City Reflection - Part 2

Colour Contrast

To contrast the blue and greens I chose to add their complementary colours orange and red to the skyline, which produce a polluted look in the paintings world that is most likely caused by this huge futuristic city. 

Aesthetics vs. Realism

The water reflection now does not seem believable and makes little sense regarding the sky and city colours. However this lack of sense does not minder that artworks quality in my opinion is aesthetically more appealing to me personally.

City Reflection - Part 1

For variation I decided to make an exclusively 2D concept piece. This allowed me to jump right into the painting experience which I miss a bit when integrating 3D methods as they often take longer to start off for me.

Random Shapes and Forms

So for this one I took a different approach to even my previous 2D projects. This project started off completely with random shapes and forms. I had a city scene in mind but the design was still very loose. 

To start off the colour palate was defined and the mood and atmosphere of the piece started to build up quickly. The lighting in this scene with the reflection in the water played an important role I would keep adding layers and sometimes merging them and mirroring them to the water with different layer options.

Once establishing the core concept of the city's skyline I started to alter the colour settings and adjustments as well as add an foreground to create some more depth in image.

Science Fiction Brief - Part 2

After finishing the design for the day version I started working on the night version. I therefore started to imagine what would stick out most and the red energy areas would obviously be the most visible aspects of his suit. 

So firstly I lowered the values and changed the colour theme to blues suiting the night theme.

Adding Glow

Now I traced over the red areas and added some saturation and lighting. I therefore tried out different layer options such as soft light, hard light, vivid light and lighter colour.

Science Fiction Brief - Part 1

This Brief was set by one of my course mates. He had a very clear view of how the science fiction character should turn out. He described the character to be an enemy footsoldier of the future with slightly superior technology over others. Furthermore the character should be flexible and skinny with a normal figure and the armour basic and light. 

After several sketches in my sketchbook I got the green light to take the project in a chosen direction. The 6 character concepts beneath were the initial 6 digital designs to be reviewed.

After meeting and discussing the outcome the character concept was narrowed down and more similar concept with little variations followed.

These were then further narrowed down and I would soon begin to work on the main design sheet.

I therefore received the base model mesh from which I made some renders to paint the final character design over.

Design Sheet
For the final design sheet I planned out a front, side and back view. The painting process took quite long in comparison to the other projects as it went into exact details of the design and a good amount of iterations. Capturing the right look of the materials and textures of the armour and fabrics was also a challenge.

Life Drawing No.6

1 min warm up sketches 

 2 min warm up sketches

30 min pencil drawing

Bad Place Project

For the "Bad Place" project I followed the same steps as for the Blizzard 2 project in a previous post. To start off I created a simple model in Maya and added some basic lighting to create some nice shadows via mental ray, physical sun and sky. 

3D Thumbnails

I then altered the camera attributes to adjust the perspective points and add some distortion. By saving the images for the thumbnails out as PNGs I am able to get rid of the blue background sky and stay in black and white allowing me to solely focus on values if desirable.

Once the thumbnails are put together it is time to choose an interesting thumbnail to continue working on. For this project I chose the birds eye concept as I found it had an interesting perspective and lighting.

I started adding an overall friendly colour theme to the image without high colour contrast despite the serious topic.

For the final image I added dynamic elements to the scene such as wind and papers flying around. The blur also further guides the eye towards the centre of the artwork where the action is taking place.

Life Drawing No.5

Quick sketches of different poses.

A quick sketch of the model up side down to allow greater focus on the capturing the forms.

 Further quick sketches of different poses.

20 min pencil drawing of model in "meaningful pose" and robes.

Modelling with Reference Images

Here's an example of how Alex Ronald uses reference images on one of his projects to facilitate the modelling process. The planes with the applied images allow exact and detailed modelling and therefore save lots of time in defining the model's shape. On his blog he explains the work method and production process in detail to achieve the authentic look of the Stormtrooper helmet. 

http://alexronald68.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/these-arent-droids-youre-looking-for.html

Images by Alex Ronald 

The images above show how different view angles are used and translated into three-dimensional space.

Image by Alex Ronald  

The final result is a very close replica of the original concept.

The next example is also from Alex's blog and showcases a plane model this time.
http://alexronald68.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/airfix-kits-for-grown-ups.html

Image by Alex Ronald

A further interesting idea is using free online textured models to create artwork. Rene Aigner uses a simple house model in the scene beneath and turns it into a safe-house with an incredible atmosphere created by the surrounding environment.

Image by Rene Aigner

Interactive Story Adaptation - Semester 1 Presentation

For the Innovation and Professional Development Project I decided to look into digital children's literature and search for an interesting way to adapt classic children's literature to a modern audience and technologies.

Story time is a an intimate moment between children and parents with lots of creativity and magic in the air to create a great bonding experience. Many parents would love to share more of these moments with their children but are unable to because of different reasons. Work, travelling and divorce are only a few to point out. Other family members would also be able to benefit from such an idea/application, so the question arises, how can long distance communication/networking be implemented into digital interactive children's literature?

Please find my 1st semester presentation below which attempts to address this topic.

Interactive Classics from samheisler

Blizzard Project - Part 2

Basic 3D Environment Model 

After receiving some good feedback from our mentors I decided to redo the blizzard project. This time I want to model a simple low poly environment for the scene. One huge advantage of this approach is the perspective and camera options.

Camera Attributes

Before starting the project I decided to create some simple shapes and look into the camera attributes to create some interesting effects.

Some interesting results can be achieved by manipulating the angle of view and focal length of the camera. These settings could help create more dynamic scenes in future projects. Therefore I would like to try a similar effect for this project. 

Thumbnails

For this project I chose to stick to very simple models representing the key features of the terrain without any detail. Furthermore I chose to avoid UV mapping and texturing the blizzard project to save time.

There are no high detailed surfaces in the scene which makes texturing unnecessary for this project. The snowy surfaces can just as well be painted over with slight hue and value iterations.

After completing the model and adjusting the camera have to slightly distorted lens effect I chose 4 interesting image perspectives to compare and decide which one to continue working on. 

Finally I chose a very similar perspective to my original sketch as I still found this perspective to be the strongest out of the selection.

Then the main colour scheme was added as well as some detail in the front left of the image, representing a settlement or camp of some sort.

Colour Contrast
I decided to go for a futuristic science-fiction like construct. This man made construct has the only real colour contrast in the scene. The orange captures the viewers attention straight away and makes one wonder what this construct might be.

The Blur Filter
In able to create the dynamic snow storm effect I used the directional blur filter. This creates scale and depth in the image and adds a lot to the mood and atmosphere of the final artefact.

Reflection

Impact
The final artefact has a strong composition and lighting guiding the viewers eye around the image. From the building with its colour contrast to the high saturated water and stone directly above the waterfall create a great mood and atmosphere in my opinion.

Perspective
The camera settings and navigation of the 3D model benefited the artwork immensely. In contrast to some of my other artwork the perspective and scale is very exact in this piece.

Composition
As a starting point the 3D thumbnailing already provided me with the opportunity to find the best possible composition by letting me navigate the environment freely.

Furthermore the value contrast of the gorge to the surrounding snow scape and the shadow side of the building to it's surroundings created tension in this artwork. These two components however also stand in great opposition to each other as the one is dominated by straight lines and the other by curves. Both are slightly slanted though, also due to the altered camera settings of the render, which provides the image with an overall dynamic impression.

The extra layers of snow coming down and their filter settings with blur add to this effect and create more dynamism.

Artefact Quality
Overall the artwork demonstrates a higher skill level than the previous attempt without the 3D model as a starting point. The basic model helped achieve a believable world, particularly in terms of scale and perspective and saved me lots of time trying to get said perspective "just right".
To sum up, using a basic 3 D model facilitated, improved and sped up the output for this project.

Basic 3D Models as a Starting Point for the Concept Art

This semester students were given different mentors in the industry and we received some great hints and suggestions on how to drive our projects further. 

My project for this module focuses on exploring 3D methodologies to facilitate, speed up and improve the output. Through research, exploration and particularly practical tasks I hope to find the best work method (for me) to incorporate into my workflow.

Up until now my development process would solely involve 2D methodologies and procedures, so Low Poly Modelling & Textures is the perfect opportunity to force myself to expand my experimentation and combine 2D and 3D aspects.

A blogpost by one of our mentors shows how a basic 3D model can be used to set the scene and create a believable space and atmosphere for the artwork that would then be overworked. In able to combine the 3D model and painting with each other seamlessly, strong knowledge and understanding about lighting is necessary, as well as good painting skills. 

Alex demonstrates this nicely in his blog post about the briefing room project. The lighting with the standing smoke in the room which was typical for the time really creates a strong atmosphere and is therefore very time representative. 

http://alexronald68.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/thank-god-for-cigarettes.html 

Image by Alex Ronald
The basic model - The floorplan

Image by Alex Ronald
The final result after painting over and choosing the desired composition.

Furthermore the high value contrast and lighting creates an interesting scene in the final image. It leads the eyes to the projection on the wall and details like the map placement work as story guiding elements. France being in the centre of the projection with it's white colour and highest value contrast embedded by the dark foreground heads hints the conversation and briefing topic.

Life Drawing No.4

5-10 min warm up sketches -> 20 min revision to define forms and poses

 5 min expressive pencil sketch of woman with long hair

15-20 min pencil drawing of mysterious woman

Sketches

photo study of a woman (09 Nov 2013) and some sketches on the right (07 Nov 2013)

Generating 3D Thumbnail Sketches

I came across the website of Matt Kohr and he made some great videos on generating thumbnail sketches in Sketchup. I therefore downloaded Sketchup to play around with it briefly and it really is user friendly, however Maya is a far more powerful and advanced software so I will stick to Maya for this project as my later projects will also involve texturing and hopefully some exploration into different lighting methods.

Digital Painting: Sketchup for Thumbnailing from matt kohr on Vimeo.

Sketchup Basics

Advantages
- User friendly
- Styles
     -> "Thumbnail template style" with line work look
- Easy crisp lighting adjustments
     -> Shadows and direction
- Field of View
     -> Moving the perspective points to adjust distortion (zoom lens, wide angle lens)
- Perspective

Most of the tips Matt Kohr mentions in the video are just as useful for Maya and some of my future projects.

3D Advantages over 2D Methods

- Particularly useful for architecture and "man-made" structures (buildings, cityscapes... )
- Flexibility for iterating on designs
- Unlimited perspective possibilities
- Easy scaling
- Great for repetitive objects in scenes
- Adjustable lighting

Blizzard Project - Part 1

Scale

This project was a request by another student. I started off with two sketches to set the scene. It was important to add some sort of reference in terms of scale as the cliffs could be any size otherwise. The second sketch got the best feedback and I continued to work on it therefore.

Value and Colour Contrast
The image consists exclusively out of blue and greys. The values and saturation therefore play an important role to guide the viewers eye. The cliff creates a strong value contrast and has an dynamic shape with its bend.

I also wanted to capture the ice structures and the glow through them. In able to achieve this effect I chose very bright and saturated blues towards the canyon corner as the light would shine through this area stronger than in others.

Life Drawing No.3

5 min pencil warm up sketch

5 min pencil warm up sketch

10 min pose of woman -> 15 min revision to correct head position and add detail

20 min pencil drawing