Modelling the Gnome

This is the model so far

All he needs is some eyebrows and some tweaks and then he'll be ready 

Modelling the fish

Here is the fish character all modeled and with a basic texture, the model is quite successful. I'm looking forward to rigging this guy and seeing him move - it will be a challenge but also a good learning experience.  

Male Gnome finished

At the beginning of this project, I thought that I was going to love this character, but with any hero type character I have had problems with him. He has always come close but never truly there, I know what he will look like but I have wanted to draw him that way before I modeled him. 

These are my beginning designs for the day.

 The last page was my more successful page.



The expression sheets helped me so much when doing the female gnome so I thought I would just jump to it for the male gnome, and once again, it became a lot more enjoyable.

These expressions are really working for me - I think they show his character nicely.

Once again I finished on the colour experiments but I did not go into too much detail - my favourites are 1,2,7 and 10

Female gnome Designing process

Okay so this is Monday part 2 - the female gnome, I'm very happy with this character, she's really sweet and reminds me of my Nan, which was what I was hoping for. The plan all along with this character was to not spend too much time on her because she is only seen for a few seconds. I have spent around three hours on her today and i'm impressed with the amount of work I have produced for her. 

I really enjoyed doing the expression because they gave me a fun way of anticipating the character's turnarounds - plus it helped in making her seem alive. 

I ended this session with a few colour experimentations - my favourites are 7 and 8 

Designing the garden

Today I woke up felling really badly about my work, I looked back on it all and thought, what am I doing!!! There is so much to do, yet each day all I do is draw a few pointless drawings and then call it a day - its happening to regularly and I'm sick of it. So I today I had a burning desire to finish all the design work by the end of the evening. I'm happy to say that I have done that and I'm ready to model. I had already finished designing the fish last week, and today I had to finish the garden, the female gnome and the male gnome.

This is how the garden has come together.

I started by sketching a few simple designs, the reason for this was I wanted to see where the pond would be situated, up against the back fence, or in the corner of the garden making a triangular shape. 

I went for the triangular shape because it allows for a smaller cut off set with a simple design, which will make this easy and quick to model/

This is the water feature that I'm going with, it is a three level water feature - I think this will be a nice symbol for sort of mountain to climb situation for the gnome. 

This is the final layout to the garden, the house will be a made from a simple cube with a texture map on it, and the pavement will be a simple texture with a bump map - making this simple to complete. I will also add extra garden things like some bins and plant pots.

Expression sheet and Turnaround

Fish update

I have been keeping myself busy by drawing some more images of the fish, I was keeping in mind the characteristics of the fish but trying to stay fresh at the same time. This allowed me to come up with some different styles and proportions - I have been enjoying my time with this fish so far.

I experimented with different scales - larger belly, large fins, larger eye - just so that I can experiment every possibility.

I drew some more images and tried working in some colour experiments

After a lot of experimentation, I came to the conclusion that the character just has to be black or possibly a ver park purple or blue.

I am now really happy with this character, the next job is to do expression sheets and turnarounds and then move on, there is plenty to do, and it is about time i did some designs for the pond. I pretty much know what it will look like because some of the design work was done in the animatic but I would like to focus in on some areas like the water feature and the plant life.

Fish design process

Research

My research started with looking at common pond fish - the search came up with fish like Goldfish, Koi, Ghost Koi, Common Carp, Sturgeon, Catfish, etc.

I really like the large mouth of the Catfish

The Goldfish is beautiful, but with some subtle added features it could look beautiful yet deadly

I found the spiky fin of the Perch beautifully dangerous.

I then remembered a fish that my brother had in his fish tank a few years back. The Black Moor Goldfish is perfect for the type character I need because it ticks all the boxes. 

There appears to be a slight lid on those massive eyes, which gives me the ability to make an angry frown. I also like how like how the overall shape of the fish is a triangle, yet the body is still very round, giving an evil yet playful character. 

Designing 

This was a very fun character to draw, the large eyes made it fun to watch them come alive, and the agile body helped make a fluid motion in the drawing. 

Here is an initial turnaround which as the character develops, so will the turnaround.

Focusing on Style

I'm not liking where my gnome is right now, so I have decided to redesign him but focusing more on style instead of accessories and colour. I redrew the gnome whilst looking at some of Chuck Jones' tom and Jerry cartoon images, and instantly had something that I liked a lot better than all the other designs. I showed Alan and he helped me push it further and told me some pointers I must keep in mind when drawing in the style of Chuck Jones.

I started by looking at some well know Chuck Jones characters like Wille Coyote, roadrunner, Tom and Jerry and Bugs Bunny (although he didn't create Bugs, he certainly made a big stamp on his character) 

What I like about this style is the clean outlines, the simplicity and the expressive poses that tell the story. I have now tried to use this in my work.

Already my drawings have become more expressive, I thought it best to design whilst in the poses I will use in the animation. for me this was a new way of doing things, because before I would normally design in front or side poses which lead to a flat and boring design. These are way more impressive to me and they really show the character. 

Now that I loosened up in the drawing, I wanted to work on the scale and structure of my character, so that I could then go back to posing but in a more focused way. 

I took one of the old drawings then morphed it into a certain shape that I like, I chose the fourth one as the best one. 

I then worked on skeletal structure and then cleaning up the outside lines. 

This is a drawing pose that I have put through the design process. I ended up putting a faded paint texture on the paint, it doesn't look great but its a start.  

CGAA/ACT Live Commission Speed Paint Challenge 01

Speed Paint Challenge 01 - This is what I saw

Originally I saw the piece opening up to a dead weeping willow on a hillside, as the music progressed I saw a raging file sweep up the hill and engulf the tree. The fire light the rest of the landscape showing a burning structure in the middle and burning castle like structure on the horizon. I also saw large trumpets bursting from the behind the horizon.