Life Drawing

Games Encounters: The game is finished.

And not a moment too soon either.

I have to say, I'm really proud with how this has come together. I love the war torn sky look we got with the final look of the game, it controls nicely and it feels very atmospheric. It's a shame we couldn't get the final model of the airship to work in the game without breaking our entire game, but that's just something we have to deal with I suppose. I think we've learnt a lot for next time but as a group, we worked really well, we shared the load and used everyone's skills to our advantage. I handled a lot of the coding and artwork, whilst also playing a large role in the level design and final aesthetic, and it's a proud moment to see it working in all it's glory.

Visual Arts and Animation: Maya Assessment Progress.3 - Final Render

I unwrapped the mesh, which I found fairly straightforward once I had wrapped my head around the best places to insert the seams and cuts. The process is pretty streamlined and much easier than I remembered, guess that means I'm learning! With the mesh unwrapped and the UVs laid out correctly, I could start texturing it.

I went about creating the texture in Photoshop, using the reference image to plan out where everything should be, and match the colours accurately. It was a lot of trial and error getting the belt to line up on the front and back, and getting the shoes and eyes to look right. I am really happy with how this turned out, it feels nice to have accomplished something that I never would have been able to do at the beginning of the course.

Visual Arts and Animation: Maya Assessment Progress.2

With the character modelled and subdivided to add more detail and shape to the figure, it is ready to be unwrapped and textured. I am really pleased with how the mesh looks, I think the edge flow is very effective in describing the form of the character, and I have used the smooth tool where necessary. I decided not to smooth the shoes, as I like the sharper definition they have compared to the more organic shape of the clothes and body. I think I will attempt to texture it in Photoshop rather than Mudbox; whilst I do enjoy Mudbox for sculpting and painting, I think for something like this with a very specific reference, it would be more appropriate to use Photoshop to accurately match colour, and directly pick logos from the reference.

Visual Arts and Animation: Maya Assessment Progress

Some work in progress shots of the assessment piece. I'm very happy with how it is looking at the minute, the topology and tessellation are looking very tidy and flowing across the body nicely. Maintaining a neat mesh will be more challenging when I approach the arms and head, but I'm looking forward to where this goes. I think the most challenging thing about this sort of modelling is working with the two views, as I found with my first attempt that the body comes out somewhat blocky and square shaped, so I made a conscious effort in this second attempt to get the body and limbs round.

Sortie Menu Final

Our final menu design for the game's splash screen. I used the character design that I created in Photoshop to make the splash screen, and I think the general aesthetic is very nice and suits the style of the game.

Visual Arts and Animation: Paintovers

Today we learnt a new method of texturing in Photoshop which allows us to apply textures to an existing image to increase the level of detail. We applied a metal texture to a really low poly model of a turret, and it instantly increased the amount of detail and created the impression of depth and texture. I really enjoyed using this method, as it opened up a new way of quickly creating digital paintings and improving the level of detail in my paintings. Before this, I would have laboured over painting every single stroke in a piece to painstakingly create the impression of detail, but this will allow me to churn out a lot more quick but detailed concepts to convey my ideas more effectively.

Visual Arts and Animation: Anthropomorphic Frog

This task was arguably my favourite task to date, not only because it feels like the culmination of my work so far, but because this is my favourite character design yet. I began by looking a lot at frogs, but for the sort of character I had in mind (a grotesque crime boss), I started looking at toads and landed on the general aesthetic I wanted. I used my mood board of frogs and toads to inform the design of the character, and began sketching out my character, paying very close attention to the shape of the toad heads. This task saw me return to doing my work entirely in Photoshop, rather than using physical line art in my sketchbook. I think that this caused me to land on the very sketchy, somewhat rough style I got for this piece. Once I had settled on a design I liked, I began working on the final image, using a more intimidating pose and composition. For the colour palette, I went for a very muted colour scheme, to reflect the the grimy noir style character I had created. I am really pleased with how this character turned out, to the point where I am considering doing a lot more anthropomorphic creatures set in this same style and world. Harold Stubbs 'The Boss' is the figurehead of the crime empire. His grotesque appearance betrays his sharp mind and unmatchable level of intelligence. With hundreds of loyal minions across the city in every district enforcing his strict law, he rules the criminal underworld with an iron, webbed thumb. But one has to question who pulls the strings of Stubbs, after all, there are a lot more menacing creatures higher than toads on the food chain, is there an even greater crime mastermind ruling this city from the shadows?