As part of one of our contextual studies, a lady called Helen McCarthy, who has had a lot to do with Japanese media, came to one of our lectures. As part of this talk we were set an optional external project where we were required to create a game version of ourselves.
     This is the start of my work upon this project

     I am quite a fan of boxing so I thought it would be quite cool if my character was a fighter in some kind of underground arena. I havn't quite decided just how much of a fantasy element I want to this character, therefor they may be additional inclusion of gauntlets, flame hands etc.
      Helen McCarthy has, amongst other things, written a number of books- focusing particularly on anime. More information can be found here.
                 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_McCarthy

Architecture

          The Companion Cube work discussed earlier in my blog has been preparing for the part of our project where we create our own replica of a door/window that we have found within a game.
     The game I have chosen for this task is Fallout 3. This provides a fascinating example as the architecture contrasts so much. Though Fallout is set in the future, within the plot the earth's development became somewhat dysfunctional around the 50s when the wars started. This means throughout the game you consistenly see sci-fi technology couples with old fashioned advertising posters, sporting equipment and general decor. Another consideration has been that with environmental features such as burned out cars, constructions put together from scrap etc. These also have to reflect the 50's era as they are residue from that time, and seperate from the technological advances of the present day within the game. The video below is the intro of the game which I feel effectively sets the scene.

     When focusing upon the achitectural style of the game it is important to take notice of the sense of total delapidation throughout. This is a world where industry and mass production has long since been extinct. The "Capital Wasteland" is exactly that, and abundence of decay and destruction. The next video is an example of someone's own version of the Fallout world. Whilst not directly related to what I am doing, I found it both interesting and benificial to see which elements of the environment, and the game in general, had been carried across.

Below we see examples of the traditional style posters, and what these add visually to the game. As you can see they encompass the idea of the American Dream, and the marketing formats through posters and leaflets in that time.

Now we see some examples of the heavily featured, extreme sci fi, tech in the pictures below- and furthermore just how extensively these contrast with the 50's theme.

These images display an immaculate almost clinical quality- This also contrasts with the destruction of the wasteland as seen below.

Just to re-enforce the 50's theme, an example of a diner style wreckage. JUST LIKE THEY HAD IN "GREESE"!!!!!

AND AST BUT NOT LEAST AN ENTIRE ELVIS THEMED BUILDING (although technically this is from Fallout:New Vegas

More to come....

More Companion Cube

     Here is some more of my joyous attempts to make one small part of the companion cube.

      Before carrying on with the process, something useful we learnt was to use one of the new layer buttons (bottom right of screen) to take any selected ovbjects and assign them to a new layer. This enabled me to have either parts of the cube visible/invisible at any given time. This can help to make the task less complicated, and helps prevent accidental selection of objects.

     My next step was to bevel the edges of the shape using, suprisingly enough, the bevel tool. All that was required was to right click, opt for edge selection, select desired edge, select bevel option and kaboom!.. In honesty there was no kaboom,

      I also had to use the merge vertices tool. This allowed me to take two corners and merge them into one. The process in maya give you a little red cross, much like a targeting reticle, in order to select these desired vertices.

     
       As you see in the picture below, to further the shape I needed extra edges running through the middle of the shape. This was achieved by selecting the already existing central one and using the insert offset loop tool. This offset can then be adjusted as you wish, enabling me to create the change you can see below

Drawing Jam

     I have now begun work for the current Drawing Jam (number 73) on cghub. The challenge this time is to create my own version of the grim reaper in any kind of 2D format. The pictures below show my planning and initial work on this project so far. This will need to be finished for the 23rd April.

Initially I had planned out a completely modern version in suit with a baseball bat instead of a scythe and with a more human face, however this removed too many of the features that identified the character, hence the altered version you see now. The wide brimmed hat is inspired by Captain Barbossa's from "Pirates of the Carribean", I did however decide to leave out the giant feather.  Although the image depicts otherwise, for my final version I intend to have the head as an extremely emaciated form- as opposed to a complete skull. More work to follow.

Barbossa and his hat.

PRACTICE

     Before I started entering competitions on cghub I wanted to try my hand at a couple of pactices first, as digital ainting is something I am pretty unfamiliar with. I was advised to start buying the digital art magazine "ImagineFX". In  my first copy one of their main articles was explaining how to make a portrait style piece of work so I thought I would try this first.

      I decided to use a photo of a friend who I knew wouldn't be too offended if the end result was slighty dodgy...

      Which was probably just as well. I am aware that there is a lot wrong with this image; however it was my first time trying anything of the sort and with this in mind I think it could have been a lot worse. The main thing is that I learnt a lot from the experience and it set me up to try another.

     My next practice session was to create my own character completely from scratch. This was something I hadn't tried before with digital painting. My previous work had all been guided by images that already existed.

I started out with a quick sketch of a character idea, once I was pleased with its basic form I scanned this to my computer. (Havn't invested in photoshop yet so I am still currently using GIMP).

      The next picture is some way in to my work. I was advised beforehand to use an alternative background to white when creating my image. Something else I need to focus on is learning to work without excessive use the smudge tool. Again I have been advised that this is not the thing to do and that it would be worthwhile to practise blending technique. Otherwise I could become somewhat limited in the visual style of my work.

    This is my work in its finished state. Again it is not fantastic, especially in comparison to some of the phenominal work I have seen online. However this is the first time I have completely created something from scratch and brought it through to a completed piece, for that alone I am happy with what I have created here. Once again I have learnt a lot from this process and look forward to developing my techniques further.

Change of plans

     I know it's bad but this is gonna be another one of those update posts where I recap the last week or so. As mentioned before I had planned to enter the armed and dangerous comp ending 10th April, which required me to submit a fully sculpted and painted piece of work. Having only used Mudbox once before my handling of this task was pretty slow, and I had no experience in creating a sculpt that wasnt still in unpainted form. Therefore as the deadline grew closer I grew more apprehensive about getting this task done in time, sure enough the deadline came and went without me submitting. Whilst I definately want to get round to completing this, (digital sculpting is something that I want to be able to do with skill), I decided that if I was to enter comps with deadlines I may be better off trying out those based on 2D drawing. Futhermore digital painting was something I really wanted to get to grips with in my first year, and as yet it is not something I feel I have spent any real time focusing on. Therefore I am now a member of cghub.com where I can join their competitions, as well as posting my work.