Process Log 6: Progressions

This Process Log isn't really a "process log", but I thought it would be cool to share some of the progression I went through from 2009 to now. I like to look back at old characters I drew and revamp them, just to see how much I've learned over the course of my schooling.

A familiar piece...

Soon to be finished piece...

This one involved experimentation of art style.

I hope to post more of these progressions. Yay for nostalgia :'D

Character Modeling: Seignik

I've been working on this character off to the side but because of school I haven't been able to finish it. Now I have some time to get it done.
Here's some images of the process I went through working on this original character called Seignik. It's a bit jumbled.

I drew this concept at GDC 2010. I used a Sharpie marker for the line art and Faber Castell markers for coloring. At the time, I just drew this character for fun with no future modeling intentions in mind.

When school started up again I had a goal to practice as much modeling as I could outside of schoolwork. The character I drew during GDC was one idea that came to mind so I created this very rough turnaround sheet. I wasn't worried about rendering anything here - I just wanted to quickly get a sketch done so I could get straight into modeling.

Here are some WIP shots I recorded last year of the modeling process:

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Then there was about a five month hiatus from this project (due to working on thesis) and now, just today I finished packing the UVs and baked out the ambient occlusion. Next step will be texturing, woo!

More updates to be posted soon.

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Update 4/8/12

Part 2 of this character's process can be found here.

Dream Worlds

Lately I've been thinking about the weird dreams I have. I've noticed that there are at least 3 different dream worlds I go to, and each world has it's own theme and feel.

The Mall
The first always takes place in a mall. Sometimes this becomes an outdoor place, but it's usually indoors. In these dreams, I'm always hoping from one store to the next, looking at the merchandise and admiring it but never buying anything. I'm usually with other people, usually close friends. I want to say this mall is based off various different malls I've been to in my lifetime, but I'm unsure. The odd thing about it is, every time I have dreams that take place in this world, only one or two corners of the mall remain consistent - the middle of the place constantly changes from one dream to another. Like, I know there's a movie theater with a long, colorful hallway in one corner, and an anime/hobby store on the opposite end of the mall.

The Campus
Another world takes place in a combination of all the school campus' I've attended, normally grade school to high school. In these dreams, I'm always looking for someone. I almost always find the person I'm looking for, but when I find them, they're not happy to see me. These dreams tend to be more dismal, as the sky and atmosphere of this world is almost always gray and overcast.

The City
The last world I remember frequently takes place in a huge city, much like New York. I usually end up around a Times Square-like area in the city, and in the middle of this Times Square is a massive ice cream castle, something that looks like it came from Candy Land. These dreams are often action packed, involving parkour, running around alleyways, gun fights, etc. I also have dreams that take place in small neighborhood districts, but in the back of mind (in the dream) I somehow know this neighborhood is in the same city I've seen in other dreams.

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And now for some dream art. The image shown above is from the most epic and visually stunning dream I've ever had - so much that when I woke up I immediately turned on the computer and began drawing this dreamscape. This is what happened in the dream:

- I was a sniper soldier, lost in a snowstorm on some mountain top. It was cold and I could barely see anything, but I knew I was headed for a lookout/ski lodge somewhere on this mountaintop to seek refuge until the snowstorm let up.

- When I made it to the lodge, it was abandoned. I wandered around the desolate place. Plenty of rations and sleeping bags everywhere - where did all the people go? Suddenly, I heard something shuffle in the corner of the lodge. I pointed my sniper rifle at the source of the sound, only to find a man cautiously approaching me with his hands in the air.

- Surprised to find someone else in the lodge, I asked him what happened. This is what he told me:

- The environment of the dream shifted into what looked like a huge library. It looked like a very spacious Barnes & Noble with a tall ceiling. I was wandering around the library (as myself for some reason, not the man telling the story), looking at the books on the shelves. Other people crowded the spaces between the shelves, reading and observing the books, too. I was with two other people - friends in the dream but people I've never met in real life.

- One of the friends warned me that someone in the library was looking for me. I began to get cautious and out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a woman wearing all black, gothic punk like clothing. I somehow knew this woman was the one looking for me.

- The woman noticed my glance and pointed me out from the crowd. She conjured a spell that morphed the library into a dark cathedral (image above). The already huge space of the library expanded even more - the ceiling acting almost like a sky. Wispy shadows crept all over the floor, like a storm of clouds was raging above our heads. The whole space was lit a poisonous green. Also, there were these towering mounds that looked like termite hills. (I still don't know what they were or what they did.)

- The evil woman, now a "witch", was searching for us as my friends and I tried searching through some shelves for several ingredients to make a potion that makes people fly. For some reason, I remember looking for a Pikachu, which I eventually found and it was following me.

- The witch found us and started charging at me. My friends helped mix the ingredients together and gave me the potion, which gave me huge, magnificent wings. I picked up my friends and flew straight towards the witch, but instead of engaging in combat, I burst through one of the stained glass windows to escape the dark cathedral.

- I heard the witch cursing at me from the cathedral as I flew off into the snowstorm outside.

- And that was the story of the man in the ski lodge.

- End of dream.


And that is what I can remember from that dream. 0_o More may be posted. 

Custom Clothing

Hey everyone! Thought I might start posting some images of some custom clothing I like to do. Firstly, it's been real cold lately...

Gary's got the right idea. Fluffy blankets FTW!

Anyway, here are some designs that I painted onto some clothes. These were done with Golden Acrylic paints:

Pendulum logo

Pendulum is my favorite band. They are awesome. And they also have the most complicated logo I've ever seen for a band (thus far). The reason I made this is because I've never seen any Pendulum related clothing in the states, so I was like, "why not just make it yourself?" 

To paint this logo, I cut a stencil out for it, and that took a painfully long time. But it was worth it. Pendulum's name is also painted white on the right sleeve of this jacket. 

Dead Space 2 rig

This one's design is directly taken from the official t-shirt design in the Dead Space store. I felt like it would be cheaper to paint the design onto something rather than buying it...

Unlike the Pendulum design in which a stencil was used, this one was sketched directly onto the fabric with a white charcoal pencil and then painted. Funny, this jacket was originally a Blood Brothers jacket I got at Hot Topic, but I ended up changing it and covered the Blood Brothers name with a small CEC logo. :'D
I also chose to make it low health in dedication for all the times I struggled to stay alive in the game's hard mode. :''''''D

Random Photoshop Sketchstuff

Haven't updated in a while, so here's a bunch of sketches I did in Photoshop. Why not a sketchbook? These sketches happen because I try to think of something to paint on the computer, but then nothing cool comes up or I end up sitting in front of a blank screen for hours until I get so fed up with myself that I decide to draw anything and whatever comes to mind. Here's a slice of what happens when I get hit with art block:

I love drawing gestures, so this one came up and was going to be a painting. Ended up this far. :'D But I took this opportunity to use a radial blur for the blood, just to experiment with some effects.

At first, I just drew lineart of Mewtwo, then I blacked the whole thing out to test its silhouette and kept it this way because it turned out kinda cool.

More fun, exaggerated gestures of Pokemon!

I love Okami, and drawing gestures for Ammy was very fun. I'm sure all of these poses are anatomically incorrect as I have little to no knowledge of wolf anatomy. :'D This was more of an exploration of motion and pose.

Some sketches of my friend's and my own hand from observation. Hands are always a fun challenge for me.

This one first started with Faith (on the left, Mirror's Edge character for those that aren't familiar), and it was going to be a Mirror's Edge painting, but then my mind trailed off and I started drawing the pink lolita girl on a new layer. Then the green one happened. When my mind is fresh out of ideas I end up drawing really scribbly, curvy things, mostly colorful outfits or stereotypical anime characters. I hate it when this happens, but the process of drawing such fluid and fun shapes is a good stress reliever. Sometimes the end product looks kinda cool, too I suppose.