Computer arts resit – 01

 

 

 

Research

 

 

First I began by writing out a short lore word document to base my v=characters off of the began researching art depicting similar archetypes that could be applied to my own characters.

After I sellected a few from the to for mood boards for each character and potential character

 

the humans

 

The humans spider mounts

Land of despair

 

 

Moloch

 

Moloch’s cavern

 

 

 

 

 

 

Molochs cultists

 

 

 

 

 

Mammon

 

 

Suicide tree’s

  

 

Content and them guide

While  zdzisław beksiński and hironemous bosch were influential in what I wished to depict I do not believe that I could match their style nor how to approach doing so in the time I have.

Copic marker style guide

Soft and oil pastel guide

 

I would like to explore using pastel and copics a bit more and will attempt their use in my concept research.

Concept developement

And I began to develop my ideas starting with rough Ideas before I began the reserach

 

 

I did some studies onto the eye’s and nose to refresh how I could best depict them before taking a more serious attempt at the concept art.

 

I began bey drawig out either elments of characters in artwork or combining them to try and get more clear focus onto the subjects

 

 

 

 

 

I quite Liked the idea’s of the hair color, patchwork clothes and masks so decide to use these to create my character.

 

A study of “the evil owl” lengthend form as I quite liked the menacing face. 

But I wanted a more etheral form for the character and studied some shapes that had no traditonal body

 

Molochs form was more complicated but I quite liked using oil and soft pastels to render the more stone like appearance.

 

 

With some clear ideas as tgo what they looked like I created some thumbnails for these three characters as I did not have enough time to create more for the other characters but these were the three main ones I wished to represent anyway.

Mammon

 

Moloch

 

 

Human

 

Character sheets were a bit rushed and lacking detail but like the diferent shapes I put into each one

 

Moloch

Mammon

Human (Seris Lugal)

 

 

 

 

Advanced Animation – Summer resit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After looking through the 11 second club for a suitable clip to animate to I found three which I felt were best to explore a bit, I wrote out the dialogue for each and tried to imagine how I would go through them to bring them to life and choose the one I felt was the strongest.

 

After having decided on what piece to animate I tried to break down each different emotional expression and adapt them to the models I had chosen to work on, this gave me a single source to animate from.

 

After that I did a study into the different posses with family members to get a better understanding of what the bodies would look like.

Then I chose what the default pose would be to set the tone of the animation.  

I also quickly did some studies and reesearch to refresh my memory of the principles of animation.

 

 

 

 

 

The animated piece was quite short but I tried to break down the story boards between the different big motions that each character makes.

 

 

I then researched the common lip syncing for animation and tried saying each characters lines while watching in a mirror to see what it looked like and create a guide through the dialogue.

 

 

 

 

Computer Arts Practice – 08 Semester two reflective blogs

Goal: Studies to develop a better ability to render humans through anatomical studies, muscle & skeletal studies and Life drawing

 

Entry 01: 25/1/2014

I started these my attempts to learn how to draw the human body with more realism with a set of anatomical studies focusing on the muscles and bones in  the Shoulder, the same for the hands yet I underestimated both the size and complexity of these and found it difficult to accurately capture them, after that I tried going from the shoulder down but got caught at the hand again.

I became frustrated with this and tried again trying to draw the hands following tutorials yet this still I struggled with them, though I pressed on with it to see trying to work through it and managed to create some semi looking hands that seem pretty good.

 

Entry 02: 31/1/2014

We went to the McManus gallery today and were set a challenge to draw a work of art and see what effect would come from it, I feel like mentioning it here as though it’s not something to submit for the course work it was an interesting experience, It was the polar opposite of last week, maybe because of what I chose, I didn’t actually try to capture it showed, It was called black ice, an inverted photograph of snow that was engraved on metal.

Unlike with the anatomy study this was so easy, I mixed around between using charcoal and Pastels where I just tried draw what I felt I saw rather than what was there, doubt I could have copied it but maybe I should ease up with the pressure and just try to draw.

 

Entry 03: 08/2/2014

I talked with Ryan today about the reflective document and I think it’s helped to focus what I want to do as before it seemed a bit vague, I need to learn the basic shapes and form to develop more, Ryan turned me onto a website that has many models in differing poses, It should be useful for practice, I decided to try one but pretty quickly it fell apart, I wrote of the figure having only drawn the basic shape of the head, torso and legs and even those only line and stick figure.

I took a moment and backed away from it, then decided to try again this time focusing on just doing the models pose as a basic stick figure to see what would happen if that was the point, and it actually looks okay, the perspective, the shape, they’re right but that’s what was wrong with the last drawing, maybe I’m letting the body get in the way of the stance of the models when I draw them.

 

Entry 04: 11/02/2014

This was a short one, while having coffee with Ellen brought out my small sketch book and began to draw her and used the Brush pen to keep the lines rough and hold off on using , I wanted to know what would happen if I threw away the rules and just drew whatever I felt like.

It was difficult as she kept moving but I found I was trying to capture detail again, It wasn’t the rough strokes that I had wanted nor the experimental efforts I supposed, I feel like this is the wrong path, No idea what to do.

 

Entry 05: 13/02/2014

Decided to ask Esther permission to draw her this time round as it would be a better chance to exercise my abilities if the person knew, I decided that I should draw her as an exercise to see how well I could draw her, While definitely better than Ellen’s drawing, I used a pencil this time, their were many flaws, The proportions of the face were of making her look a bit chubbier than she is and the hair was ill defined though later I took out my blue pencil and just tried drawing it in on top gaining a better effect than with the carbon pencil.

More studies into form and shape of facial features are needed to allow me to understand how to get them right on while drawing a person.

Entry 06: 22/02/2014

I decided to start another anatomy study focusing on the skull, Following the examples set by an anatomy book of mine I actually found this really difficult, towards the end of it I realised that I was stressing so much again because It didn’t look right, again I was trying to make the thing seem perfect rather than trying to “art” it.

I think this is where I struggle, the point between making my work recognisable and making an artistic expression, So as this let me down, I realised again I was overcomplicating it, the skulls were trying to be gestural drawings with high detail and I need to get over that.

Entry 07:26/2/2014

I managed to get into the extra curricular Life drawing class with Ryan, With some proper guidenc eIt was remarkedly easier, though again I tried to focus on geting the shape and pose right experimenting with some shading.

I feel like this has helped my confidence and lessened the stress of it a little, still though, I need to attend more of these classes to bolster my ability.

Entry 08: 27/2/2014

I sat down at a coffee house with a big window for this one, I just drew whoever walked past and tried to focus on their proportion and stance, it took a bit and experimenting with gesture drawings in which I tried to capture the general character and proportion of people rather than try to capture the details of their appearance as I tend to get focused on realistically depicting a person over creating art so that I could get into the swing of drawing what I wanted as opposed to what I thought I should.

Entry 09: 04/03/2014

I decided that because of the Complexity of the skull that first it would be an idea to capture the General shape and began breaking it down to basic shapes devoid of to much detail, the goal was to gain an understanding of the basic form that I could build upon for future drawings,I drew them out from as many different angles as I could and feel that I gained a better understanding of the basics of the head.

Entry 10: 12/03/2014

Trying to concentrate on the torso inside of Life Drawing Class, was too rigid at first but began to relax relax a bit and the form became a bit easier. the more contorted poses and perspectives are still a bit difficult but just need more practice.

Behance Critique:

Thanks for sharing Kemal – good to see some work. My first recommendation is to draw a few torso studies from some reference books to familiarize yourself with correct proportions and physical properties of skin/bone/muscle.

Once this is done apply your practice in life drawing classes, you will begin to make more connections and your work will improve.

Combined tactics!

Entry 11

Once Again at a life drawing class And feel I have improved, the line work is more certain and the Shape and tone seem clearer and better defined and even managed to get some hands drawn in, definitely an improvement., Though becoming more stressed again.

 

Entry 12

Augh, tried going into Life drawing class but had been up all night for profesional project, ended up not really being able to draw, good art is helped by a nights rest. 

 

Creative Research 06 – Semester Two

 

Professional Project 04- Final Animations

Having Completed the animations I exported them out into both individual frames and into sprite sheets  for dziek to import them into Unity.

Entrance Sprite Sheet.

Idle Sprite Sheet.

Run Sprite Sheet.

Jump Sprite Sheet.

Fall Death Sprite Sheet.

Burn Death Sprite Sheet.

Gas Death Sprite Sheet.

Exit Sprite Sheet.

 

All animations  In video form

Animations in-game.

Professional Project 03- Animation tests

A series of test was then done on the three main animations to capture the basic motions of the characters, as the Idle, jump and run animation were the most prevalent at this point I focused on them.

 

 

 

 

As I worked on them I presented them to my course mates and tried to gradually improve upon them.

Professional Project 02- Animation Design.

Initial Research

The design of the Character animation had to reflect not just the character itself but the situation he was involved in as the situation often determines a person’s actions and allowed some personality to be defined.

Much of the game is centered around running and jumping so a Monkey character was decided on, research into Ed muybridge’s, Dream work’s Kung fu panda character Monkey and Rare’s work on Donkey Kong country helped to understand how to create a realistic acting Monkey.

http://www.magnoliabox.com/art/415768/Baboon_Walking_on_all_fours

http://kungfupanda.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Images_of_Monkey?file=MonkeyConcepts2.JPG

http://www.spriters-resource.com/game_boy_advance/dkcountry/sheet/13810/

This allowed a firm background to create the characters movement through the game though a more frantic design was incorporated to reflect the escape nature of the game, experimenting led me to believe using puppet animation in After Effects was the best choice.

Flash

 

A quick test in Adobe Flash but was dissatisfied with it as it looked more like a dog than a monkey, decided to continue to experiment in After Effects rather than use flash as felt it was new and could be useful to see what I could do with a different method.

After Effects

Each limb and appendage was separately drawn (See Character Design) and imported into After effects where I assembled the monkey character and used attached pegs to each separate limb and key framed them create to create a whole walk cycle that could be observed once finished individual frames would be exported onto a sprite sheet for use in the phyre engine.

 

 

 

Some Animation tests in After effects using the peg animation and the reference’s above to try and get a fell for this style of animation while creating a monkey like movement.

Professional Project 01- Concept and early development.

 

 

 

 

Initial Idea Development.

For the Game concept we brain stormed as a group to come up with some idea’s to make, mine was a robot trapped inside a space station that is collapsing into a dangerous nebula and you must escape, it was selected to be the one developed so I did some quick sketches of the Character and game play ideas to convey what I had in mind for it

 

As the concept was pure platforming where we were to create a game as the best example of a platforming game I wanted to keep it simple dividing it into four different game mechanics

One: Running

Two: Jumping

Three: Grabbing

Four: Throwing

Things such as Running and jumping were obvious, using these to jump and traverse around the space station as it broke apart though we could play with gravity to see what challenges we could throw the player with simple differences in run speed and jump height.

I also wanted to switch it up a bit with using Scientist in the game as objects to avoid hazards, such as throwing them at gun turrets to drain their ammo and laying them on fire to walk over it safely, not for the scientist obviously.

Another mechanic was grabbing, Such as holding onto platforms that were floating throw space and launching yourself in straight lines to other platforms to reach the end of the level.

 

Once Lee and Sean took over game and level design we filtered into our respective roles and as the character animator I spoke to the Character designer Murray about the way I would need the art assets to be to animate them, We brain stormed Ideas and came up with the suit idea having researched Animation techniques I wanted to use After Effect’s Peg animation.

As the rotation and peg animation tool each limb was broken up to create a type of ball and socket join, in example the right hand asset overlapped the right lower arm at the wrist while the right lower arm overlapped the Upper arm at the elbow, the right upper arm overlapping at the body’s shoulder and so on.

This allows for the creation of a puppet in after effect that could be easily changed to create multiple animation from the same basic art assets.

 

A quick animation test in flash.

Computer Arts Practice – 06 More work

 

 

 

An alternate to the Death without the lower half but Like the original to much.

 

 

 

 

A more fully developed Doctor Design to try and fit it in with the style Asked for in the brief, Hard to do as their quite different but Decided to take different aspects such as the aetstic design from Jak and dexter and try dota2 atmosphere.

 

Antagonist – Aerico

A demon of illness that turns into mist and infects a person, The plague doctor has a cure to free his paitients from the demon but only his campoinion Death can tell where the demon travels to as such the Plague doctor  is led from land to land trying to chase away the demon everytime he finds a victum.

Computer Arts Practice – 07 Evaluation

Kemal Thomson 0903426 Computer Arts Evaluation

 

Perspective Study

For the first Evaluation I Started by creating a perspective study aiming to draw with the two hour time scale, performing carful observation, utilizing clear line work and employing discipline.

I chose a nearby car park area that allowed me to best plot out and create the sense of perspective scale and though I had used vanishing points before and so was fairly comfortable by the principles behind it.

The box like shapes of the alcoves worked well with one point perspective and though the foliage was a challenge, though it was advised against I felt it was not too difficult to convey a sense of what they were though I faltered in representing them accurately and rendered them less realistically than I perhaps could have.

I found creating a sense of scale was a relatively easy process as was working out where the guide lines should be placed to give a consistent feel to the perspective though found difficulty in creating solid line work.

Ultimately I was happy with the outcome as it was identifiable and felt taking on the tree’s and bushes was worth the effort as it helped to define the space more and give it an extra dimension than being a flat wall.

I took an extra try in my free time this time focusing on an indoor situation, the columns, wall and different ceiling lengths provided a chance to focus more on my line work and I tried to focus on this more than the perspective, while not as good above I felt concentrating on the area I felt I had let down was a good chance to improve so was worth the time.

I feel being able to properly create a sense of realistic scale and proportion is important to be an Animator as much of the illusion of life within an animation is dependent upon the consistancey of the world, a poor perspective is one of the more noticeable errors that can be picked up on by an audience if the characters and locatons continuely change size for no apparent reason.

I shall continue to develop this and see if I can get the basics underfoot and develop a more advanced use of perspective drawing  as one of the biggest blocks was my lack of confidence using this principle.

 

People and Motion

 

I went to a nearby Coffee shop that had a table set against its large window and began doodle them in my Sketch book, I was attempting to capture these people as they moved through their day and how they were represented through their actions making fast quick drawings using a fine line pencil, though I did switch to a black copic marker to see the effect it would have on my drawing.

The exercise was of course not about the detail or even appearance of the person, but what I could convey about them, what sense of action or emotion could I imbue in them in the shortest amount of time as such I focused on making silhouette like figures defined by as little line work as possible .

 

It was easy to work fast but well was another issue, and so I experimented with my pattern of drawing a bit, seeing whether the shape of the person’s body was important or could be represented with bare stick figure lines and I found it was the poses that could convey the most sense of character than facial features and once that was down it was simple to go from there.

One of the chalanging issue however was keeping the image that I constructed of this person in mind while doodleing, I tried drawing without looking however this became a more troublesome solution as I began to focus more on what they looked like while sacrificing control of drawing and stopped after my first attempt as it seemed like it would not help.

Having done so I then stopped drawing the face but for hints at the heads existence, tried seeing if the clothes could be used to define a person’s body and personality which seemed to work fairly effectively.

Visually showing a personality is the better way to establish a character over using exposition as we often judge a person based on the way they act over the way they or others say they are and these can conflict if not appropriately developed.

I enjoy this type of drawing and have done something like it before in my free time I find it’s quite interesting trying to capture how people move in a quick doodle and felt I was able to create a clear sense of a personality in most of them.

Life drawing class #01

 

I took some extra classes in order to further study human anatomy and drawing from a real person under guidance seemed the best way.

We drew in 10, 15 and 30 minute intervals as the model changed positions, I tried to focus on draw the physical shape of the person as I wanted to focus on this aspect of drawing the human figure, getting the proportions and perspective of the model as closely as I could.

I’ve found that I have a sketchy level of quality when it comes to this, sometimes I manage to get it down right and others it seems to be all wrong but mostly I try to focus on doing it as well as I can without getting too discouraged from it as It’s often my view of how wrong I’m getting something that will block my enthusiasm to work on an art piece so I felt it was important to be part of a scheduled art class to help push me into giving my best at it, this is often the case where I will work better when with people as seeing others doing it is encouraging.

 

 

I must continue to find Social ways to continue developing my art skills as it does help as well as developing more advanced understanding as to how to draw the human form and shape.

 

 

I shall continue to draw from café’s as people seem to not mind you mind you doing so if you ask as well as maybe try and organise some friends to engage with artistically and further develop my ability to draw people.

 

Tone and Shape

In this task I had less than 2 hours to complete a tonal study of objects, I chose to draw a small mannequin doll I have for perspective drawing as it seemed to have the best choice of complex shapes and the light was quite distinct on the curved surface to practice tone on.

I posed him so he wasn’t standing while straight and raised the hand to cast a shadow on the head, and he does only have one hand.

An important part of tone is defining the shape of an object or person that would not be able to be displayed by the line art giving a more real sense of depth.

While I was not able to completely display the subtleties of the shadows I was able to define the form and display a difference in tone that helped to define the Curves of the doll.

A second drawing I did for this focused on shape, I placed my plant, Robert, and began to experiment with defining the curves and twists of the stems and leaves, I found this the more difficult of the two and feel that more experimenting with drawing plants and flowers is needed as I don’t feel I can display them pleasantly.

 

 

Overall more focus is needed on my use of tone while I find outlining shapes okay the different tones of the shadows do not feel distinct enough to one another and this undermines the total form of the doll, Experimenting with different types  of crosshatching pencils and pens to further understand what I can get out of them is necessary.

Life drawing class #02

 

Mostly for this Art Class I continued on with trying to further my ability to draw the human body in a number of different poses, I used a donkey for these instead of using a Easel as I wanted to see if whether standing had an effect on my concentration, apparently it does, I also switched between using a brush pen and a pencil trying to get used to the differences in what I could get out of each.

 

I positioned for a more complicated perspective view on some of the models positions to have a go at drawing perspectives at which I was not comfortable with, at first it was difficult but as we got through them I started understand better.

I also took the chance to experiment with tone on one of the poses, there are quite a lot of subtleties to depicting tone on a person and I need to do more to get a better grounding In this.

IT’s quite difficult to gage My improvements through the life drawing classes as there’s not necessarily a consistent routine to it and that can be frustrating at times

Misc. Exercises

Whilst doing some doodles of my girlfriend I found I was unconfident when it came to facial features.

IT hadn’t occurred to me that while I could create a these things it was difficult to do so because I was still unused to drawing them certain ways so I began to study them.

I began with eye’s, looking up various ways to represent them and trying to create as large a number as I could so as to become more confident in drawing them and as I went along it became Easier to do them, I began to draw some more stylized versions to experiment though I was familiar with them and then doing some noses and mouths and then hands because I was far less sure Of my ability with them than anything else.

I fell like this exercise helped me to become a bit more relaxed with regards to drawing the face, though I enjoyed it I feel I shall make time again to practice similar exercises from different angles and start including them all together.