Digital Visualisation

Here I will post the work for my Digital Visualisation subject.

The brief given for this subject is:

●     Sketchbook - It is essential to all artists that a tangible record of ideas, doodles and sketches is kept. You may also contribute a CD or Blog with digital sketch/doodle work you have done.

●     Style guide - Submit a PDF or PowerPoint document which clearly states the intention for the visual direction of the concept you're developing. This document should provide a gallery of much more specific images, references, guides, which have influenced your style and your concepts. Provide complete and tidy thumbnail sheets, initial sketches, mood board, colour script, variation sheets - Tell the story of how your final pieces came about.

●     Digital Piece - Submit 3 fully completed high resolution, concept images that showcase your ability with digital painting for production. The theme of the production is your own choice. 

1- Character, creature or vehicle

2 - Environment

3 - Compositional Piece - show both your elements combined in a final, dynamic and interesting piece that captures a moment in time.

In lectures and practicals, we are given tasks to complete. The rule for Digi-Vis is to always bring a sketchbook and a pencil.

Here I will post my favourite works.

First off, we were asked to draw a bio-mechanical being based upon a piece of art that was shown to us. It had to involve panneled armour/exoskeleton.

I am particularly keen on the legs of my piece as they look creepily human, but distorted beyond possibility. 

 Another task we were given (today - 4th of October) was to design a vehicle. No other information to go on. So first up I cam up with this sort of snow-speeder vehicle:

We then showed off our work by blu-tacking it up on the wall. Our lecturer then picked my friend Ryan's Air-ship and Ellen's bread-bin cannon vehicle. We were to create something based off of those two. I came up with this:

I wasn't entirely pleased with what I'd done, but certain bits, such as the 'eyes' and the bread-launchers pleased me.

Again we showed our work, and again, Ryan's was chosen, along with Ellen's, so the brief tightened a little more. We had to give our ships a large belly and a massive jaw. It also had to be an absolute behemoth of a machine.

So I came up with the following:

I am very pleased with this outcome. A true behemoth, chomping on the Eiffel Tower! With all the normal sized ships exiting it's massive maw, as well as the human fighter jet passing by, I feel I've really captured a sense of scale. I am very pleased with the 'face' of my ship, it almost looks friendly . . . in a hungry way!

So pleased with the design of the Behemoth Ship was I, that I had to continue the idea and draw the side elevation of the mighty beast. The wings and jaw have been removed to aid viewing of the side detailing. I am very tempted to use this flyer as part of the final hand in.

The Behemoth Rises!

In the meantime, I came up with a mini project to work on, intended for something else, but I thought I'd also make it a digital visualisation project.
The project is titled 'Discovering the Honey Dragon'. In it, I decided that I'd like to create a concept for a creature called a honey dragon and thus focus on character silhouettes to start. I referenced other dragons, insects and dinosaur skulls to get inspiration for this mini-project.

Blue Dragon

Brass Dragon

Green Dragon

Camarasaurus Skull

Carnotaurus Skull

Phorusrhacos Skull

Honey Bee

Praying Mantis

Comet Moth

From the research, I came up with the following 24 character silhouettes:

 From here I came up with 4 more refined designs:

And from these 4 ideas, I took forward the bottom right and came up with the following:

There were a few aspects of this that I still wasn't happy with, namely the chunky back feet, so did a bit more revising and came up with this final design, ready to be painted:

Happy with this, I went on and rendered it in Photoshop for my final image:

Of course, other than the final painting, this project had another final outcome; a journal. So here are a few photos of said journal:

The Journal

Front Cover

Intro Page

Draconic Compendium

Refined Field Studies

Back on track with the main project for the hand-in. I've decided that I would definitely like to go down the route of the behemoth vehicle. So first off, I feel that I need a bit more research so I can refine the design of the ship somewhat, before I go on to paint it digitally.

Firstly, a look at flyers from reality:

Modern Bomber

Harrier Jump-Jet

Ospray

Ospray

Ospray

Russian Sukhoi

Old Bi-Plane

As it is clear, I was very partial on the Ospray during my searching, as I feel it is the best modern plane to continue the basis of my design on.

Next was to look at fantasy air-craft for a bit more unrealistic inspiration:

Halo Pelican

Avatar Gunship

Aliens Dropship

Imperial Valkyrie

S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Airship

The next step is to refine the Behemoth, known as the Gypsy . . .


Hit by sudden inspiration, (alright someone else suggested it) I decided to use the Behemoth as my environment, whilst designing one of the smaller ships and pilot as the vehicle. So, this meant that my environment would essentially be an interior, so set about the task of designing the inside of the Behemoth.

General Sketching for Ideas

Vehicle Hold

Extendable 'Track' Tongue

Crew Quarters

Main Propellor

Main Engine

Landing Gear and Command Deck

Final Innards

Now the interior in general is sorted out, I can start sketching out ideas for the final image for the environment. My plan is to have a 3 quarter view of the ship, with the side sheared open for a look at the ship's innards.
On a side note, I decided that the Behemoth would be crewed by 100 members, including the captain, officers, engineers and pilots.

From here, I went on to sketch out ideas for my final environment, to be digitally painted in photoshop, and thus came up with a few ideas:

I was particularly keen on the idea of the behemoth under construction, so used the 2 right-hand pictures as inspiration  to come up with the following sketches:

Pleased with this, I shall go on to draw the piece out properly and then paint it up.

In the mean time, I decided I should move on to designing the pilots and refining the smaller ship's design.

First off, the pilot. I wanted the characters to look as though the behemoth was a bit of an effigy of them, and thus decided that I'd create humanoid creatures based upon angler fish and toads. I began with character silhouettes to flesh out some basic ideas and so came up with these:

From these 20 silhouettes, I chose 6 of them to work from:

And from these 6 silhouettes I drew out 2 more refined concepts of which the top is my favourite, though I would go on to utilise elements from the second in my final design.

In my mind, I already had an idea of how I'd like the pilot to sit in the cock-pit, so the top concept really suited. I loved the 'dreads' of the second one though, with their glowing bulbous ends, like an angler fish's luring stalk. So from here I concepted a design of how I envisaged the pilot would sit and silhouetted on a variety of outfit designs:

Again, as with the character silhouettes, I took forward a number of ideas, 3 in this case, to use to concept a couple of refined ideas:

So from these 3 I developed the following 2 concepts:

I much prefer the top of the 2 concepts, so will take that on for my final design, though I may utilise some aspects of the lower concept.

Pleased with my character concepts, I decided to 'hit the tablet' as it were and paint my environment piece. I succeded in painting this:

1 done, 2 to go.

With my character designed, I went on to concept the smaller ship that he was to pilot.
I began by just sketching out some basic ideas, based on the Behemoth as I reckoned the smaller ships, henceforth termed 'Little Nippers', would resemble their mother-ship.

I suddenly came across the revelation of returning to using fish as my source for the Little Nipper's design. I decided that rays and sharks would be my ideal source of inspiration. And so utilised Manta and Eagle rays, Hammerhead and Basking sharks. I also took couple of ‘wild-card’ fish to use as inspiration: the Marlin and the Lionfish.

And so, taking inspiration from the fish, I went on to sketch out ideas for the Little Nipper, before doing a more accurate technical drawing of the ship. The design was nearly there, so I knew I could move onto the final piece. I knew what had to be fixed in the final iteration.

With my Little Nipper's design more or less sorted out, I moved on to my second final painting and so sketched out the image before painting it.

It was pointed out to me that my pilot, and in particular his driving stance, recalled the character Sebulba from Star Wars Episode 1. With this in mind, I decided to pay homage to the Dug and paint my ship the same colours as his pod-racer. Fortunately for me, it was orange, so fitted in nicely with my Behemoth’s colour scheme.

2 out of 3 ain't bad.

For my third and final piece, the composition, I knew I wanted to show the Little Nipper ships flying out of the Behemoth’s mouth. I also knew that I wanted to use the school of sharks/rays as inspiration, along with flocks of bats. Thus, I did more research and went back to my other source images.

With these references, I tried out various compositions for my final piece, aiming to show  the scale of the Little Nipper ships to the Behemoth, that which I feel I didn't achieve in my environment piece.

For the final composition, I decided for a sky-battle, with the Behemoths and Little Nippers flying above the clouds, attempting to avoid anti-aircraft fire. I am rather pleased with the outcome, especially the ship diving into the clouds, blasting away with its guns.

I went on to seek out some crit to make some final adjustments. I was given the tip to alter the colour of the clouds and to make the further away objects closer to grey-scale as this would add more perspective to the piece. Thus I went on to alter it slightly:

3 out of 3, done!

Overall, I am rather pleased with how the project panned out. I feel I accomplished the goal that I set out to complete – to create a vehicle and environment I was pleased with. I am very happy with my final pieces, I feel that even in these I have progressed in my skill level. I am particularly keen on the colours in the composition – the stark orange and blue contrast made more evident by the neutral clouds. Normally I am afraid to use colour, but here I feel it has been a success. Practice may not make perfect, but it does make things look a whole lot better!

Project complete . . . but there's always more to come . . .