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Friday, 26 November 2010
Thursday, 25 November 2010
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Garden piece progress
Click image for full view.
Changed the angle. Added some perspective to make the proportions of the building look more gigantic to the audience, and created a sense of scale in comparison to the Antagonist. Started in the style to Team Fortress 2 (rim highlights, sticking to a colour scheme, looking at commercial illustration as a minor influence), then blended styles from my influence map as I went along. Full Explanation of the piece after I've completed it.
Monday, 22 November 2010
Primary Research Two - Team Fortress 2
As I've already briefly written about Team Fortress 2 as part of my written assignment, I will be using this post to talk more in-depth about the aspects of Team Fortress 2 within my creative assignment. This blog post will also be used in part to investigage further within my written assignment, as well as provide evidence and additional sources of information for my written assignment.
Team Fortress 2 is a heavily team-based first-person shooter multiplayer video game developed by Valve Corporation. It's the sucessor to it's previous games Team Fortress Classic, which was a sucessor to the Team Fortress Mod, for Quake. It is my second and final main primary sources of inspiration for my project.
After nine years in development to release, as well as numerous post-release updates, Team Fortress 2 contains a goldmine of research supporting it's development; from external sources such as CGSociety, to Valve's publications, to Team Fortress 2's Official Blog.
It is worth mentioning that within the game they've included a commentary on the design choices from the staff which allows the audience to visually understand the development of elements within the game.
Furthermore, Valve has a page on their official website containing publications from all their games. I will be Specifically looking at 'Stylization with a Purpose, The Illustrative World of Team Fortress 2', and 'Illustrative Rendering in Team Fortress 2', which is avaliable in slideshow, paper, and video format.
For this blog post, I will be posting the video of 'Illustrative Rendering in Team Fortress 2'. Although the video talks about Rendering in a 3d software-stance. I will be aiming to implement those elements they have talked about within my 2d concept art
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Considering the wealth of information I've accumalated, I will be instead talking about how Team Fortress 2 will reflect upon my project, and what it will be as part of my creative development.
Besides the Time Machine. Team Fortress 2 will be the primary source of inspiration towards my creative assignment, helping to create a unique world that appeals to its audience. As for my written assignment, Team Fortress 2 will be The concept final three concept paintings will be a reflection to what I aimed the art style of my film 'remake'.
The main reasoning behind why I propose to take the design of this particular game into my creative assignment is due to many reasons, some of which are due to its techniques into my paintings, others due to the illustrations its inspired from. The game contains elements I aim to experiement with in my final concepts as well as impliment into my final visual concepts.
- The game's influence is derived from conventional early 20th century commercial illustration, in addition to 1960's industrial design elements. This compliments the work on my blog that relates to the Time Machine.
- The art style is, to put it boldly, a unique choice compared to other conventional games/films, (in contrast, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which was released at around the same period). Team Fortress 2 utilises specific rendering techniques in order to reflect the illustrations it's inspired from. Adequately named "Illustrative Rendering", I may adapt this into the lighting in order to create important areas within my paintings.
- It's use of strong bold colours creates an artistic appeal to its audience. This is in part of my formal visual elements I aim to try to conform to.
- Although the core elements of the game are complete, the development is still ongoing. The game today still produces many major updates to reflect with real-time events, most recently a Scream-Fortress update, that added elements to the game to reflect the event of Halloween. Not a major factor in reflection to my work, I just really like the concept that there is always room for a masterpiece to grow and change over time, its an interesting contrast to other games in this manner.
Promotional Video. Showing in order to visually present the aspects of the environment - 'Meet The Soldier'.
Other promotional Videos are at
http://www.teamfortress.com/movies.htm
Screenshots I've taken from the game and will be using as inspiration for my visual concepts.
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Primary Research One - Borderlands
Borderlands is a science fiction first-person shooter with some RPG elements, developed my Gearbox Software. It is one of my main primary sources of inspiration for my project.
Borderlands use of texture is unique in that it combines tradtional rendering techniques with hand drawn textures, in order to create a world drawn from concept art. This visual style is noticably different from other shooter games and is one of the main visual aspects that appeals to its audience.
I aim to impliment a few formal visual elements from this game. Primarily the games use of texture and line. This is noticable within the draft final concepts I've created already, experimenting with Borderlands art style.
Below are screenshots I've taken from the game. They contain elements I aim to experiement with as well as impliment into my final visual concepts.
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Friday, 19 November 2010
WIP - The Garden
Another Work In Progress
Inspired by Art of Borderlands.
Inspired by Art of Borderlands.
Inspired by this Passage in the Time Machine.
I have yet to add some major details such as the hailstorm. I've had both of these inspired by Borderlands due primarily to it's use of shadow and highlight in it's rocky formations and other elements within its art style. This, as well as the other painting below is simply experimentation. As well as one more piece coming up.
Once I found out what I like and dislike about the paintings, I'll plan to take elements that are working into my final pieces. It seems somewhat..more work, but in this way at least I'm thorough about what will be effective as I work into my Final concept paintings.
Thursday, 18 November 2010
WIP - The Morlocks Cave
Still Work In Progress
Inspired by Art of Borderlands.
Inspired by Art of Borderlands.
Bearing in mind it's still a work in progress, I thought I should really put something up as I haven't updated something substantial in a while. Trust me, if I'm not cataloguing the work on the blog, I am actually aiming to experiment/research/crack on with the paintings, studies or research as much as possible. I'll probably use the weekend just to spend uploading all these piles of paper thumbnails and digi-paintings onto the blog. It's going to be such a messsssss (chronologically...)
Despite how much time I've spent on this particular piece. I'm not entirely happy with it. The lighting coming from the hole above and the cave "support beam" on the left foreground is probably the only things I'm particularly pleased with, whilst the lighting needs work on the rocks (especially the top right wow), as well as the texture and colour overall can especially be improved. I may have even over-did it with the texture.
I aimed for it to project a grim mood through its colours. Whilst striking down a sharp light as if to show 'hope' from above as the traveller comes down to the Morlocks caves. I also wanted to show its a gigantic cave through its use of space as well as how the way the background is composed (it's a really big cave). In regards to how the way the focus is led, it doesn't show the proportions as outstanding to the viewer as I intended.
Animation of its progress so far:-
Full-size links:-
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Week 9 - Life Drawing
This week was a short exercise with pastel before a long pose. Click for full images
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| Warm up exercises on one sheet of paper using multiple pieces of coloured charcoal, the model posed herself differently every two intervals, 12minutes | . Not really happy with this one as was pretty much worn out by the exercise halfway as well as watching Avatar before the lesson. Not to mention the positioning of the model wasn't the best. Spent a lot of time on the hair. Long drawing! more then an hour at least (lost track of time!). Full view recommended |
Saturday, 13 November 2010
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Essay Proposal
My essay proposal is to critically analyse the production design of the computer game Team Fortress 2.
The main reasoning behind why I propose to analyse the production design of this particular game is due to many reasons:
- The game's influence is derived from conventional early 20th century commercial illustration, in addition to 1960's industrial design elements. This compliments the work on my blog that relates to the Time Machine. (Basically, I'm still in the same time period)
- The art style is, to put it boldly, a unique choice compared to other conventional games/films. It utilises specific rendering techniques in order to reflect the illustrations it's inspired from. Adequately named "Illustrative Rendering"
- Although the core elements of the game are complete, the development of the game is, in a certain way, still ongoing. The game today still produces many major updates to reflect with real-time events, most recently a Scream-Fortress update, that added elements to the game to reflect the event of Halloween.
- Although I haven't yet found a physical published source, the game has a large number of online sources that discuss the production of the game, from videos to presentations to articles, interviews and online publications. In particular, the official blog of Team Fortress 2 is a goldmine of information relating to design choices and production of the game, it will be an excellent source of information to write an essay about.
Initial sources of information:
http://www.valvesoftware.com/games/tf2.html
http://www.teamfortress.com
http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications.html
http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2007/NPAR07_IllustrativeRenderingInTeamFortress2.pdf
http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=4338
http://halcyonrealms.com/animation/the-art-of-team-fortress-2/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._C._Leyendecker - one of the influences on TF2's design
Pattern and "Steam-Punk Culture"
The use of "steam-punk" culture within my influences map isn't really something I'd like to focus on as part of my project, this is especially true with it's use of pattern within environment. I'd like to create a world more vibrant, free-flowing and colourful.
This is one alternative for pattern that I may use within creating my scenes, as well as one part of level of detail I'd like to implement when creating my final three scenes, I've made a pattern based on contemporary work today. Drawing from contemporary influences such as Takashi Murakami (who I will add in my next influence map as I focus more on particular compositions), whilst still retaining elements from within the original Time Machine book.
Week 8 - Life Drawing
This week was strict use of charcoal. Click for full images
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| Trying to play with different uses of the charcoal, making different strokes | I aimed to try and get the background in, including the texture and pattern as well as the shading, but unfortunately ran out of time. 40 minutes | My least Favourite, the model was in an awkward body position for this. 40 minutes |
Monday, 8 November 2010
Review - Barbarella (1968)
Barbarella is a 1968 science-fiction adventure film based in the far future. Based on the comic book of the same name, it is a fun film where if Innocent Barbarella isn’t encountering danger, she’s “making love” to one of the male cast.
Considering I’ve watched this film post the 1970’s era. Right off the bat I notice that the film is heavily influenced by the ‘love’ cultural movement of the late 60’s - early 70’s, Barbarella also tends to change her clothes, a lot. It is also worth noting that this film was released in the same year as 2001: A Space Odyssey, a landmark in the science-fiction film subgenre.
The plot of Barbarella is based within the year 40000; Planet Earth is in a state of universal peace. When a noted scientist, Durand Durand is kidnapped, the President of Earth, and Rotating Premier of the Sun System calls upon Barbarella in order to save him.
After arriving on the planet, she encounters various unusual people; the Catchman, who introduces her to the traditional ways of ‘Making Love’. Pygar, a blind Angel. Durand Durand, the scientist Barbarella was trying to save, who unfortunately turns out to be the concierge to The Great Tyrant, an excellent pianist and also someone who tries to take over the universe. The film also contains some interesting environments, in particular the Mathmos which is a liquid form of evil feeding off the population’s evil.
The mood of the film is fun, somewhat campy and never takes itself seriously. The Edinburgh University’s Film Society actually puts it quite perfectly, ‘It's not a film that tries to break barriers or provide deep and meaningful commentary on the nature and meaning of life - it's a film which sets out to entertain and does so with considerable panache.’ It’s based within a tongue in cheek manner, particularly scenes in which Barbarella “makes love” to the number of males she encounters on the planet. Barbarella turns from an innocent woman into craving sexual pleasure after encountering The Catchman. To a point in which she is left disappointed after breaking the villain’s torture device, an organ that is meant to deliver fatal doses of sexual pleasure.
One of the most notable aspects of the film is its colours, after watching films from the 1930’s and 1920’s, as well as modern films today, Barbarella stands as a harsh contrast of Older and Present day films. From the environment to the costumes, everything is brightly coloured and caters to circular patterns and shapes within its environment; to the architecture of SoGo, to the design of Barbarella’s spaceship.
The costumes are inspired by the times fashion. The BBC’s Film review of Barbarella states ‘But these are only snatches of a nutty film that boasts at times beautiful photography of some cheap but truly epic sets of PVC and everything that clings.’ The clothing that the cast wears caters towards bright colours with sparing use of contrasting black and white. Particularly evident in Barbarella at one point wearing white and The Great Tyrant covered in black.
It’s evident that the films influence is heavily drawn from the era its made, Empire Magazine’s review of the film puts it as Barbarella ‘wears (and unwears) a succession of truly amazing fashion creations with all the confidence of a generation that thought sex was, above all, fun.’ From costumes lined with fur, to garments that draw focus heavily onto her breasts. This is noticeable not only with Barbarella but the entire cast. The Great Tyrant also wears clothing that reveals cleavage and her belly button, and most of the male cast have no sleeves. Notably, the angel Pygar plays the main character’s love interest, and is cast with a man who throughout the film only has a torn rag to cover his lower body.
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