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!