Contextual Studies: Seven Stories examples.

Overcoming Evil - Earthbound

Within the game Earthbound, the protagonists are sent on a quest to overcome evil bent on the destruction of the world. This game could easily fit more of the story types, however I feel that it best suits overcoming evil due to its prevalence within the game.

Rags to Riches - GTA 4

In GTA 4, you play as an immigrant that comes to America with the hope of making it big. Going from barely being able to afford rent money to purchasing high-end cars and other vehicles. This is a good example of rags to riches, despite the game title being rather controversial around the topic and others.

The Quest - The Legend of Zelda

A very good and easy to see example. Every LoZ game is layed out in a very similar fashion; the hero, Link, sets out on a quest to rescue the princess Zelda and the city of Hyrule or in some cases, the world. The game follows the quest story very closely, and the character archetypes found also mimic this.

Voyage and Return - Metroid Prime 

The reason I picked Metroid Prime for this story type even though the game fits many others is due to the repetition within the trilogy. Samus Aran lands on a planet, voyages through multiple areas and returns to her ship at the end of the game. The games lack an obvious storyline, which allows the players to imagine and immerse themselves within the game world; exploring and creating their own adventures.

Comedy - Simpsons Hit and Run

The game is essentially a parody of the GTA series with humour one would expect from The Simpsons characters and franchise in general. The fact that the game is somewhat a parody easily allows it to fit into this category.

Tragidies - Fallout

The franchise as a whole revolves around the tragidies and effects of nuclear warfare, as the game places you in an environment and setting where you lose your former life/family/companions and venture out into the disastrous wasteland.

Rebirth - Skyrim

Although Skyrim could easily fit into any other category, I feel like the story as a whole fits much more tightly into this category. At the start of the game, you play a prisoner waiting to be executed. When Alduin appears, it is almost as if your character is "rebirth" and given a second chance where you ultimately end up saving Tamriel.

Self evaluation

Well, that was fun!

I really enjoyed working on each of the assigned tasks we were given and I feel like I am improving much more as an artist. Over the 3 tasks we were set I am starting to see much more confidence within my work and practice as a whole - this is evident in my 2nd and 3rd task as I became more expressive with my mark makings and focused less on over rendering a final piece. I also think that I am becoming much more efficient and organized with how I progress through a task, brainstorm ideas and create digital paintings. I feel like I have learned and got a hang of the process behind character and environmental concept design now and I want to improve on that foundation.

If I were to do any of the projects again, I would definitely be much more experimental and use all resources available to me. The jump and experimentation with 3D during the 3rd task also made me realize this. I also noticed I can get too caught up in an idea that I generated early, instead of investigating and pushing the designs further. This I would also correct, if I were to repeat the tasks. Time management was also an issue for me; too many times I would find myself bummed down by a piece of work only to procrastinate for too long over the thought of failure which is something that I need to

I was happy overall with the skills I have developed over these short weeks and I have taken a liking to 3D modeling as well. I am also becoming much more interested in the processes behind the creation of concept art, which may lead me into more experimentation and diversify my future work.

Lifedrawing

Here is some work from my first two sessions of life drawing that I attended. The images below were from relatively short studies (around 10-15 mins each) that focused on rendering the light and leaving the midtone of the paper for the main skin tones of the model.

I incorporated some graphite into one of the studies to allow for darker tones and some minor contrast around areas of intense light. I found these studies quite difficult, as it forces you to look for the plains of flesh that are brighter and render the body "backwards" instead of the usual rendering of shadow and detail.

These were my first set of sketches from the life model. We were given various amounts of time than decreased after every 4 we completed. For the last 4 I had only 30 seconds each. For my first time in life drawing, I don't think I did too bad, although my studies are a little large. I also need to work on stopping going over my lines repeatedly.

These sketches are from my second life drawing session and I feel like I have improved already in comparison to the previous weeks work. The inclusion of minor shading within the sketch really allows the drawing to pop out and look much more 3D than a standard sketch. I'm really enjoying life drawing so far, I can't wait for my next sessions and to see how far I can get.

Final concept piece

Here is my final concept piece. My main idea for the piece was to show the genie emerging from the tinderbox. As the story also dictates that the tinderbox was found in some form of underground cavern, i opted for a background that indicates this abandoned atmosphere whilst not looking too out of place with my selected time era. I also wanted to incorporate dynamic lighting in the image and I ended up with 3 different sources in total, with some evidence of bounced light and other effects.

In retrospect I feel like the image might be too dark, however, on the other hand it creates much more atmosphere with this contrast. I also intentionally made the character brighter than the lighting would render it, as to make the genie pop out from the background moreso.

All in all, I am happy with the outcome of my final image. Although I would have loved to spend much longer on the image and render it to the best of my ability, time was an issue. Maybe in my spare time..!

Tinderbox: Character sheet

This is my character sheet showing various movements and effects that the genie has. My first idea was to have a faceless genie, with a vortex Esq mouth that would generate items when commanded. I changed to a face to allow for recognition between the number of strikes/buttons/etc that the "tinderbox" has. Another benifit of having a zbrush model is that it helps when posing and sketching the character in various positions, as well as speeding up the process!

Tinderbox: Model sheet

So here it is. The model sheet for my final design! I created the model in zbrush similarly to my previous design and I painted it the model using the software as well. I did not include much tonal variety as my plan was to incorporate the model into my final image and I feel like it will be much easier for me to vary tone by hand, especially in a dynamic view.

Onto the character sheet!

Tinderbox: Extra iterations

Some extra iterations looking at alternate colour palettes and some accessories I could include in my designs. I like the second colour palette purely due to the gradient between ghastly lighter colours and much more solid and warmer tones. For the accessories, I think they might be a little too much and may take away the simplicity from my designs.

The model used in the accessory iterations is my favourite right now, I think i'll develop the model.

Tinderbox: zbrush iterations!

zBrush iterations! I tried playing around with various clothing (although I still have a way to go for rendering at that level!) I particularly like E, F and G as I feel they hold the most potential for an interesting design.

I think these iterations worked rather well. I will definitely be using zbrush for this purpose in the future!

Tinderbox: zBrush model!

From my genie silhouettes, I created a zbrush model based on the first design from the liquify tests as I felt it was much more simplified and portrayed a genie much more recognizably than the others. I also played with colour, I found the traditional persian tan/orange to be interesting in combination with a spectral green colour which shows both "halves" of the character.

I actually like how this model turned out, however, the design feels a little too simplistic. I think I will try iterating the model in zbrush to create some new stuff~! 

Tinderbox: More silhouettes, different character.

I created more silhouettes based on the character of a genie from my previous batch. I used the liquify tool to play around and warp the silhouettes, creating brand new designs in the process. I think the liquify tool really helped me to push my idea more and to create designs that I initially had not considered. I also dig the way my designs are becoming more organic and varied. 

Tinderbox: Iterations

Here are some iterations based on my initial silhouettes. I was mainly trying to get a grasp as to what the character could look like in terms of clothing, accessories and weapons. After finishing these images, I feel quite disappointed with the direction of the character. I think I am trying to force my designs onto the silhouettes instead of being more free with them.

I'm going to take the project in a slightly different direction and work on a different character. Maybe I could create some form of Genie that represents the 3 dogs within the story?

Tinderbox: Silhouettes

These are my initial silhouettes for my project based on the short story, "Tinderbox". I was also given the time period of Persian Empire to design my character alongside. I chose to design a character based on the Soldier found within the story. I trialled a few different methods for silhouette creation and I found the more textural silhouettes and the alchemy silhouettes to be the most effective.

Timekeeping: Final concept piece

Here is my final concept piece for the "timekeeping" task. I opted for a somewhat low angle perspective of my monumental device, trying to focus on presenting the scale of the object as large as I could without it filling the entirety of the canvas. I also decided that the landscape for the piece must be supportive of the structure and somewhat strong in itself. As environments are not my strong point, this was a challenge for me.

I used various textured brushes of varying sizes to create a more expressive looking landscape, as refining the area too much would detract the focus on the object and focal points in general.