Young Hanuman

First post of 2013! Started this one in December and it took a little longer than expected (don't they usually), but we're done! More Ramayana work, this is Hanuman, one of Rama's closest friends and a Hindu deity himself.

Rama Attack Study - Colored

Glowy arrow, fire arrow, phoenix arrow, celestial-right-angle arrow, and space arrow.

Return of the Whipsword

Had so much fun with this animatic that I decided to try another one. Think I'm going to another one, slightly different (and a different character), but I love studying that urumi, hahaha.

Ciel Main Characters

I've been trying a different way of thumbnailing that is less gestural and more specific. I'm not sure yet how I feel about it as a process, though I like these characters. While it simplifies the process of going to the next step (a single or a few colored finishes), I'm concerned about diversity. But these are designs for a character that has to fit in a world that's already pretty defined; it might be useful to try this approach when making a character completely out of context.

Sorry about my lack of posting last week. On April 1 we had the Internship Fair, where a lot of great Baltimore companies came to talk to students about local opportunities for work. It was great, but I think it took a lot out of me!

There was a great panel on the game industry given by a few friends of mine. Colin Campbell of Big Huge Games was my professor for Advanced Photoshop Techniques, one of the best classes I took here at MICA, and Taylor Fischer of ZeniMax Online is a friend of mine who happened to TA that class. Go check out their work!

Colored Characters

Played with Dermot Power's approach in doing these. From now on I'm only going to upload 'finished' pieces to Flickr, and used Blogger's image uploader for WIPs or uncritiqued pieces.

Ciel Character Designs!

Sorry I've been gone, I didn't want to fill up the blog with WIPs - while I like the habit of posting 3 times a week, I think I'd rather post something fresh or skip a day than post something that's in progress. It also saves me the trouble of uploading it to flickr when I'm just going to want to delete it later.

So here we have something - this is Ciel for Advanced Concept Art, finally we're moving to character designs, where I'm more comfortable as opposed to landscapes. These are 20 assorted 'villagers,' based loosely off of Mongolian attire and styles. Expect 20 more within the week, and I have to take at least 3 of these to a more finished look. But they were really fun to do and I'm happy with how cohesive they look.

Thesis: Architect!

He's finally finished now, too! It's satisfying hahaha. The rest of thesis is going to be a few narrative pieces and as many pages of concept sketches as I can muster!

Thesis: Queen DONE

Well.. she still has to receive my midterm critique's blessing, but for the most part... done and done. Whew! I'm not quite sure about this presentation format, but I wanted to get something ready for Tuesday. Also lacking are notes on materials/purpose, but I wasn't quite sure what to put other than what metals and fabrics inspired her clothes. I can do metals, but frankly the fabrics will require a bit more research.

The Architect will be posted tomorrow :)

Thesis Work! Characters!

This is going to be done by Monday!



So will this!

Hooray!

Architect, v. 2

Very happy to revisit this character's design, which is a bit less bizarre now but I think much stronger overall. Here are the main color palettes I'm considering, with the addition of this one which is really more of a less clashy alternative to #1.



And here are the rest of the automobile designs, which were all drawn and shaded before I started work again on the Architect. Now that the Architect is done, I want to go back to these and make 10 more designs -- but more 10 variations on the ideas posed here that I think work best. That five-wheeler, far left and one down, and the two motorcycles, are what appeals to me the most.

Queen Portraits

Queen Portraits, originally uploaded by Ntkufreak.

It's back to thesis!

Starting to really visualize the queen. Not all of these are as different from one another as perhaps they should be, but it was still a good exercise. Used reference for a few of them in an attempt to break out of my habits.

Facebook friends, if you recognize yourself.... I'm sorry. LOL

Finished Vibhishana

vibhishana_painting_web, originally uploaded by Ntkufreak.

My final for the Ramayana project... finished painting feat. our story's antihero, Vibhishana. Very pleased with how this came out!

Vibhishana Movement Study

Movement study, some cyborg-zombie heads for underneath the headwrap, and because I was curious I animated the movement study very quickly in Photoshop... and thought it looked kind of cool, so posted it. I think it also better illustrates exactly what the movement is -- even if it's not very useful beyond that!

Glass Coffin

Some portraits of the Architect (hero). More to come.

Vibhishana Sketches

Lots more Vibhishana sketches... some potential silhouettes, some movement studies, and a bunch of variants on the sword/hand.

Thesis Characters

More tightened sketches, revisiting the Architect; some thumbnails for the Naturalist. Actual thesis work!

Vibhishana

Took three of the thumbnails that were the best from the last post, and sketch-elaborated on some of them. Also an excuse to draw headwraps - who needs faces? The bottom figure is an idea for Vibhishana "unfurling" so to speak, for fighting. As well as looking at scary life-support systems, I was trying to research character profiles that I found particularly disturbing. Cthulu was the most prominent inspiration, haha.

New Character Design for Ramayana

Character: Vibhishana. Renegade Demon/Foil

This character serves as a foil to Rama, a demon that is more human than most, to be relatable to the player. Vibhishana is skeptical of Rama's ability. Vibhishana also represents what Rama could achieve if he underwent the augmentations of the demons he fights; but he is twisted, not seeking to help out of protecting humans but because he does not like Ravana. Motives likely more complicated like in any good RPG.

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These were the silhouettes for class; they picked #3, #5, #18, #30 to experiment with. More to come!

Updates Updates

It's been a long time since I updated, and I'm sorry about that. I do have a few things at least. First, work for my thesis:



These sketches are for the Old Man and the Naturalist/Antagonist. I'm not too happy with either of these sets, though I do think I will steal one of the Antagonist thumbs (#2) and use it instead for my Protagonist. Some of the critique I got on the old Architect/Protagonist was that it was too busy, and I have to agree. I was not too happy with him anyway. But I like this guy, though I need to figure out a way to make him visually interesting since he's very recognizable with Western trends.

With both sets overall though, it's helpful because I am at least getting somewhere. I'm also trying a new way of thumbnailing where I focus more on interior detail than outside silhouette, while starting with the blue pencil (removed in Photoshop) to figure out basic shapes.

And for the other project, a repaint of Rama -- critique that I received was that he'd lost some of the energy in the drawing, and gotten too muddy.


And and -- the assignment that was due this week. An environment 50%/ish done!


Whew!

Rama Painted

He will have none of it.