Workshop: ZBrush 2

I had another ZBrush session today and we mostly just learned about a few more tools and techniques such as mirroring, the functions of the edit and draw modes and then a few different brushes. Like before, I struggled to remember most of what was taught to us partly because our tutor goes through things pretty quickly and I struggle to keep up, but mostly because there is a lot to remember in general and I simply cannot keep up. However, we had a lot more time this session to just play around with the program and to just quickly create something, which I went for a snake's head, which I am actually quite proud of as it is only the second time I have properly used the program and I feel that it actually came out pretty well.

Week 5 Summary

I did more work this week then I have done in the last couple of weeks, and although I am behind a little bit, I did manage to finish the final piece of the timepiece project which I am proud of, although I feel it is weaker then my insect project simply because I did not enjoy the project as much. I've also begun creating some silhouettes for the new project, which revolves around choosing a character from the fairy tale "The Tinderbox", and designing them to fit into a time period which was allocated to us. I was allocated the Georgian Europe era, and although initially I really disliked this, it has grown on me overtime and I am looking forward to taking these further.

On Wednesday we had a different session to usual, and that was a group critical, where we each presented our timepiece work to the rest of the people in our group. When it came to mine, I sadly did not get much criticism, but I did get a few suggestions on how I could develop the floor plan layout of the snakes, which I took into consideration, especially when I was creating the final piece.

Thursday was simply another critical session with our project leader, although I did not get a chance to get feedback from our project leader. I did however manage to create my silhouettes for the character project which I am pleased about and I can now work solely on this project now that the timepiece has been finished apart from some blog parts.

This new project, despite me initially hating some parts of it, has easily become my favourite of three and I think I can create a much better outcome from this project as a result, providing I can catch up and not rush parts of this project.

BA1a (3): Silhouettes

This third and final mini-project is about characters, where we have to design a character from the fairy tale The Tinderbox. I was given the Georgian Europe time era in which to design my character from. I'm not too familiar with this time era so I started off by looking into various Georgian Europe clothes in order to get an idea on what they wore. I created a base female silhouette for the princess since this is the character I am most interested in working with. I duplicated the base female silhouette and then created various dress sizes for each one. I also created a silhouette for the dog and created two alternate ones for the dog, as well as a silhouette for the witch. 

Below are the silhouettes that I took further from the ones I already made and designed further. I created a lot of these after looking at some Georgian dresses, and attempted to just get a Georgian feel onto the designs. I haven't added any details to the princess herself as I wanted to work on facial details, hair and jewellery on there own. The dog and the witch follow pretty similar routes, although they are also very uninspired and pretty lacklustre in my opinion since after finishing the princess silhouettes I was dead set on using those. The princess silhouettes that I am most interested in are the second and third ones from the top left and the second one from the bottom left, with second from bottom left giving me the most ideas.

I also created these silhouettes seen below, however I did not like any of these and didn't really want to take them further. The top left one however is the base female model that I used for all the other designs.

Stone Wall and Floor Texturing

For my final timepiece I was unsure on how to texture a stone wall and floor and how to make it look convincing as my work on backgrounds was very minimal before. For the room for the snake to sit in, I wanted it to look old and minimalist, so a large and varying chunks of rock would suit it better then something like bricks. I settled on using a similar technique that I use on my characters and objects, and it turned out to work fairly well in my opinion, clearly being a stone wall.

Wall 1 - http://www.tonytextures.com/free-natural-stone-wall-texture-photo-gallery/
Wall 2 - http://www.tonytextures.com/free-natural-stone-wall-texture-photo-gallery/
Wall 3 - http://www.tonytextures.com/free-natural-stone-wall-texture-photo-gallery/?nggpage=2
Wall 4 - http://www.touchoftexture.com/stone_n_sand.html

In terms of the flooring, I wanted simple stone slabs that had some wear and tear to them, making them look a bit uneven. I created these by drawing something similar to a checkers board on the floor, and then going across the lines again but making sure the lines were uneven and jagged, and then finally adding lines over the remaining squares to give a cracked effect.

http://www.lapicida.com

BA1a (2): Final Piece

Before starting my final timepiece, I decided that I wanted to draw a few simple thumbnails to figure out how I would like my timepiece to look. Whilst I did previously state that I could have these snakes on a raised platform of some kind, I changed my idea for this because I simply just did not want to go with it and just wanted the pieces to be on the floor.

I had a basic idea of how I wanted my final piece to look so I worked with that and created three different looks. I shall be using the last thumbnail as a base template though because I feel that this is the strongest one and fits better for my timepiece since it revolves around the apocalypse, having an arched window gives the impression of a church or some kind of old building which will fit the theme better. 

To start on the actual final piece itself, I started by using the line tool to draw lines to create the corner of the room, and then used the brush tool and begun drawing the window, snake and trench. I decided to only go with drawing one snake simply because it would be difficult to include all four of them with the square/diamond floor plan that I liked for them. The snake that I chose to draw was Pestilence from a mixture of being my favourite design and being the first Horseman of the Apocalypse. I tried out a few different designs for the window and will decide which one I shall use later on as I develop the background further.

I filled the entire image grey because I wanted a stone wall and floor. I wanted to work on the wall itself since it was the largest part I had to do. I had a look at a few stone walls so that I could get an idea on the different types of stone walls, and in the end settled on a wall with various stones scattered throughout it. I started this by drawing completely random outlines all across the walls, and then filling them all the same grey that I drew them with. 

I added some black lines to give myself a guide as to where I should add shading to the rocks on the walls. To give myself a break from the walls I decided to colour the snake, which was simple enough to do by selecting the inside of the snake parts and filling with the respected colours. I then shaded the snake on a separate layer using the brush tool and setting it to black, then setting the layer itself to 50% opacity. I also lit the window sides using the same technique as the shading with the snake, only using a slightly yellow-white instead of black. I also shaded the trench at the bottom with the same technique but with a 30% layer opacity.

I then began adding shadows to the rocks by using the same technique that I have been using for most of this project, but with a 40% layer opacity, as well as shading underneath the rocks slightly with a 30% layer opacity. I also shaded the walls and floor with the same techniques. When it comes to the flooring, I wanted a stone tile flooring to match everything else. I did it by simply drawing in a dark grey, allowing the lines to be shaky in order to give the appearance of an uneven surface, then drawing smaller lines to create cracks. 

At this point the image was practically finished, but I blurred the rocks in the background so they were not as defined and didn't draw attention away from the snake. The outside view was simple enough to create by filling the empty space blue, and then using a different brush which was faded around the edges and was almost blob-like. Using this brush, I painted some clouds, a mountain and some trees, leaving out a lot of detail so that it looked very distant. 

Above is my final timepiece artwork. I wanted a very dull and plain background that is entirely stone, something that looked ancient, and to contradict this I decided the outside world was to be bright, both to stand out and to contradict the inevitable apocalypse. In terms of how I organised the composition I tried to follow the rule of thirds to some degree just because I quite like that composition, however I did not follow it as much as in the previous insect project. Unintentionally the 'L' also appeared with the shadows creating attention for the window.

BA1a - Concept Art: Task 3

We received the third part of this concept art project, being similar to the previous mini projects, only that we have to create both a character sheet and a model sheet. For this mini project, we have to design a character from the Hans Christian Anderson fairy-tale called 'The Tinderbox', with a twist, as we have been allocated a time period which we should design our character to be from. I received Georgian Europe, which when looking for online images quickly of the clothing style featured a lot of large dresses and coats with frilly bits which I am honestly not a big fan of, but I can probably find something I like that I can work with.

When I read the fairy-tale, I noticed that there was actually only a handful of characters to actually pick from, but because so few details were listed about each one, they can easily be interpreted into anything really. Realising this, I could immediately think of a few ideas that I am definitely going to consider working with:

-Princess (rugged/feral/prisoner/demon/creature?)
-Dog with teacup eyes (robot/construct/demon?)
-Witch (princess in disguise/mythical creature in disguise?)
-Soldier (female in disguise/cyborg in some way?)

The story itself could be taken in many ways, such as seeing the soldier as an evil character, the king and queen as evil and mistreating their daughter, or even just the princess herself as evil, with her parents holding her prisoner and changing the story of why she is hidden in the castle so that she does not hurt anyone. There are various important points in the story that can be interpreted differently depending on the thoughts and views of the reader.

'The Tinderbox' read from here:
http://hca.gilead.org.il/tinderbx.html

Week 4 Summary

This week I have admittedly done very little work, mainly because I just haven't got any strong ideas that I want to work with or really stand out to me, so have been struggling to get any further with the project. The beginning of the week ended up with me doing nothing, but then on Wednesday we had a life drawing session, and it gave me some motivation to begin creating some more concept art, although I still struggled to think of anything that really grasped my attention. The life drawing session was alright however, it followed a similar path to my previous session, but starting with the 16 short drawings and then going into some chalk drawings, where we was tasked to work on lighting instead of drawing lines to create the shape of the body.

On Thursday I had another review session with our project leader, and I was discussing this project with him and my ideas about the Apocalypse snakes and the woman with an hourglass body, and although he said to do the one that I wanted to do more/felt right, which was the hourglass woman, that this project is more about an object. He eventually told me that I should do the hourglass woman one if that is what will make me happier, but to just keep it more timepiece then human. Whilst I did want to go with the woman, I decided to stick with the snakes, as I had a more object design for them and I felt as though I would not be following the project properly if I was to stick with the hourglass idea. After speaking to him, my project leader showed me a few shortcuts on Photoshop and some ways that I could generate ideas, such as using squares, circles and triangles to create silhouettes. When I practiced this though, I could not see anything in what I was making so I stopped doing it and continued to draw some sketches and designs. When I got home, and for the rest of the week, I continued designing some snakes and eventually settled on some designs that I will use for my final piece, getting to the point that the model sheet is almost complete and the designs are pretty much settled upon now.

I haven't been enjoying this project as much as the previous one because I cannot think of anything I like, but I should have the project finished soon so that I can begin working on the new one, which we will receive the brief for tomorrow.