as well as the noses and chins. My research into other Greek vases has also shown me that they make the bums very round and pronounced as well.

 Here I have taken away the vase to better show the outlines without the context of the vase itself. My final physical piece for The Minotaur is now going to mimic the drawing style of the characters here but I am going to add my own artistic twist to it which I will explore later in the project when I have my final character designs. The green here shows the simple detail used. 

And finally, I have taken out the green details to show the silhouette, They are very strong of course, I would expect nothing less from the potters of ancient Greece. 

Summary

So my summary, I am going to design The Minotaur in the style of the Greek vases but when it comes to me putting him on the vase itself I will steer away from replicating the Greek style but rather use it as a stepping stone to create something more modern. 

03/02/2016 - Week 04 - Homage - Pastiche

Week 04

Homage/Pastiche

It was pointed out by a lecturer to look into the terms 'homage' and 'pastiche' in relevance to my project. This was after me saying that I was wanting to replicate the style of Greek vases for the Minotaur. My lecturer said that after looking into the terms that I would want to do one and not the other...he was correct.

"Homage:

 - Respect or reverence paid or rendered"

"Pastiche:

 - An artistic work in the style that imitates that of another work, artist, or period"

My original intention was to use black figure drawing to make a final piece on a vase with The Minotaur, but after reading the terms, I have realised, that would put me in the pastiche category (which I don't think I'm in for my other two characters). So after all this, I will be trying to aim for a homage to the ancient Greek vase styles. I will now experiment with different colours and I will try to modernize it, the only thing I will be somewhat imitating is the actual style in which they draw the figures in.