Project 3 and Reflective Essay

Reflective

This article was very insightful in doing character designs, and I  have more of an idea now how to go about the process. To be honest after do this project, I wouldn't mind working for an animation company as a concept artist. It would definitely take traditional drawing skills and a imagination to help create them which I enjoy a lot. I think the areas I definitely need to work on  is taking character's poses and make them more exaggerated and dynamic. 

While working on these characters, they definitely have evolved from what they were about four years ago. 

Here's what they looked like before originally.

Before, they were cats. But as I put this project on hold for a while, I wanted to do more original characters than cats. I didn't want to change them at first and thought they could get any better. But, like all artists, I wen outside my comfort zone to try something new. I basically designed both  heads after stars. While Trena's is upright star, Koe's is an up-side-down star. 

I think one obstacle for this project was to redesign the wings since the ones I used before looked too organic. I wanted to design wings that glowed like neon lights to add in more of the sci-fi effect and it's something that see light up herself.

I'm really not sure on much I clarified but I hope it's alright. I'm still new at this and is willing to do better on it . 

UV Mapping and Reflective Essay

Unfortunately, the original file I had for project 3 got corrupted. I however was able to make another object with UV Mapping and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to try out the companion cube (though it's not the exact replica).

Anyways for Maya, we were to choose three different textures that appealed to me. Well.. here are the three:

All three of these references are way different from the other. The top one is from Square Enix's movie Final Fantasy 7 Advent children. Though I have not watched this due to it's bad reviews, as always the company's cinematic visuals are breathtaking that brought in a while new perspective in animation and gaming. The textures of these characters with their hair, skin, and even the clothing they wear are extremely detailed and at times (when it first came out) I thought they were real actors. I'm really not sure how they did this, but I believe the textures had to be either self made or high definition stock photos (which I'm not exactly sure).

The second one came from Dead Space. As one of my newest favorite game I love the textures on the necromorph aliens on there. The menacing monsters look absolutely hideous with their dry wrinkly skin which I always was to make.

And the third image ( I'm sure everyone knows) is from for the birds. Reason I like this was because of the feathers. When the bird puffed up or moved around their feathers acted like real feathers. And judging how many of them are, it really looks difficult to animate. It was something that always clung to me since it almost looked liked they animated each of those feathers by hand ( which i'm probably sure they didn't ).

Reflective Essay Art351

I think one of the best interactive experiences I had was play the online first-person shooting game called Team Fortress 2. Reason why I like this game so much was because of the interaction amongst your teammates while playing. It's been a popular game for one of those reasons. The character design and layout design of the environment have that retro feeling (like from Pixar's Incredibles) which makes it funny as hell, and appealing to the audience. And for interactivity, it also depends on what class you are choosing (there's about 9 classes) Like for examples, one of the team classes is called medic which is used to heal other people. Players can also communicate to the medic for help by pressing the E key. Or the Y key can be used to talk to other players on your team. This is a fast pace game. It's sometimes hard for me to blink since it goes by so fast and you have to react quickly to situations. So, it's more of a subconscious/intinctive way of playing.

Another game I thought was good for Interactivity was fallout 3. Only recently have I got to play this and this game gives you so many possibilities in making the choices you want in the game. You can even customize the character, choose a name and gender, and make decisions. I enjoyed this game since it actually gave the option to make choices with other characters that can bring rewards and consequences. The map is also huge so you could Travel a long ways Of course, I wanted to make the good choices as much as I can. It was indeed a fun experience. And the post-apocalyptic atmosphere gives you the chills and almost a devastating when you first see it. The action was not as fast as team fortress 2 but the exploration of the game is wonderful to try out.

And my third interactive game experience that was fun was also deadspace. And the reason why I like this one was because of the sound and atmosphere. This is a really fun game to play in the dark. If you are wearing surround sound headphones, the tension and your heart rate goes up as the creepy sounds come in along with different monsters to come into attack you. Reason I like this game is for the adrenaline rush. This perhaps would be another instinctive game since you have to really look around for items or other monsters.

Dingbat Animations

Art 348 Project 2

References used:

 I wasn't able to have time to revise my silhouettes nor fully complete all 50 drawings. This however gave me more focus and more of an idea of what I need to work on schedule wise. 

 Reflective

I believe there were many"Mickey Mouse's"around my time. I absolutely loved cartoons when I was little. I think that Mickey Mouse was actually my oldest inspiration. I always loved watching the Disney channel with their cartoons that featured the little rodent, along with his pals Donald, Goofy, and Pluto. I think because of this cartoon, I was able to keep my "child-at-heart" personality and been able to be creative with stories. Every cartoon I saw, my eyes widened in wonder and excitement. And When I watched Fantasia with the "Sorcerer's Apprentice' featuring him, my love for syncronization of music and animation grew.

It wasn't till later that I my other "Mickey Mouse" actually was an anime called Sailor Moon, that was one of the first  major Japanese animated cartoons to come to the US before the huge rush came in, in the late 90s. I fell in love with this series and enjoyed it. This is what actually made start drawing. Everyday, I would record the episode, then play it back so that I could pause on a scene then try to draw it. This is how I first started out. 

Nowadays, I'm inspired by many other artists and tried different art styles. But with imagination, story, and character- wise, my heart will always be inspired by Disney with that little mouse. 

WIP and Reflective on Maya

Did some more experiments with 3D modeling on Maya. Still confused on some of the tools. Hopefully things will get better later. I tried different things such playing with faces and edges as well. Also learned about the insert edge loop tool. The project is still in a skeletal state but I'll get better as I go along. 

There are many variables that a landscape or cityscape has to create that illusion of scale and depth. First and foremost, you have the vanishing point in which all scales of objects are measured to create the depth/distance of the picture. Objects are the same size can appear to be smaller or bigger depending on where the object is on the grid in relation to the camera. What's also interesting is how the atmosphere plays on role on the illusion. When objects are close to the viewer, their colors are clear. But as it goes into distance, the colors on the objects fade more. 

With the placement of details, I guess there would be more details on the more closer objects as well as texture. However, from objects very far away, you can only add so much.  When in comes to color I tend to improvise a bit. Depending on the time of day, can also determine the color pallette.

For landscapes and Cityscapes like these, I'm afraid I can't explain well. But I do know how to do it to create the illusion. 

 

Ding Bat Collage

 

Basically what I did, is that I had to convert all the "dingbats
 into separate symbols. Once I was done with that , I played around a bit to try new things. The drag and drop process worked out like a charm and it was very easy to do for me, especially with the collages. I tried to experiment making different collages. However, they turned out to be a little more formal than I thought. I ended up making stat charts. and scale models as if these came out of an animal biology book. There were only a couple that was the most abstract, but I don't think they came out that well. 

I think next time though, I'll try a more experiments with them and make them a little more creative than usual.

Maya Size and Compostition

So for the Maya class, I was able to experiment with the program for the very first time. We basically have to select three 3 references that we chose before and make primitive objects to emulate that scene. It's nothing special. but i was able to get the concept down.

I have to say out of my learning experience, it was very interesting and frustrating at the same time. I had to study the basics and the tools for a while before working on this . There were some difficult moments such as learning to rotate the camera, or selecting certain points of the polygons. But I didn't learn a lot from this week. It's hard to memorize all the shortcuts and steps but I'm sure if I keep practicing, it'll all become second nature. I would have to say out of all the images i think my best one would have to be the first image above, since I got the perspective just right with the camera.

I wasn't sure what to work on first. But I thought to try something simple and basic just to get an idea of the program and get the concept. I think next time though when i get the time, I want to work on more detailing when i get the chance.I'm also wondering how to apply textures in maya. Hopefully I'll learn that later.

Art 351 Dingbats

So in interactive flash, we were to create 30 "dingbats" with a theme.

I couldn't think of anything else to draw, but after looking at References from Michel Gagne, I decided to try out the "Bizarre Creature theme" and try to come up with as many crazy designs as possible. Michel Gagne's had that imagination that had strange and amazing creatures. I didn't look too much into his work though just so I could keep my mind fresh and focused. I actually surprised myself in the process. Usually, I would be really worried about perfectionism and my drawing would be really slow in these situations. But when drawing quickly and not thinking about it, the quality of my work was up to my standards than if I nitpicked everything.

Even at times where I couldn't think of anything to draw, I still pushed and followed through with what I wanted to do. I've drawn in flash before so this wasn't anything new to me. However, due to deadlines, I picked up the habit of drawing faster than normal. I want to say that I really love the brush tool in this program. But sometimes the line thickness with the brush tool can be a bit spontaneous.

I think I'll definitely do more random doodles like this in the future to see what else i can come up with.

Maya Project Part one: Reference Material

So we were to take 10 different references of size and composition .

 

Untitled, Adrian Murphy (2010) 

http://www.photographymad.com/blog/post/castle-photography

Images above done  by Daniel Dociu (c. 2007) ( Titles Uknown)

http://www.tinfoilgames.com/

Title and Artist Uknown, 2008.

http://www.avephotos.com/Architecture/Kiev-architecture-photo-13.html

Roman Ruins, Artist Uknown (Date Unknown)

http://www.okpainting.com/wholesale/oilpaintings.aspx?ID=3141

Photo by Art Singer, A Study of Architecture in Florence, 1910

http://www.oceansbridge.com/paintings/artists/s/sargent_john_singer/big/A_Study_of_Architecture_Florence__1910.jpg

Reference of Hogwarts, Photo by Tony Sak, 2011

http://tonysak.deviantart.com/

Fairytale Castle, Photo taken by FranklyFrankie, 2011

http://franklyfrankie.deviantart.com/

Silhouettes project part 2

        For part 2 of the silhouette project I was to create 30 of my own original Silhouette characters. Apparently I came up with 31. Some of them humans, and lots of them are creatures that I came up with . Hopefully I can get better at this as I go along. This was a very fun project and got me to realize the importance on style and how to make a character recognizable and unique.

        Ever since I first started, I never took silhouettes into considering. As I grew up with my work, I did research about the topic but never really tried myself until now. And I have to say it was a great experience for me. I had to think about the shape of the character rather focusing on the details. With that, it gave out different varieties of body shapes on characters. I'm very much into the simplistic style of cartoons. So when doing this project, it helped me a lot on that part and broadened my imagination.

         A couple of my human characters I had worked on before. By working on this, i was able to tweak my character's design to make it look more original and recognizable. So my characters changed a little bit. I wasn't too worried on the editing. I basically just let my imagination let loose and take over so see what I came up with. I have to say that after this experience, I may be doing more of this to come up with new characters from now on.

Art 351 First Project Part 1

For Art 351 I was to choose a theme for the first part of the Project. I chose ten different images from an artist that has been one of my inspirations to think in a different and bizarre nature of sorts. Michel Gagne is known for his wacky and twisted creations that are out of this world. So the theme I decided to to make is "Bizarre Creatures". Let's see what I come up with in the coming following days.  

Note of Disclaimer: These images belong to Michel Gagne.

Silhouettes part 1

For the first part of the project, I was to create 5 silhouettes known in the media. Can you guess what they are ;P?
Anyways, I'm very excited for this class and am ready to advance my knowledge and skills into the area I am most passionate in.