Art 450 Post Mortem and Propaganda Posters

So I thought I would do a quick blog post about my thoughts on how my first 450 class went. I really feel like Tawnee and I had a great concept to start the project with and I'm actually still really excited about possibly continuing with it during Winter term. On the other hand, in the end I think Tawnee and I both felt that the expectation of three fully finished characters was setting the bar a bit too high. If I could go back and change anything it would be to change the expectation to one or two characters rather than three. Another option we could have pursued, because we are both very interested in 3D work, is to just do everything in 3D for the whole term with just the expectation of learning and seeing what the result were.

Overall I really liked the direction I was going with my Ugly character but in turn sacrificed time I could have spent working on each character equally or working on the Ugly character in 3D. Above everything else though, I did end up learning a lot from the critiques and can't wait to take another 450 class next term!

Onto the Propaganda Posters! These were for my Print Studio class. The assignment was to make a series of post card size anti-narrative pieces based on some sort of apocalyptic event. If you don't know what anti-narrative means, feel free to look it up because I think I would butcher the definition. :-/

For my anti-narrative project I decided to create propaganda posters from different organized groups that could pop up in a post apocalyptic 2013 society.

More Ugly

New wings!

Silhouette Fun

Miles talked to Tawnee and I on Tuesday about how drawing silhouette forms of our creatures could help us to get a better idea of how we really want the body shapes to look. I did some silhouettes for all three characters and I also wanted to show some detail work I did on the Ugly character. Even though I might be changing that character around, I still think it was some good practice in drawing cloth and gave me a good sense of how I'd like to approach clothing on that particular character.

Ugly Silhouettes:

I think an aspect that I really like about this character is that, although his body shape is meant to be incredibly thin, I still find myself adding characteristics to him that make him heavy. I think this is an interesting contrast that was initially unintentional.

Ugly Detail:

Grotesque Silhouettes:

Nasty Silhouettes:

Quick Revision!

Revised Ugly a bit over the weekend.

I changed the size of the wing knob thing (I made it smaller so as to put more emphasis on the wing itself), put the leg in the correct position, changed the shoulders a bit (I wanted them to feel more like they were hanging there and a bit heavy or cumbersome), shrunk his head, and did some super rough shading.

The Evolution Continues

I have seven versions of this guy. I've had so much fun working on him today!

Leg Test:

Current Version:

Hmmm... need to shrink that head down a bit I think! Other than that and some minor changes, I'm really liking this version and I think I can basically call this shape of the body finalized.

Some visual research I did today:

Mysterios Floating Burrlyx by Dave Melvin

Keith Thompson Tribute Creature by Rodrigo Vera

What interests me about these two creatures are, in Dave Melvin's piece, the shape and anatomy of the leg like extensions; and, in Rodrigo Vera's piece, the color scheme that's happening there. Both are very intriguing creatures and definitely an inspiration for this project!

Calling All SOU Game Devs!

Although the registration date for new clubs has passed, I would still like to instate some kind of prospective video game developers club here at SOU. It won't be official until new clubs are allowed to register again, but having a place to get together with like minded people and share our thoughts about video game development and the industry in general would be amazing!

So, if you're interested in working in the video game industry, want to discuss how video games are created, and attend SOU then please let me know!

I'd love to set up some sort of first meeting, but getting an idea of who's interested first would be awesome!

You can let me know if you're interested by commenting on this blog post OR emailing me at peckl@students.sou.edu.

Second Meeting and WIP Sketches

Tawnee and I had our second meeting on Tuesday during which we discussed Mudbox tutorials and played around with that program a bit. After that we continued to discuss our characters and gave each other some suggestions. So, here are my WIP sketches of my characters so far.

Ugly:

Grotesque:


Unfortunately, I spent so much time on the Ugly and Grotesque characters that I haven't gotten a chance to put my Nasty character ideas on paper. I'm going to spend my whole lab shift today on that character so I'll be posting sketches of that later this evening!

First Meeting and Sketches

So Tawnee and I successfully had our first meeting today, huzzah!

The first thing we wanted to do was get a basic outline going for each character. It was a bit difficult at first because we wanted to have some sort of guideline without getting too specific. What we decided to do was have a really basic body type description and one open ended "rule" that we have to follow for each character. For both Ugly and Grotesque, Tawne and I have a few characters in mind that we'd like to adapt to our guidelines. The Nasty character is where we'll be conceptualizing something completely new. We came up with the following.

1. Ugly
Body Type: A skeletal type of skinny.
Rule: Some sort of bone structure must be visible.

2. Grotesque
Body Type: Big, bulky, muscular.
Rule: Oozing liquid substance, dripping.

3. Nasty
Body Type: A mix of both the skinny and bulky body types. We really want to try to push this character and challenge ourselves here.
Rule: Multiple body parts and/or misplaced anatomy. This works well with the mixture of body types, we could make multiple arms where some are large and muscular while others are small or shriveled.

We then had a little critique/suggestion session for our past characters that we would be incorporating into this project. It was really helpful for me to get Tawnee's input and I'll actually be implementing a few of her ideas into my characters!

After that we did some really fun visual research. We took a look at characters in both World of Warcraft and Allods Online. Tawnee and I will both be seeking inspiration from these characters and more:



After Tawnee left I started to do some sketching for the Ugly and Grotesque characters. I just started to draw over an old sketch and then created a brand new sketch for the Grotesque character.

First sketch of the wing.

Second sketch overlay. I can't decide which one I like. :-/

Click on this one to get a better look!

I think this project is going to be a really fun challenge, and having someone to talk to about feedback and ideas is really great!

ART 450: Project Proposal

1. Working Title.

The Ugly, the Grotesque, and the Nasty.

2. One-sentence description.

The Ugly, the Grotesque, and the Nasty will be a collaborative project focusing on the pre-production and development of three 3-D character models.

3. One-paragraph description.

The Ugly, the Grotesque, and the Nasty will be a collaborative project focusing on the pre-production and development of three 3-D character models. Each character will separately correspond with the terms ugly, grotesque, or nasty. Because each of these terms “takes it to the next level” in terms of ugliness, so will our designs and concepts for each character.

4. One-page description.

The Ugly, the Grotesque, and the Nasty will be a collaborative project focusing on the pre-production and development of three 3-D character models. Each character will separately correspond with the terms ugly, grotesque, or nasty. Because each of these terms “takes it to the next level” in terms of ugliness, so will our designs and concepts for each character.

This project becomes collaborative through predetermined meetings and mini-critiques in order to reflect on each other’s work and how the other artist approaches these three characters. We will also have each other to further expand our resources and knowledge of our programs of choice.

Our goal will be to have clean and fully completed concept drawings that will be ready to model in a 3-D program. In addition to this, it would be nice to actually start modeling at least one or more of these characters.

5. The product of the project.

Both artists will have at least three fully completed concept drawings that will be ready to model in a 3-D program. With a great amount of luck and skill, both artists will also have started at least one 3-D model.

6. Visual/written research.

World of Warcraft:

Aion Online:

Miscellaneous Artists:

Sweet Grotesque Victor by WadeFurlong

7. Treatment visuals.

Previous drawings of mine that reflect the beginning stages of the style/direction I hope to go in during the course of this project:

8. Technical/research issues that will be addressed.

During the course of our project we will be utilizing Maya, Mudbox, and Photoshop to complete our designated goals. Both artists will be doing independent, as well as collaborative, research in order to learn as much as possible about these programs.

9. Specific timeline.

Oct. 5 - Present Project Proposal
Oct. 7 - Meet and conceptualize characters, rough sketches, and visual research
Oct. 12 - Meet and mini-critique sketches, establish what to produce for the WIP critique, and research Maya/Mudbox tutorials
Oct. 14 - WIP Critique in class, Printed Proposal
Oct. 19 - Meet and continue research of Maya/Mudox, continue concept drawings
Oct. 21 - Meet and mini-critique at least 1 completed character concept
Oct. 26 - Meet and start roughing out 3-D models in Maya/Mudbox
Oct. 28 - WIP Critique
Nov. 1-10 - Checking in and establishing meetings when necessary
Nov. 11 - Meet and mini-critique at least 2 completed character concepts
Nov. 18 - WIP Critique
Nov. 30 - Meet and mini-critique at least 3 completed character concepts
Until Final, check in and establish meetings when necessary
Dec. 6 - Final Critique

Drink n' Draw Madness

So last night Ace and Kyle convinced me to go to Drink n' Draw even though I was really tired and not feeling too social. It actually turned out to be really fun, as usual, and there were a lot of people there just sketching away.

Here's what I did:


I never get too much drawing done at Drink n' Draw, ironic I know, so I only have the one page out of my sketch book. I was really into that bird/humanoid thing and I focused a lot on the sketch in the lower right corner of the page.

So, I scanned it into Photoshop and here's the result:

I can't really seem to figure out his lower body, but I'm having a lot of fun with this drawing so far.

Random Sketch!

So, me not having Digital Media classes this term has been a real detriment to my blog posts. I was posting so regularly last term! For anyone who reads this and doesn't know, I got into the BFA program this term! Very exciting! Now I just need to land an internship...

Anyways, here's a sketch I did last night. The Tier 8 Warlock helm in WoW totally infiltrated my mind recently and obviously this is some sort of creepy tribute to it. I really had a lot of fun sketching it and might want to take it further at some point, but right now I'm done looking at it and want other people to.

The Inspiration:

The Sketch:

His/hers/it's arm and hand look really funky... just sayin'! Need to fix that pronto!

Also, I've decided I'm just going to do a huge post at the end of term showcasing the rest of the traditional art I've done for my classes. Let's just hope I make it there alive!

Traditional Art Update

I'm finishing up my intro art classes this term and taking the Drawing III class as well so I thought I'd post an update with some photos of my stuff so far!

Printmaking I:

FYI, neither of these are the actual prints, just the drawings I'm using for the etchings. I'll post the actual prints once I've done those.

Our first assignment was to listen to noise or music and draw a 3x3 image of what we heard or felt. This was my favorite one that I drew, it's supposed to be the doppler effect of cars driving by.

Our second assignment was to use letters or numbers in any way we wished. I went through a few ideas before landing on this one. I took a famous quote about language and "translated" it into text/SMS speak. I think this would be a really fun concept to make into a series of some kind with a bunch of quotes. Could you imagine a wall lined with 3x3 squares of babble? :P

The quote is, "Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about." - Benjamin Lee Whorf

Drawing III:

We've had one assignment in Drawing thus far, and it was pretty interesting. We all brought in a past piece and did a critique on those, drew thumbnail images for how we would improve that drawing/painting, and then we were instructed to create a non representational image of that work. Here's the original drawing followed by progress photos of the non representational version:

The whole idea behind the original was to give the viewer the feeling of being watched by some unknown creature beyond the paper. In order to create a non representational version of that I decided to not only break down the geometric properties of the original, but the concept as well. So, for the non representational version the basic concept is that there's something ominous behind those jagged lines and it's coming for you. Despite the simplicity of this drawing, I had a LOT of fun making it!

Painting I:

Our first assignment for Painting I was to do three paintings just abstractly experimenting with color blending. There were a few specifications for each painting, but I won't get into that. I also decided to omit the first painting because I don't like it, haha.

And that's it for now! I'll probably keep doing bulk updates for my traditional art, it's just easier.