Coursework Planning

Coursework Planning

The task set was to make concepts for a character, environment and prop that would all fit with one another. For example, the prop has to be the sort of thing the character would use, or the environment the sort of place the character would be in. I began this project by making a mood board to collect my ideas.

Environment

I knew I wanted a fantasy theme to my work, so I began by looking into environments drawn by other concept artists. I was mainly looking out for tall mountain valleys since this was the sort of thing I had in mind for my own work.

Character

For my character I was looking for a warrior type, either knight, hunter or wizard. After looking at some reference I decided on a hunter looking character, one who looks as if they survive off the land (i.e. fur armor, rugged face...)

Prop

As for my prop, it depended on what type of character I wanted to have. After deciding on a hunter type it felt most fitting to have a bow. However, something I had to be cautious of was to maintain the idea of a survivalist character, and so they likely would not have a very extravagant bow.

Environment Concept

Environment Concept

Final Environment

This is my favourite piece of work from this project, I am happy with the level of detail put into the drawing as well as the overall composition. I feel my environment conforms to the fantasy theme I set out for my work and therefore fits in with my character and prop design well.

Initial Thumbnails

I began this task by sketching some ideas for the sort of environment I wanted to create. I had in mind a very natural scene, with large fantasy mountains putting the viewer in a kind of valley. Additionally, I was making sure to include a foreground, middle ground and background in each of my designs. For the bottom right concept, I took elements of the top right and bottom left and merged them together. However, I found this broke the composition of the image somewhat. I also put some vague colour in one of the concepts so I could start to get an idea of colour scheme. I eventually decided to take the top right image onto further development, since I felt it had good composition and the potential to be an interesting scene.

Final Thumbnail

I developed the initial thumbnail to create my final idea for the environment. I added some fantasy looking gates to the focal point of the image to give it more interest, as well as to give the impression of a valley trailing into the mountains. Additionally, I put a character on a boat in the lake to not only help give the image further visual interest, but also to help give the image a sense of narrative in terms of why the character is there and why is he heading towards the valley.

I began by making a neat outline of my thumbnail so I had a good idea of where everything was to go whilst I was working on the image.

I used the above image as a base for most of the cliff faces in my environment.

Using the tools in Photoshop I could cut up the mountain image and place parts of it where I needed it in my own environment, slowly layering these parts on top of one another to create entirely new mountains.

I could then paint over the edited images using a soft brush to create my own shadows and highlights.

At this point I made my own brushes ready to add trees to the image and to create the shoreline. The tree brush I got from selecting one of the trees from the mountain image and cutting it out, and the rock brushes I painted myself.

Using these brushes, I added the tree lines across the mountains and the shore. Once the trees and rocks were placed I also had to go back and add shadows and highlights to them so they matched the lighting in the scene, this included the shadows the trees are casting on the ground.

At this point I added the gates to the valley. I did however move the position of the distant gates since the perspective was not quite right in their original position. The brick and wood textures seen above were layered on top of the gates and set to overlay mode in Photoshop to give them a more detailed texture.

Using the same techniques as the other mountains, I added the distant ones in the background. However, I also added a haze to make them appear further away.

I then decided to add the water. This was a lengthy process since it required a lot of editing. The above image is what I used as a base for my water, I began by using the perspective tool to place it in the scene where it needed to be, and then painted behind it with a light blue. I then duplicated the image texture, set one of them to overlay mode and the other to soft light; this created the impression of highlight and shadow in the ripples, with the blue colour coming through from underneath. I was then able to select various parts of the painting that I had already made, duplicate them, flip them, and set them to overlay mode to create the reflections. Additionally I blurred the reflections to make them less mirror like and more realistic, as well as used the smudge tool to give the impression of the ripples distorting them. The most important part of making the reflections was getting the perspective on them right, for example, the bottom sections of the trees on the shoreline would not be seen in the reflection because the ground and rocks are blocking the line of sight.

With the water done, I used the above image to create the rocks in the foreground. I used the same techniques I used for the mountains to cut parts out of the image and place them in the scene.

I shaded the rocks using a soft brush, and added a base colour for the shore. At this point I also removed the outline I had been working from since all the main elements of the image were now in place.

Using the same rock brushes I used for the distant shoreline, I added the rocky details to the shore and used a soft brush to add shadows and highlights. I also used the sandy image above to give the ground some texture.

I then drew the boat and character by hand, as well as the wake left by the boat in the water. Additionally, the character in the boat is based off of my character concept for this project.

To improve composition and to add some extra detail, I drew a rough bird silhouette and used it as a brush to create a flock of birds in the distance at the top right of the image. Additionally, I added some haze to the middle ground mountains.

At this point I saved the image as a separate file and flattened all the layers into one so I could edit the whole thing. I used the colour balance tool to give the image more of an orange hue, as well as using a soft orange brush set to overlay mode to go over some of the highlights, creating a more dusky tone to the environment.

As a final touch to my environment, I made another much more detailed tree brush from an image and used it to improve the composition by framing off the right hand side, therefore drawing your eye more towards the focal point of the image. Additionally, I darkened the rocks in the bottom right of the image since they stood out far too much, again improving composition by doing so.

Character Concept

Character Concept

Final Character Turnaround

My character concept was drawn entirely in Photoshop with a graphics tablet. I feel it was important for me to not use image textures since I used them as a base for my environment, and decided to test my ability to draw from scratch. I am especially proud of the fur armour pieces and the way the fabric appears to be creased in places. Additionally I decided to leave my colour palette in the final character sheet to help illustrate the colour themes in the clothing.

Character Concepts

I began by sketching thumbnail images of several different designs for my character. The main things I was experimenting with  was cloaks, hoods, and different types of armour. I was also keeping in mind ways to break the symmetry of my designs, such as having different sized arm guards in design 1, or different shaped shoulder pads in design 3 and 6. I decided to take design 6 on to further development because I felt it was the most interesting; the fur armour pieces gave a unique look and the overall feel of the character suited the survivalist/hunter theme I was aiming for.

Colour Palette Concepts

With the design decided on, I started experimenting with different colour palettes for my character. I found that different parts of clothing would look best when sharing colours, such as the scarf piece and the waist strap. I eventually decided to use the colour palette in design 5 for my final concept, since I felt it suited the sort of environment my character would be found in as well as being visually interesting. I did like designs 1 and 2, but they looked more at home in a desert or snowy landscape respectively.

I began by drawing the figure of my character from all angles, then drew the outline of the clothing over the top. The back of my character remains blank for most of the drawing process, since it is made by duplicating the front perspective when it is done and changing the few required parts (e.g. cant see front of face, feet and hands face the other way...)

The first step to colouring my character was to block out all the colours. Not only did this give me a good base for shading, but also allowed me to use these layers as clipping masks. This means I couldn't draw outside of where the colour already is.

I then shaded the clothing, using shadows and highlights to give the impression of creases in the fabric. When doing this I made sure to consider where creases would occur in real life, such as where the leather straps dig in and where the trousers fold up as they rest on top of the boots.

At this point I drew the fur and facial details. I achieved the fur effect by using a small hard brush and painted in small strokes. Additionally I layered multiple shades on top of one another to give the impression of shadow and highlight in the fur.

I then duplicated the front, mirrored it and edited it to make the back perspective. Amongst some other details, this included redrawing the boots and hands so they faced the right direction, drawing the quiver, deleting the face and extending the hair down, adding some leather fittings on the boots and gauntlets, and distorting the pad on the torso.

To finalise the character sheet I added an appropriate background and added the text seen on the left.

  

Prop Concept

Prop Concept

Final Prop Concept

I feel my prop fits in with the theme for my work well, since it maintains the minimal design to be expected of a survivalist character, but still has some interesting features. I also decided to have my original thumbnail designs as part of the prop sheet to help further show the kinds of bow my character could possibly use. Additionally, I included some zoomed in drawings of specific details to help portray these areas more clearly.

Above are my thumbnail designs for my prop. I tried various designs in order to find something interesting that still wasn't too over the top for my character. Design 2 is a good example of something that is too extravagant, whereas designs 3 and 5 are possibly too boring. I took design 6 onto further development since I felt it found a good balance between these two extremes.

 I used the thumbnail design as a base for the final bow drawing. After neatening up its silhouette I used it as a clipping mask, meaning I couldn't draw outside of the silhouette. I painted in the shadows and highlights, then got a wood texture to overlay on top of the drawing, creating the fine grain detail going down the bow. The front view of the bow was achieved the same way aside from the fact that I made the silhouette from scratch, and the arrows were drawn entirely by hand.

Weekly Tasks

Weekly Tasks

Cloud Painting:

For this task we had to create our own brushes in Photoshop and use them to draw a cloudy sky.

Above are the brushes I created. They have to be black and white since the colour is added once they are being used as a brush. It was important to pay close attention to shadows and highlights in order to create 3D looking clouds. Additionally, the soft effect was achieved by using a chalky brush rather than one of the default round brushes.  

Perspective Lines:

Since perspective is such an important part of drawing environments, it was important to practise identifying the different types of perspective in images. Below is a one-point image and a two-point image with the horizon line drawn on, as well as some of the perspective lines.

Character Paint over:

For this task we were provided with the outline of a concept character, and had to use Photoshop to colour it in. 

Firstly I identified a colour palette to make sure the colours I was using would work together. I then began painting by filling in the block colours to give a base for the drawing.

I then used a soft brush to fill in the shadows where I felt they would be.

Next I did the highlights in the same way I did the shadows. However I also used a small hard brush to put some hard highlights in the fabric, which I felt helped give the fabric a texture.

With the shading done, I added some details such as cracks in the leather and coloured in the facial features.

Finally I added the shadow. I did this by selecting the whole character, duplicating it and colouring it in black, then using the distort tool to place the silhouette it as if it was on the ground and added a blur effect.

Paint Over Task:

For this task we had to take an image, in this case the modern building shown above, and paint over it in Photoshop using brushes or other images to create an entirely new picture.

 

I used the above image in my paint over, since I aimed to create a desert cliff-side like building.

Above is my final paint over, The building shape was taken from the original image and the background cliffs taken from the additional cliff image. I used brushes to create the cliff the building is attached to as well as to make the shadows.