Evaluation

In this Evaluation I will go through the different parts that I have done and evaluate each, giving a small paragraph about each of them.

Summary;

Evaluating everything i have done on this module I am quite pleased with what I have accomplished, I felt that the Life drawing this year really helped me with my  of the human body, It helped me in my work to create a more proportionate character that looked anatomically correct, I'd say that I have developed my knowledge of Photoshop a bit more and have successfully created a character his background, his props and an environment. I was pleased with the CDDA module this semester.

Life Drawing;
So life drawing this year was fun. That would be my initial statement, I thoroughly enjoyed it, I think that i never missed a class i was there every week and i feel like it payed off! i really enjoyed turning up each week and trying out something new trying to use the different types of media to create my images and seeing what worked for me and what didn't along the way, id say a highlight for me was when i first started using pastels i felt that they created a STRONG image, bold colours and smooth lines, and being able to put down quite alot of block colour quickly then manipulating it using my finger to rub in tone or highlights in different places was very helpful in creating my life drawing images, I think its clear to see that in my life drawings the pastel ones were some of my best, at least to me personally they were, I also enjoyed the use of chalks and charcoal though, but favoured charcoal and pastels the most,
I found that Sarah was very helpful this year and the mix of quick drawings for the first half of the session to loosen us all up was very good, it helped me to create anatomically correct drawings quickly, being bale to get down the main structure of the body using, structure and form, and this leading into the second half of the sessions where we would do longer more focussed pieces and these were my favourite i felt that i created often my best pieces of work during these times and I never wanted to finish.
So Thank you for making it enjoyable this year.


Character design;
Okay Character design, I found that after settling on which idea i wanted to make and researching everything for my character i really enjoyed putting the image i had in my head onto the screen and making it into  a vision that i could share with others, I thought that my development went well and that i managed to accomplish the look of the character that I wanted, For instance the Beauty shot of my character I was very pleased and proud of I felt that its some of the best concept art I have ever made and thought it was quite a Strong image, I felt that i had managed to portray a certain level of action in the image that i was hoping for and i also got across the feel of the oriental vibe that i wanted for him. One of my favourite parts of the image is his sword after redrawing that image a couple of times i was really pleased and felt like I had nailed the perspective that the sword was coming out towards the screen at you, In total i was very pleased with my character development and I thought it was well accomplished. If I could have done anything differently, I would have perhaps put him into an environment where he was subduing a wanted man or put him in the scene at the bar, just include him in the environment so that you could really get a feel of where he would fit into that world.


Prop Design;

Prop design, Well with the beginnings of my prop starting out as a multi purpose tool/ gun blade, it was difficult to create something that felt right and would fit with the oriental feel, my initial concept drawings of the gun blade and its development were okay but i would have liked maybe to create a few different gun blade design maybe that looked a little more sleeker and in theme with the character, whereas His sword that he uses I was quite pleased with, for what it is I think i did a decent job to display the blade in the turnaround, And i was really pleased with how it turned out in the characters beauty shot, In summary as i said, if i would make any changes and do anything differently then i would have created perhaps a few more gun blade designs and fleshed them out alot more to represent the oriental feel that i was looking for throughout my work, but in all I was happy with this.


Environment design;
Okay The Environment, This at first was very tricky, I was almost dead set on an outside bar shot where you could see partly his ship, but it just didn't feel right, I always wanted a bar, so i thought the next best thing would be a bar shot, of maybe the interior of the bar, the hangout place where this character would spend most of his down time, and when i started doing the research into the different types of places I had a vision in my head that i knew i wanted to accomplish, So With that I started on photoshop just sketching out a bar similar to the one that i had seen in the image before with the round bar, and i thought the idea of a used jet engine being held up above it that would be used, as an extraction system for the kitchens but also a source of light, This appealed to me, after putting all this in the image just seemed a little small and bare, So i wanted to see what i could do with the rest of the scene really paint a picture of where this bar was, the sort of area it was situated in, and I believe once i put in the shady, red light district over the back and the stairs, (once i nailed down the ones i liked) That looked like they went to perhaps a slightly richer of an area that might be a little more flush, and the dirty grungy pipe over head that's dripping with mould The rusty roof and the wall made of metal scraps i felt that it really sold the whole run down oriental vibe, I was really proud of this idea and spent a long time working into this image, I felt that It fit perfectly with Lo-Kags character and was the environment i hoped to convey.
In summary, I am very disappointed and upset that i lost my (PC :( R.I.P) Finished concept design in all its colourful glory but i believe that from what i have left the images that i had drawn and the descriptions about the scene i think that it does its job to paint the picture, the concept if you will of the surroundings that my character would of hung around in, So in conclusion, This piece was a good concept piece to convey Lo-Kag's Environment, I may also re-paint this piece in my own time as I was pleased how it turned out the first time.


Final Thoughts;
Right... So Final Thoughts for CDDA 2k13/14,
Overall I enjoyed it, I was pleased with the work i produced and proud of it, I felt that my skills and experiences have grown and felt that it has made me a better artist, I especially enjoyed life drawing, and thankful to Sarah and Gordon this year for that. I believe that I have accomplished what was set out at the start of the year and that I have created work to a decent standard that I am pleased with, I enjoyed spending time creating each and every one of the pieces.
It was also good to sit down and watch on Wednesday and see all the presentations from everyone this year, To get to see what my peers had created and crafted, I thought that everyone's work was well thought out and there were some really unique and inspiring pieces, If anything could be done on the course differently, i thought that the big group presentation where everyone had to show all there work was a really good thing, and that maybe we should have done that 3 or 4 times over the course of the module so that everyone could give constructive criticism to everyone about each others work and we get to see where the bar is being set in terms of one another amongst our peers. I thought this was a very good experience overall and I am happy and proud with what I created.

Thanks to,
Sarah
Steph
& Gordon

By,
Tim Nightingale

So yeah,
Thank you and,

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!!!!

Environment Concept and Development

Okay so in my character history, I talked about his spaceship and the bar that Lo-kag hang out at so i wanted to create this image that i had in my head so i spent some time doing some research for my ideas bank.

Here below is some of the research which helped inspire me.

 Above is just some space looking bars that i thought looked cool.

Station bar concept that intrigued me.

In this image I really like the idea of all the people sat around the circle bar, I wanted something like this as a centre piece.

 This image was also a Huge inspiration on me I love the grime feel the use of all the old materials, and bits and pieces, Note the plane engine looking thing above the head of the barman, this idea was something that i went on to include in my concept design.

 The two pictures above were also Just good influencers on what I wanted to create.

Below is a Cool design i came across and it looked like something id like to create.

So after looking at all of the above images and many more I decided to draw something up.

Okay so That's what i drew up as a quick rough concept idea trying to incorporate the feeling of the image above it but something about it just didn't feel right and I didn't pursue it another further and left it.

After that inital drawing i decided to chase the idea of the bar and the circle centre piece feeling so I started drawing the following.

 Okay so this image was base off the other bar images id been looking at, a incorporated bar with an oriental feel using the layered roof like a pagoda.

 I then decided the image needed a bit more so I increased the canvas size and started to paint in some more ideas I had like there being some sort of dirty red light district just through the passage way down the road, and some canopy's over head, I also added what I planned to be a grungy green mouldy pipe that ran over the whole area just trying to add to the feel of a lower wealth area, i had alot of trouble trying to make the stairs and the wall on the right look like it fitted in but then I had another idea that would help tie in the oriental feel some more. So i looked for a style of stairs that would fit. I found the following and incorporated it.

 Here in this image you can see that I changed the back wall to appear like it had been built and plastered in what appears like metal panelling, odd bits and bobs of metals just nailed up onto the wall, I also included the stairs that I found and liked, I thought it helped tie the image together better with the oriental theme.

I had shown this image to Steph and she suggested to remove the empty foreground area, so thats what I did.

I also wanted a dragons head on each of the end of the pagoda feel spikes on the roof, so i developed a dragon that i would have on the end of each bit of the roof.

 I got inspiration for this dragon head from the following images.

Here Was the initial Development of the colouring stage of the environment where I am laying down base colours for each of the objects in the scenery which are split up into separate layers for me to create clipping masks for each of them to develop into.

Unfortunately, I lost my final environment concept due to a power cut which fried one of my SSD's I had running in raid, meaning I lost my final environment concept beauty shot, Which i am very disappointed about as I was very pleased with how it turned out, I think by looking at the development and the images which I have up you can get a good feel for what the final image looked like, I am very disappointed by this but I think my concept was sound and it met the initial idea that i wanted to create, When i look at my design and the ideas about the futuristic oriental feel, I feel like i accomplished that, Just due to unfortunate events I'm unable to show the final image In all its glory.

Facial Features test

I also did some other little bit of work doing some facial features testing

Just a little test messing about with facial features such.

Character Development

I began By drawing out a T-Pose of my character.

 His shoulders Look disconnected pointed out by Steph during my presentation on Wednesday.

I Then Began to Draw out my beauty shot Rough Lines.

I Drew and Re-drew this image many times i couldnt keep the legs from looking just... Broken! His head also looked like it was putting an imense strain on his body, but i did like the position of his arm holding the sword and i wanted, to give the sword a bit of perspective as if it was coming at the screen so i re drew the image again using this as a basis.

This is what the re-draw resulted in, i then began to redraw the lines on this image and finish the detailing. 

I was Pleased with how this outline looked and Began to work into it with colours as I was very happy with the look!

This is what I ended up with my final colour image, I was quite pleased with how it turned out and I wanted to develop the background now to give him a setting.

 I experimented with a cloudy looking background with him emerging from the smoke.

I decided I liked the smokey look but I wanted a bit more depth to the image a bit of something going on, so I kept the smokey feel and added some grit beneath his feet.

 I wanted to try something different as I thought the previous image lacked colour and didn't make to image pop, so I decided to add some colour to the smoke and also added the texture to the air.

 In My final Beauty Shot I increased the particles flying in the air and painted them in on a V behind the character giving the image a certain action feel, I also thought it would be a nice idea to add an effect to his blade, I tried to make it look like the smoke wrapped around the blade.

In conclusion I was very pleased with how the Character came out and I was pleased with what I Finished on.

Character and Concept Ideas

When i was thinking of character ideas about what sort of character i wanted to create i was playing with the idea of a barbarian, i originally wanted a barbarian that would have no ties to any family, a loner that lived for himself travelling and doing whatever his heart told him too, This idea was heavily inspired by me playing Dungeons and dragons at the time and i already have this fictitious character that I play with in a fictional world, but its all in imagination so i thought the idea of my creating this character, and manifesting my ideas of what he looked like into an image rather than the just the words that describe him on paper, but then I moved away form this idea as i wanted to pursue this in my own time at my own pace, also when I began researching concept artists I cam across and artist name Dan Luvisi (http://danluvisiart.deviantart.com/) and I love his LMS series and all of his other art work , and that inspired me to make a futuristic bounty hunter, but rather than army and futuristic military inspired, I wanted an oriental themed assassin style character. So thats what I settled on.

Character Name: Lo-Kag

Age; Undefined but maybe mid 20-30's

Race: Human

Originated:
 From an oriental colony planet in the future. He was an Orphan,  Never knew anything about his parents nor did the people that found him, Perhaps had seen something horrible as a very young child that may have had an impact almost like a stamp on his brain, Grew up as a very dark child dislocated from most other, not sociable at all.

Present:
 At present Lo-kag hangs around a bar that serves as his home hub from which he accepts missions from the local tavern owner and goes off in his space ship to complete these tasks, has no real life other than his work, has no ties, lives the life of a mercenary bounty hunter for hire.

Environment:
 Futuristic setting in a distant future where personal space carrier vehicles are now available and the human race has expanded across the stars with each country from earth making there own colony's creating themed planets, The planet that Lo-Kag is from and lives on is a developed area, has a very oriental theme, not a rich area, rather poor, everything is made from whatever they can find and use and put to use, nothing goes to waste. The Bar he Works from fits  the same theme as the area, its made from whatever they can get there hands on.

Personality:
 Spends most of his time at the bar eating and drinking, when he is not there he's working out perfecting himself and keeping fit and in shape for future missions and whatever is thrown at him on his next job, no real past times other than eating, drinking and training. He is a dark shady character with a foreboding look, will not get approached other than by a contractor.

Look:
 "That Mean looking guy?", The one built like a brick shit house?"
A couple of ways locals talk about the dark figure often sat at the bar keeping himself to himself, Wears loose trousers to prevent any movement restrictions, also soft footpads for silent movement, while on a job, as he's quite a heavy footed large character then these help reduce the noise he makes, as its rather hard to keep inconspicuous when your as large as him. he also wears a vest and gloves, all of his outfit is dark with a oriental feel. He wears a mask that covers majority of his face this works as a heads up display and provides information on targets and also has, built in technology in his one eye, which allows for situational awareness, Perception and tracking of targets. He has a rather light skin complexion, slightly tanned from spending so much time in space, his space ship wind shield could do with a new UV protection layer.


After this I have a very good idea of what i wanted my character to look like, so I began looking for ideas that would fit the vision I had in my head.
 First of all was this guy!

Darkness is his Friend!  Bane!

I also looked into Gilgamesh a recurring character from the final fantasy series.
I like the oriental theme of this character he is a master of all weapons! especially the look of his boots and baggy pants.

Finally i gathered inspiration from Snake Eyes from G.I. Joe!!
This was the final inspiration for my character, now I just wanted to sort of merge the three and draw aspects from all of them.

I also Looked into this guy for alot of inspiration.

Prop Development

Okay so first of all Ill show where I got inspiration for my prop and the idea behind what I wanted to create.

So i knew that i wanted my bounty hunter lo-kag to be carrying some sort of multi purpose weapon that he could use for different purposes, after a visit to the Leeds royal armoury i saw a sword there that was like a huge Swiss army knife, It had many different attachments such as a pistol, knife, the sword itself and on the back of the blade a huge cutting edge for sawing, i thought the idea of him having a few different things he needed on the job combined into one weapon was a good idea, and it got me thinking of similar ideas, like the gun blade, below now I will show a few inspirations and then the development of what became my prop in the beauty shot.

A few inspirations below;

This is the image i took when I went on the trip to the Leeds Royal armoury.

The multi purpose weapon.

Squalls Gunblade a large inspiration.

Another pistol Knife I found.

This was looking at the mechanism and how it would work.

Some other cool ideas for a gun blade.

After looking at all of these ideas I decided to try and recreate something that I would like my character to use. here below is what i developed.

This was my gunblade design, I wasnt pleased with this as my final outcome and felt like the design was a little flawed, but the idea was that it would be able to hold different ammo types in the barrels under neath the sword, and all of these ammos would have different effects and jobs such as for example.

1. A Paralysis gas cannister
2. A Stun cartridge
3. A capture Net
4. Explosive rounds
5. Normal Buck shot

I thought that weapon turned out okay, but i thought it was perhaps a little too bulky for the jobs he would be doing so I decided to develop another weapon that he would use.

This is My final Prop turnaround, I used the same weapon in my characters Beauty shot and also tied in a similar style background.

Weekly Tasks

Weekly Tasks

Okay so I began these weekly session tasks there wasn't too many of these.

Below are a couple of clouds I created to turn into brushes, these brushes have been helpful in creating a few pieces of work ive done.

The image below i created using the cloud brushes above i was fairly pleased with it as a cloudscape.

The image below we were given of this elven looking archer, I have not drawn this we were given it to basically just colour it in, and below on the right is the result of that.

 

 Below is the photo manipulation task. I added the sky into the image, looking at it now though i can see that the sun behind the clouds on the left doesn't fit in with where the light is hitting the rock and where the shadow is cast, but I still like the image.

Another image i have manipulated, i added the tower on the left and the clouds into the sky, using the cloud brush that I had created in previous tasks, The lighting on this image fits better than the previous.