Gnome designs 01

I found it difficult to draw a good gnome in my sketchbook because all the line work was restricting me from creating something bold and new. So here I have gone into photoshop and obtained a large brush and just got painting without focusing on line work. I quite like these orginal sketches but I can definitely push so much harder!

Initial sketches of cthylla

So heres a quick start on the visual look, for me this is just a warm up to see what it could look like. So far I am happy with these sketches but at the moment I am miles away from actually designing as can be seen in these.

What these sketches have shown me though, is that this mash up of creatures doesn't and shouldn't look like a mash up. I certainly don't want this creature to look like a cut and paste design. So other ways I want to experiment, for example is the use of the tenticles; It seems obvious that they dangle from the face like a Davey Jones character or dangle from the bottom like number 3 on page 1. But I want to use each part properly and to the creatures advantage.


This would mean I first need to decide what this creature is - Character for a game or movie? Most feared animal under the sea or above... or he could possibly be the much lower down the food chain which opens up plenty of possibilities.

Initial Sketches

I started my day by drawing some images from a character design book to warm myself up and learn.

 

 

 

I then used the research I have and did some warm up 6 cm sketches

 

 

Most of these are hideous drawings but I do like 13, 14, 10 just basically because of the forms and variety between them.

 

My drawings today were focused on cloaked figures and metal clogs. I used these materials with different shapes to make out the style of character. I used the triangles for evil and sinister and I used squares to make a bulky figure. And this is what I got.

 

 

I'm happy with the progress today but tomorrow I would like the leave the cloaked figure alone, because it doesn't open up to many possiblities to experiment on the body and it just looks like a lazy character.

 

Variations of chainned arms and flesh arms - comments please

I was advised to see what it was like to have chainned arms and fleshed arms on the same body.

My favourite is 3 and 4 because I like that the back arms could be extend in battle to hit a far target.

20 - 30 minute sketches

For the last couple of hours I have been doing a few quick sketches, just to find shapes and create new forms. I have been a little short tempered today, so I thought I would draw that anger down. The anger has been washed away and I'm happy with the results created..


On our last meeting, Alan told me to focus more on who Loki is by fnding words that describe his character. I came up with, Twisted, Bent, Bulky, Giant, Animalistic, Powerful, Evil, Mutated, Strong and Trickster.

The next thing to do on my list is 5 minute drawings. This will allow me to losen up and create just basic shape which I can work on later.



Character lesson week 6 and 7

Week 6 was all about how powerful silhouettes are when working with characters. The silhouettes can help an artist determine how to create a character, if the character is working and where to improve a character. If a character's silhouette needs to be recognised as that character otherwise something isn't working.

For this weeks task I was asked to design monkey characters. I started to think about what these characters could be like. Where they warriors? Smart? Royal? Or were they plain old monkeys.

Heres what I came up with...

My first designs represent warrior monkeys. The top image is a strong warrior that will get a job done. In the second image I was trying to show a monkey stance with the bent knees and hunchness.

For this design I tried to get a royal and fat king that just lays around barking orders.

These last two images I wanted to stylise the monkey by simplifying the features and making the ears bigger.

My final task was to create a zombie character, I wanted to create two zombies, one normal human zombie and one monkey zombie. However I spent too much time on the one human zombie because I was having a lot of fun whilst doing it, anyway this is it.

Week 7 was a lesson I was really looking forward to, it involved making monsters and creatures. This lesson would be extremely useful for my sidekick and the alien side of the other characters. Well this week my task was ask to create the wildlife that would exist on a gaseous planet.

Before starting the designs I wanted to think about what kind of earth creatures would live in conditions like a gaseous planet. I first thought that there wouldn't be land; which means no vegetation, which means no herbivores and every animal would be a carnivore. Having no land would also mean that legs wouldn't be necessary. Justin told the class before drawing happened that the carnivores have evolved with weapons on the body to cause injury or death to there prey and herbivores have evolved to be armored or skilled in evading just so they have a chance in getting away. However my planet has no herbivores which mean each animal would have a offensive weapon and a defencive skill.

The animals I started to look at was aquatic animals because although the pressure of water, it's the closest reference I have to look at. Something else to look at was birds. I looked at fish and jellyfish and octopuses to get the following.

This designs are heavily inspired by jellyfish, the top left drawing is my favourite, the holes on its belly allow the animal to blow short burst of air out and float in the planets conditions. These holes also have long, thin, sticky fibres drooping from them, these allow the animal to catch small prey that flow into its path

This design has been inspired by a jellyfish and swordfish. It is heavily equiped with a super sharp sword like blade on the front of the face that wiill impail any weak spot on its prey. The rib cage will expand widely to allow the lungs to fill up to the maximum volume, the rib cage will be then contract quickly, releasing the air in the lungs out of two wholes in the back to allow short bursts of speed. These two equipments allows the creature to quickly burst and slice right through its prey. After development the creature now has a horizontal jaw that chews through its prey as the animal goes through. 

A competitive predator is this animal, an armored, club equiped piranha.

Character development

So far I've had a little trouble getting out of my comfort zone and all my designs seem to look the same. I know that I want the hero to not look as alien as the sidekick and the villian because otherwise its hard for anyone to look up to that and relate to it.

However the drawings that I have come up with for the hero are the following:

I like the idea of four arms and the reason for it seems to be understood by everyone; I want this guy to be an awesome four gunned hero because it would look so cool! However with this character when it come to development, I want to move on from western cowboy and move closer to the alien side because the alien part is what wil make this interesting.





And the Sidekick...

Most of these sidekick sketches are more like horse studies. What I wanted to do was understand the anatomy of the horse and possibly understand wht would happen to the structure if there was another head added. I still have no idea how it would be different, so I need to look deeper into the anatomy. So far I still don't know what this thing should look like but I know that I want to peel away from the horse and create some very alien.



The Villain

The villain is a lot more interesting to work with because he can look as ugly and as alien as I want. He the bad guy so no one should like him. This character will be old so he has knowledge and he will have more than two legs because the more legs a character has, the creepier and more untrusted they are.




A Talk with the wise and all powerful Phil

So today I had a talk with Phil and he tried to help unlock the trap I was in and unpick my brain to help me out with this project. I mentioned to him the problem of having the same drawing over and over again, so he told me to go back to the research. He mentioned that if he was to do this project with my genres, he would look at the western animals; specifically texas and that region. We took a look at the huge number of venomous animals that live in the texas deserts and we found loads of interesting animals. Especially a lizard that we both thought "Wow that couldn't look anymore alien if it tried". So to unlock my mind further I'm going to go back to the research and look at what Texas and other deserts had to offer.

Insantly I felt better about the way I was going to go with this and now hopefully I have that creative spark I was looking for and hopefully I won't put myself in the same trap.

On the way home I was thinking of having the villain as some reptilian with cactus spikes on it. How much more villianous can you get!!

Phil also mentioned that the horse would become a problem because at the moment itsjust a horse and that's what I'm having a problem with. He suggested that maybe I could go down a more insect root. Now I like this idea because insects already look alien as they are, plus I want atleast the muscle structure and skeleton of a horse in the creature so the blistering speed can still be achieved.

First set of Drawings for the Christmas Tree

Today has been a quite productive day, in a way I think I have a greenlight from Phil, which is awesome!!! So I started drawing some drawings for the Christmas, and what I have focused on is turning the tree into a humanish shape. I have grouped the bristles together to create limps of the character which will help with movement and posture. I've tried to keep the long and bent back to show dominance and pride from the character.

Here I have studied the movement of the tree as if it was taking a step forward and then spin and then moonwalk backwards a little. I know this movement is unique and won't be used, but I wanted to practice with a movement that would be hard. I like the different changes in stance and posture, I will also be different movements as well for more practice. I also want to use the animation paper to view the movement closer and see it in action.