Mock FMP - Shading Test

 Been ill for the past few days with *insert chest ailment* here, but I've slowly gotten back into the swing of things, starting with a shading test on one of my existing concepts of Pandora.

The concept shaded; I made a gif to show a before and after.

My inspiration to try shading the concepts came from an artist called Carlos D'Anda, and the work that inspired me was his concept art for Batman Arkham Asylum/City.

Carlos concept for Dr Hugo Strange; I really like how his shading instantly gives the concept more life, though the block coloured version is also strong.

Life Drawing - The Final Session

Getting back into the groove of things; You can tell because it looks like an anthropomorphic eggplant.

Using Peach and Purple to create skin tones is one of my favorite ways of colouring skin.

Same as above, but arguably a much better drawing.

More of the same.

Went back to yellowish tones; he looks like Yellow Bastard from Sin City.

Back to purple tones. (Ignore the axe, I had an idea for my Mock FMP that I had to get down on 'paper'.)

Maaaaaaaaaan.

ur faec.

Mock FMP - Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Concept

One of the famous characters Pandora has to recapture is Dr Jekyll, the infamous doctor from The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

In the game, Jekyll fled to modern times, carrying three last vials of Hyde formula and looking to make more.

Pandora has to track him down before it's too late.

Far left is the first concept I did, the middle one is the new concept where he's more casual, but still smartly dressed.
Right is of course, Mr Hyde, bearing the tattered clothes of his former self and growing to an immense size and strength.

For Hyde, one of my main influences and inspiration is Hyde from the 2004 film, Van Helsing.
Here he's voiced by Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid in Harry Potter.), and has a really funny personality and a cockney accent, but at the same time, he looks like he could rip your head of in seconds.

Mr Hyde in Van Helsing; He only appears in the films opening scenes, but he still leaves the impression of being one of the best characters in the film.

Mock FMP - Reboot (Pandora's Box)

So the comic idea I had was cool and all, but I've found myself not enjoying it as much.
I like the characters, but I don't think I could build a whole College project on them, so I'm gonna shelve them and use them in a personal project later on.

But now, I'm returning to an idea I had at the start, called Pandora's Box.
It's a game design idea, but not the usual cartoon-y games I usually create.

Pandora's Box is dark and mature, a game about the Pandora's Box, which is a prison that houses the worlds most famous evils, like Medusa, Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster and many more.
Pandora herself has been condemned by Zeus and Athena to watch over the Box as warden.
Eris, the goddess of chaos, re-opens the box and spills the evils across time and space.

One of the first concepts for Pandora, the main character, and some concepts for her mask.

Pandora is then sent to different locations in time to hunt down the evils and send them back to the Box.
During her quests, she is acommpanied by heroes and heroines for the specific evils, such as Perseus for Medusa, Van Helsing for Dracula and sometimes, the thing she's hunting can aid her in finding a greater evil.

The first concept for a resurrected Medusa; the gore and nudity were touches to make the character more mature and gruesome.

Again, this project is going to be entirely digital, as I prefer the workflow.
The main focus of this project for me is anatomy and posing.
To aid this, I'm using a program called Makehuman.
Simply, it's a 3D mannequin creator, that I'm using as a sort of 'life drawing' program to improve how my characters look.
The models are really versatile and have a variety of sizes, shapes and diversity, that really helps with the character concepts.
Below is one of the poses made in the program.

The pose I used for Pandora's concept; the models are really posable and have helped immensly on this project so far.

I'm designing a range of characters and objects for this, with several concepts for each.
I'm also going to research into films and games based on mythology, monsters and so forth.

Mock FMP - Statement of Intent UPDATED

I thought I'd update my statement of intent now I have an thought of what I'm going to do.

The theme of the project is posing; a common theme I noticed in previous projects is that a lot of my characters are just standing there, looking stagnant and not doing much of anything.
A Rakes Progress introduced me to posing for scenes, and I really enjoyed it as it made my characters a lot more engaging.

For this project, I'm going to create a draft for a comic, one that's very fast paced and has a lot of action.  Whilst I want to finish the cover and a few pages, I'm not aiming to finish the entire comic with refined lineart and colours. (Though depending on how this goes, my FMP might expand upon this.)
I'd also be sticking to my pathway of character design, and create a range of characters for the comic; although I'm not shying away from doing object and world design, as a comic needs these aspects.

Research will be into media with similar themes to my idea, such as Sly Cooper, Star Fox, Sonic and so forth.
I'll look at comics for research into comic composition and strtucture.

I decided for the majority of the project, the work will be digital, as I have a much better workflow on Photoshop as opposed to paper.
I could still do thumbnail sketches via paper if I'm away from my laptop.

Mock FMP - Employer Wings Concept

A challange that came up with this character is her wings.

Being a bat, she'd either have to role her wings up in order to wear sleeves, or have them removed. (Kinda defeating the point of a bat.)
The middle concept was an attempt at what she'd look like if her wings drooped like a cloak, and one of my friends pointed out the wings make her look classy, and that I should keep them out.

The variations I did with the character, as I didn't know what to do with her wings and it was an interesting challange to find out how to present them.

Mock FMP - Crocodile Character Concept

I doodled an idea for a crocodile bounty hunter for my Mock FMP.
I wanted a big, slow, gruff character to fill the role of the bounty hunter, and thought it'd be a good counter to the small, but nimble main character.

I think he'd weild a shotgun too; a big one, that could blow the spots of a dalmation.



The first image I doodled; a massive character who both looks gruff, badass and slightly comedic.



Same, but testing some colours out to see what theme would fit him.
I like the outback, as the character would probably speak in an australian drawl.



Crappy attempt at shading that took a few seconds.
I only shaded one side, but eh, I thought I'd share it.

I plan to do more of these concepts today (11/03/14), as this crocodile chatracter is a really interesting character to me and I want to develop him more.

Life Drawing - March 10th 2014

I'm doing a comic for my Mock FMP, so I thought I'd do two poses interacting with eachother.

Same as before, but trying a background.

^ Same as Above ^

Tried adding a robot, they're always cool.

Laying pose.

Mock FMP/Personal Project - Ninja Story - Employer Concepts

 I've started some more concepts, and I'm starting to visualize what the 'employer' would look like.
This is the character who initially hires the thief but eventually turns on her.
I don't have a name for the employer and I was seeing which species would suit her best, with Bat being my final choice.

Head concepts - I dislike the right one, but the first a second ones are my favorites.
I may reuse the second head for another character.

The employer needs to look like a business woman, but also really shady.

Mock FMP/Personal Project - Idea - Ninja Story

I've been throwing around a few ideas and have found one I'm fond of.
It started as an idea I doodled before the project started, but quickly discarded because the original concept wasn't very good.
I returned to it yesterday and drew up a character concept for a main thief/ninja character.

The concept I quickly did with my Graphics Tablet.

It's pretty much a story about a ninja/thief who has been hired by a wealthy figure to sabotage the operations of the crimelord, Edgar Von Bubba. (Yes, the same Bubba I used in my Mock FMP last year, but since I've canned the Dash N Smash Racing project outside college due to its unoriginality, I've salvaged the few unique things from it and I'm putting them to use in other projects.)
The thief is betrayed by her employer and is now on the run from the police, but now taking a role of vigilantism to take down both Edgar Von Bubba and her former employer.
Along the way, she has help from her team, but is also pursued by bounty hunters, mercs and all sorts of rabble that want the giant bounty put out on the thief's head.

I think the project would be a comic, as the story is very action-oriented and needs fast flowing imagery to portray it.
The idea could also work as a series of storyboards for an animated movie/TV show too, so I'm going to see which one works the best.

For research and inspiration, I'm looking at media with similar themes, such as Batman for the vigilantism, and Sly Cooper for the thievery.
I'm also looking into how action packed media handles scenes that are fast paced.

Mock FMP - Idea Generation #1

We're starting our Mock FMP/Personal Project this week, so I'm going to use this post for idea generation.

I'll be editing this over time to add new ideas.

At the moment, I'm steering towards designing a TV Show/Comic, as it's something different whilst staying in my pathway of character design.

An idea I had (And did some peliminary sketches for.) but am currently not pursuing is another games project, but different than what I usually do.
The game would have been very dark and mature in tone, and centered around a prison in hell called 'Pandora's Box', that contained all the worlds evil from mythological times and expanding into fiction, urban myth and fantasy.
You'd be controlling Pandora, the first woman ever created and the indvidual that opened the box the first time.
She was sentenced to aptrolling the halls of the box forever as the warden on the prison, growing more demonic as the centuarys went by.
Ther box is opened a second time by Eris, the goddess of chaos, and Pandora is tasked with tracking down the escaped 'convicts', taking her across time and space in a search for histories greatest evils.
Some of the monsters you'd be finding are Medusa, the Frankenstein Monster and his bride, Dracula, the Oni, Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, the Wolfman, the Fallen the Slender and more.
Not just great monsters are free, lesser evils like Imps, Demons, Succubi and more.
Along the way, you'd have help from heroic figures, such as Heracles, Icarus, Perseus and so on, although their attitude towards working with the original unleasher of evil is less than lukewarm.
The gameplay would be a hack n' slash game, which is pretty much what the name entails.