Visual Design - Zombie

Supporting the Halloween theme that was drawing near, in this lesson I learnt about applying different kinds of textures to a pre-made model to make them appear like a zombie. I was first given the body template before adding the different textures on separate layers.

On Photoshop, I used the modes multiply and overlay to make some of the textures appear realistic.

Once that was done overall, I then reloaded this newly made template on another pre-made model on Maya that was animated to walk like a zombie.

Life Drawing 5

In my next Life Drawing lessons, I did more practise on sketching in motion, drawing fluid and much quicker lines to follow the movement of the model. 

Afterwards, I tried something different, in which we did the opposite of what we had been doing usually. By covering up the entire sheet in charcoal, using an eraser and my own fingers, I added light to the figure, slowly exposing the contours of the body. 

Finally, dividing a sheet I used two different mediums to draw with, pen and another pencil, then saw the difference between them. I much preferred the pencil, as I felt too restricted with the pen.

Visual Design - Lava Technique

In this lesson, I learnt how to realistically draw lava textures in Photoshop. It was blend of bright colours, mostly yellow, orange and red (with some white) to get a very fiery effect. How ever, I also learnt how much easier it was to do if the inner and outer glow was changed on the pen so it was draw out fluidly, and with a texture provided. I was given to try this out on an image already cropped out of a rock creature, to design it in a way that made it appear it was made out of lava. Exposure and levels were also adjusted to make the creature stand out.

In the end, I was made to design a creature similarly to that of the one above, and came up with an idea of a underwater shark. It was firstly done with in silhouette before drawn over with the lava texture and some airbrush tools.

Life Drawing 4

For this session, we focused on movement of the body. I found this to be quite tricky and difficult to draw from when the body was not at a stand still. Even so, it shows how quickly I must capture a body in motion for a walk cycle.

After this I used difficult types of media, such as felt pen and pencil. And in the end, we all did a collaborative drawing using the medium of our choice.

Visual Design - Pixel Art

For this lesson, I was introduced to the design of Pixel Art, and so for my next assignment I was set to create an object that would have suited the image above. The theme was toys, or retro toys in general, and I went on to design a toy rocket. I found this work to be rather fun.

Visual Design - Sci Fi Weapon

For this lesson, we were assigned to design a futuristic gun, and I immediately set to work on finding inspiring works that helped influence my designs greatly. 

My mood board ranges from games such as Fallout, Mass Effect, Rachet and Clank Borderlands and Destiny.

I began developing weapons by sketching and fine lining details of the designs, focusing on theme and the types of guns used in real life.

Afterwards, I began designing into more detail on the gun aesthetic by highlighting them with colour, and further developing their look by marking features.

In the end, I ended up with my Shotgun design, greatly influenced by the 1950s era, and drew this out on Photoshop. Using a grid, it helped me keep up with straight lines and symmetry. I also changed the final design slightly on areas I thought unnessessary.

Life Drawing 3

For this session, in my first half I had to do some very quick sketches with charcoal. I had mostly concentrated on volume and form rather than what was exactly accurate to the body, and found the second noted picture was more preferable than the first in my outcomes.

 In the next half I was made to draw to music, and didn't find it distracting as some of my peers did, however it was interesting how large I had made my final drawing instead.

Visual Design - Body Proportions

In this lesson, I was taught about height comparisons and how the average body stands at around 7 to 8 heads in one form. However, for this task I was challenged to create a character of my own design inspired by Elf and Dwarf designs. An Elf should stand roughly around 9 heads with their slim structure, where as a Dwarf is the complete opposite, standing at 4 instead. I started with a basic head shape for the Dwarf to get a good grasp of the height, before designing the silhouette, line art and colour. I did the exact same for the Elf later on.

I worked on head sizes first.

Developing some work with side by side comparisons and inspirations.

Colouring after line art.

Here are my final outcomes.

Winter Assignment - Level Design Concepts

As prior for my Winter Assignment, I created some level designing from a birds eye view and from perspective. Further detail on specific objects will be added later on, but I thought it was best to know how the grounds of my brief game play will be. Following the idea of my Prison Breakout story/plot, I had taken inspiration from other game series that have had this theme already, such as Outlast, Prison Architect and Dishonored.

Here is a rough moodboard that inspired my designs.

Birds Eye View of the Prison layout that mainly involves two hallways and some places of interest.

Perspective drawing of a hallway (that leads into the inaccessible shower hall). Concept is more or less exactly the same as the other hallways (of course without the door).

Perspective drawing of the Wardens Office and path leading to the foyer/main entrance and side entrance to the fire escape where the game play ends.

Perspective concept design of two different jail cells, where as one is generic (right) and the other will feature the broken bars (left) but will roughly have the same aesthetics within.

3D Art Production - Pillar

In this lesson, I had learnt from referencing an image to replicate the model in Maya. In this session, I also discovered the sculpting tool and how useful it can be. It took me roughly two hours to understand it but I feel I've accomplished something, and lastly rendered the pillar (that was originally one form, duplicated and combined) with a marble like texture.

Dreamstime [Online] http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/classic-column-26447376.jpg [Accessed: 7th October 2015].

bgfons [Online] http://bgfons.com/upload/marble_texture4665.jpg [Accessed: 7th October 2015].

Winter Assignment - Storyboard and One Sheet Template

For my first years winter assignment, I was given the task to create a brief walking simulator that consisted of two minutes. Firstly, I had done some research into that specific genre by viewing some brief play-throughs, and wanted to design something that hasn't been done before. I thought up of a story heavily based on Noire-Esque themes (like L.A Noire and Hotel Dusk).

I then went on to flesh out the story on the template, before doing my storyboard all together. My next task was to design the level for Unity.

3D Art Production - Battle Arena on Maya

For my next 3D Art Producton lesson, I was set to design a specific type of battle arena. From what my mood board shows, I drew most of my inspiration from real life situations, other fantasy-likes environments from different media sources, and floating level platforms. I wanted to design a level that had more than just the fighting going on, by drawing the attention also to the underside of the floating island. 

For most of it, the level design is grey, aside the few coloured shapes that make up the back story. There are two different factions on the playing field, and they are constricted by how far they can go. On the underside of the level, I wanted to show how the island originally looked before the battle took place. Besides the purple "rocks" sticking out that represent the important material source the red faction is trying to obtain, the island is teeming with life (or what is left of it). This was made entirely on Maya.