New Blog - Portfolio/Game Design

http://dannyjayportfolio.blogspot.co.uk/

Post-College Art #2.5 - Ripto from Spyro 2

Post-College Art #2 - Ripto from Spyro W.I.P

I'm trying something different with this, I'm digitally painting without outlines, as I usually lay on thick black outlines to everything, so here, I'm going to try and keep it seamless like a 3D object.

Here's the image so far, it's still a W.I.P:

Post-College Art #1

FMP: Omicron: Villains INC Exhibition Video

FMP - Poster Design: Final Poster

FMP - Design: Development Sheets for Exhibition

I compiled my development work into an easier format to print and display around my poster.

FMP - Character Design: Character Model Sheets #2 - Completed Sheets

Over the past few weeks, I've been creating model sheets for the eight main characters of the project.
I'll be printing them out and sticking them around the poster as a way of showing development.

FMP - Reflective Practice of what I've done so far and what inspired what.

I've been a bit lacking in my reflective practice, so here we go.

So far, I'm really happy with what I've done so far.
Its been challenging but fun to create the characters, world and concepts for this project and its got  my mind racing with further ideas and concepts for this fictional universe I've created.
My favourite piece so far has been the model sheets I've created. They look quite professional and easily convey the characters to the person looking.

Now, here's what inspired my characters:

• For Dr. Aldus Doomcough, the first design was purely from imagination, but I got inspiration from the short, angry characters that dot various media, like Dr Neo Cortex from Crash Bandicoot, The Penguin from Batman Arkham City and The Brain from Animaniacs.
  For his personality, I was inspired by Dr Nefarious from Ratchet & Clank, and for his voice, I'd imagine Corey Burton voicing him.

• For Joshua Macy, I originally got the idea for the character whilst playing Ratchet & Clank 3 earlier this year.
  I had the idea for a young space cadet who joins a group of rangers and is partnered with an alien partner.
  I didn't have any specific inspiration for the character as he is now, as most of the character came from imagination, but subconsciously, I could have been inspired by Fry from Futurama, Ratchet from Ratchet & Clank and Commander Shepard from Mass Effect.
  Personality wise, I looked at characters that the VA actor Troy Baker had played and looked how they acted/talked.

• For Susan Doomcough, I was initially inspired to create the character from Barbara in the CGI Rayman Legends trailer. I also took inspiration from characters like Harley Quinn from the Batman series and short female characters like Dexter's Mom in Dexter's Laboratory and various other Saturday morning cartoon characters.
  For her personality, I imagined her with a creepy stalker personality like with Harley Quinn, taking inspiration from the bratty sounding roles that Tara Strong commonly plays.

• For Shi'ana Tah'meera,  I got inspiration for her whilst playing Ratchet & Clank 3, the same time I got the idea for Joshua. For further inspiration, I took inspiration from Tali from Mass Effect, Constable Neeyla/Carmelita Fox from Sly Cooper, and the rest of the inspiration came from my original Mock FMP idea that starred anthropomorphic animals.
  Personality wise, I took inspiration from Liara from Mass Effect, with a nerdy but cute personality, with a voice that has an accent like Martina Lotun.

• For Cindy Baseline, I sketched the original design without any inspiration, but later designs took inspiration from Courtney Gear from Ratchet & Clank, the female robot from Metropolis and surprisingly pop stars like Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga and Britney Spears.
  For her personality, I looked at how pop stars act, which is pretty much stuck up, full of themselves and bouncy. I also looked at Miley and Britney since Cindy Baseline was a character who has a mental breakdown due to her work, like Britney and Miley did.
  Voice wise, I'd imagine her with a 'country' voice done by Jamie Marchi.

• For Nexus, I had the idea of doing a sinister assassin character, and got the idea for her whilst playing Batman Arkham Origins and encountering Copperhead. I also took additional inspiration from Thane from Mass Effect.
  Personality wise, she'd be very quiet, but when speaking she'd sound like Lani Minella.

• For General Richter, I originally designed him to fill in a gap on a poster I was designing, but didn't fully develop him till later.
  For his redesign, I took inspiration from gruff military types that you see a lot in action films, the gruff type. For his look, I took inspiration from mercenary clothing, combining it with his jacket and uniform from the ISR, and taking a bit of inspiration from Banes design in Batman Arkham Origins to add to Richter's inspiration.
  Personality wise, he'd be very cold and hate filled, with a deep gruff Kevin Michael Richardson voice.

• For Brutus, I actually had zero outside inspiration for the character, and instead, he's based on the crocodile bounty hunter I created for my unused Mock FMP idea, with the armour he wears being based on a doodle I did a while ago.
  For his personality, I'd imagine him being surprisingly bright, yet slow and with a deep Steve Blum voice and a slight accent.

 

 

 

FMP - Character Designs: Aliens #1

I drew a couple of alien designs whilst watching Empire of Dreams, which is a 2 and half hours long documentary about the creation of the original Star Wars trilogy.
I've watched it many times, but every time it motivates me to work, and this time I created a bunch of alien concepts for the characters that'd appear in the background or played roles in a fictional community.

A bunch of aliens. I like the designs and I would use them again as background characters.

FMP - Character Design: Skrillbot (Skrillex as a robot.)

I recently started listening to Skrillex (I know.) and I thought he'd be a cool person to perform with Cindy Baseline during her stage shows.
So I sketched up a quick design of Skrillex as a robot.

Skrillex as a robot; I tried incorpirating that weird hair thing he has going on and also his thick ass hipster shades.
He was a robot before it was cool.

Skrillex.
Let him forever taint this post with this kinda cool but not hair.

FMP - Character Design: General Richter

I did the first design for this character a while ago, but I redesigned him today after not being happy with the original concept.
I wanted General Richter to be a towering statue of a man who's both physically imposing and also tough looking, which I think the first design didn't portray very well.
Here's both the designs, the old one first and the new one second.

The first concept I did; I'm not entirely happy with his look and think it was an 'on the spot' thing as I needed a sixth villain quickly for my poster draft.
He looked a bit goofy and small to be the character I envisioned, so this design is a piece of developmental work.

General Richter MK II; This design was done today and I took my time with it.
Taking inspiration from big villains like Bane from Batman and military types from various media, I created a new look for the General, making him tall and imposing, but also giving him some anatomy unlike his rather ugly first design.
I also changed his attire, giving him a mercenary vest over his old ISR jacket, changing his 'earthquake fists' into normal hands with one arm robotic.

I really like this new design, it's quite imposing and militant, whilst also looking more intimidating than before.

FMP - Experimentation: Logo Design

I created a logo to use with this project, settling on the name OMICRON: VILLAINS .INC for the final project name.
I also thought after the project is finished, I could extend this project outside of college by creating a comic or even doing another story called OMICRON: BAND OF HEROES, which would be a prequel.
This is the logo I settled on; I wanted a logo that looked like a 70's-80's Sci-Fi themed show/film, so having a big gold plated logo helped to convey that.

I also did a variation for a prequel story that'd be done outside of the FMP.

FMP - Experimentation: Action Figure Packaging Mock-up.

I attempted to make an action figures packaging to tie in with the research I did into ReSaurus.
For the inspiration, I looked at the boxed action figures I owned and also looked at a few via the internet.
While the outcome is a tad plain and is very much a W.I.P, I could see it being sold on shelfs.
If I have the chance, I will do the back of the packaging too.

FMP - Research: Kenneth Lilly's ReSaurus Action Figure Development

Research: Kenneth Lilly. (Action Figure designer for ReSaurus.)

ReSaurus was a prominent action figure company from the early 90's till early 2000's, creating action figures for Sonic the Hedgehog, Resident Evil, Quake, Gex (Which unfortunately were never released.) and the one I'm mainly focusing on in this post, Crash Bandicoot.

One of Kenneth's portfolio pages, showcasing the figures he helped design and also some of the model sheets he did.
I own several of these figures, and they all have superb sculpting, paint application and look strikingly similar to the original drawings.

Kenneth Lilly worked as a figure designer during the heyday of ReSaurus, creating the initial designs for Crash Bandicoot and Sonic the Hedgehog figures.
He also helped create a line of figures for Quake and Gex. (Which never got released.)

Another portfolio page for Crash Bandicoot.

The thing I like about the design work for these figures is the model sheets could be also used for a video game, animation and comic design.
Infact, one of the action figure sheets, Dr N.Gin, was used for the next game in the series.

Dr. N.Gin's figure sheet, the arrows signify where the figures articulation is.

The in-game model that was made using the action figures design.
Yeah...it kinda looks like shit, like the rest of the characters in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex,
but it still shows that the action figure designs could be used for multiple things.

I really like the look of these model sheets, they're really well made and easily portray how the figures would work. Plus, they could be used for anything, so added bonus.
I'd like to try doing something like this, which I could do by adding hinges and articulation points to my existing model sheets.

Here's a few more pieces from Kenneth Lilly.

Dr N.Brio's figure sheet. The figure was never made, but the design survived.

Koala Kong. The figure was never made, but the design survived.

Dingodile. This figure was made available in the second wave of figures.
Again, I like the articulation points and detail.

Accessories. Every action figure needs accessories.

Amy Rose from the Sonic the Hedgehog Line of figures.

Dr Eggman from the Sonic the Hedgehog figures.

Kenneth's portfolio page for his work on the Sonic the Hedgehog figures.
These figures were made for the release of Sonic Adventure, and even though they have good build quality, most of them kinda looked awful, atleast in my opinion.

Kenneth's portfolio page for a line of Gex figures. (Gex was a game series on the PS1 and N64.)
These figures were prototyped but never released, which is a shame since the figures look really well made, but now we'll never know.  Atleast some of the development work for them still exists.