Traditional Studies Journal
Traditional Studies Journal
About Me As An Artist:
I am an abstract expressionist artist who works with all things chaotic and spontaneous. I don't usually enjoy planning my pieces out or creating structure, I enjoy acting straight on an idea and working through all the mistakes until I'm happy with it. I aim to push my art career further by adapting my style of work into digital media and strengthening my digital capabilities. I aim to do this with textural work, depth and use of colour alongside my spontaneous movements. Although I don't have a lot of interest in realism, I still aim to build up my realism skills and willing to try new techniques.
Colour Theory
the colour theory is structured through hues. Hues are any colour in the colour wheel. The colour wheel consists of primary colours; red, yellow and blue. Combining two of these primary colours creates secondary colours; Violet, Green and Orange. Tertiary Colours fill the gaps between the primary and secondary colours. Black and White are not hues, therefore they are not on the colour wheel. They are known as saturations as they create saturated versions of hues. The shade is created with Black, Tint is created with White and Tone is created with Grey.
The saturation of Hues on the colour wheel create Monochromatic colours, colours that do not clash with one another. Analogous Colours are groups of three colours next to each other on the colour wheel where they share a similar hue. Complimentary colours are hues that are exactly opposite to one another on the colour wheel, this creates visual contrast. Triadic Colours are three Hues that are evenly spaced out on the colour wheel, commonly blue, yellow and red. When looking at the colour wheel, we commonly associate the Red and Yellow hues as warm colours whereas the Blue and Purple hues are cold colours, this is known as Colour Warmth.
When looking at Games Art, colour theory is used with the aims of being eye-pleasing as these are the colours the players are going to be looking at throughout the experience of the game. I chose 'The Legend Of Zelda Majora's Mask' box art as my example because box art is the first thing a player sees when experiencing a game. The box art needs to sell the game through its use of colour to stand out. This box art shows colour theory well through its use of Tridiac Colours, Purple Green and Yellow. These three colours help create a harmonious green backdrop, yellow mid-ground and yellow top ground in the piece which is easy on the eyes and helps the game pop out to sell itself. The use of colours also tells the story of the game as the colours relate to different aspects of the game, for example, the green of 'Link' the main character and the purple for the 'Majora's Mask'.
Traditional Art is where Colour Theory is most important as the colours will help tell the story of the piece and be interesting for viewers to look at and pull them in. Famous artist Van Gogh constantly would change up his colour palette throughout his career. In my example, 'Wheatfield With A Reaper', shows his predominant use of yellow hue within his expedition. The use of yellow helps create a dominant use of warmth within the landscape with a cooler use of green and blue in the backdrop of mountains, water and sky. The colours used in the piece, Yellow blue and green, are Analogous Colours. These colours are important as when used can help create a strong outside look, creating sunshine, happiness and greenery in the rich landscape.
When exploring Colour Theory, I aimed to make sure I understand harmony and contrast to create a rich landscape but also making sure not to overdo it with colours so that it becomes overwhelming to look at. In my own example, I have a monochromatic selection of different shades of a red hue as the dominant colour in my piece. This helps give the piece harmony without the need for a constant clash of colours to be eye-pleasing. When applying more colours, I made sure that these colours used were Triadic Colours, Yellow and Blue. This use of Triadic Colours creates a mid-ground between the main Monocramitic Red hues, creating a contrast that also pulls the whole piece together. The primary use of Red and yellow also creates warmth in the landscape Although there are no noticeable people in my landscape, the warmth helps create an immersion of somewhere lively and liveable.
Shape and Volume
Different shapes can be created through lines. Lines are very important In art as they can be structured in an endless variety of ways: Long, thick, thin, vertical, horizontal, curved or straight. A sequence of lines will create a pattern, these patterns can be built up to create shading or texture. This is known as value. lines can also be combined to form shapes. Lines can also become directional. Directional Lines help the viewer follow a path through the piece and creates movement. All these combinations of lines, patterns, textures and shapes create line Mark-Making. Volume is created by increasing the pressure of mark-making, helping create depth in a piece. The higher the volume the darker the depth, creating shading or shadows.
In Games Art, mark-making is very important for concept work such as sketches. Linework in sketches can help create concepts and ideas without the needs for colour or extreme detail. In my example, I used Woo Kim, a concept artist, who creates very manga cartoon style sketches. The example shows a variety of different patterns of lines, such as thicker black lines to contrast thin lines in simple line work and show shading and create depth without the need for detailed shapes. When he does use shapes, he uses techniques such as cross-hatching, where two lines are perpendicular. The use of cross-hatching can create a variety of texture such as cloth and metal, which is great for concept work. By increasing the amount of volume of cross-hatching, Kim can create depth and shading for darker areas of the piece as well as using less volume to show lighting but also giving the immersion of texture.
For Traditional Art, I look at an artist known as Nicholas Vermes. Vermes' work is heavily inspired by H.R. Giger, the concept artist of the famous 'Alien' and 'Predator' sci-fi horrors. I chose this piece as my example because of Vermes' use of volume. The piece uses a pen with very strong and aggressive use of lines to create a variety of shapes, curvature of teeth, circular eyes and rectangular texture of scales. There is a high use of pressure between each shape to create a contrast of the texture of the creatures scale-like skin. I was also interested in his use of negative space, using the high use of experimental overworking of the pen for the background to create dark volume, which makes the piece very gloomy and disturbing.
When experimenting with a variety of mark-making in my sketchbook, I tried to work with a pre-dominantly cross-hatching texture. The left piece was all cross-hatch where I would use an increased amount of volume of cross-hatching to create shading around the chalice and on the hand, which helps create lighting with the contrast of low volumes of cross-hatching. The mark-making also helped create texture such as the skin and the metal of the chalice and armour. Not all mark-making go in the same direction, this helped me to create a contrast of objects so that the piece does not become flat, subtle depth and curvature is created through directional lines. The piece on the right shows examples of thickness and directions of lines to create a landscape. Although the piece is very abstract, there is still subtle attention to mark-making applied. There is a very obvious contrast of the thickness of lines in the piece, where I would use thicker lines to create depth and shading compared to thinner lines that would allow negative space to create lighting. The piece is primarily built with directional lines. There are dominant lines within the piece that are long and curvature which helps guide the viewer around the piece. The direction is also used to create texture in the landscape, such as the curvature of the bottom that creates the immersion of water ripples and waterfalls or the long cross-hatching on the top to create a grass-like texture.
Light, Value and texture
Light travels in a perceived straight line. When light is shined, the shadows that are created will always be in direct response to where the light hits, this relates to the angle it's coming from and the intensity of the source. This is known as light logic. The shape of an object will alter the shape of the shadow which is called Cast Shadow, for example, a cube will create a rectangle shadow and a sphere will make an eclipsed shadow. The characteristics of the cast shadow are dependant on the intensity of the light source. If there is a hard light cast, the shadow will create a sharp edge and soft light will create a blurry edge. If other levels or surfaces are acting on the path of the shadow, the shape of the shadow will be altered based on the surface acting upon it. The point at which the light side and dark side of an object meet are known as the Shadow line. It's important to make sure each area is clearly defined. The highlight is the lightest point of an object affected by light. This point is usually where the light is directly hitting the object, the halftones blend into the shadowed points to make the highlight appear white. The Form Shadow is the dark side of the object not facing the light. The darkest point within the Form Shadow is called the Form Shadow Core. The Reflected Light is where light is reflected onto the surface of an object. White or shiny surfaces reflect the most light whereas dark objects reflect little to no light.
Lighting in games art is a major aspect of games art. It's always important to take into consideration the law of Light in a piece of concept, for example, concepts from Earth will follow Earth's traditional laws listed above whereas otherworldly concepts could possibly have their own laws of Light and how shadows are formed or not even formed at all. For my example, I used an in-game image from my favourite game 'Destiny'. The location in-game is based around the centaur planet 7066 Nessus which orbits between Saturn and Uranus. With this logic, a lot of light on the planet is extremely bright due to the high amount of light being reflected from planets like Saturn. This is shown in the example with its hard light casting down into a dark cave creating very sharp edges around the objects and a very strong eclipse of a highlight.
My traditional art example is 'Rust Red Hills' a landscape piece produced by Georgia'O'Keefe. I enjoy O'Keefe's work for her over-exaggeration in shapes and sizes of natural life such as landscapes and flowers. She over-exaggerates them to show the finer details of nature which people will usually overlook. The exaggeration of sizes causes an exaggeration of shadow and light being cast, such as in the 'Rust Red Hills'. The background is suggesting a sunrise due to highlights that are being created upon the horizon, however, plenty of highlights and shadows are being formed on the mountainscape that contradicts this idea. A reason as to why O'Keefe did this was because she wanted to highlight the bones and fossils highlighted within the landscape she described as 'empty and untouchable'. She has used lighting to create life into something that is originally plain or flat.
When analysing how light works, I created a fruity still life with an apple and tomato with a single light source being shined from the right. For my first example, I used cross-hatch texture to produce volume and show the contrast of the highlights on the fruit and their halftones against the form shadows. When working on this piece, I noticed that there was an external light source somewhere which was causing the shadows being cast to have much darker parts to the shadows beneath the object. To show this better I began making more abstract sketches of the shadows being cast. The top right shows a sketch of a top view of the shadows, with the red lines representing the fruit. The cross-hatch has been used here to represent the external light source being created. The bottom sketch shows a similar effect but with negative space being used to represent highlights and volume of patterns to represent the intensity of the Form Shadow and Shadow Cast.
Composition
Composition does not mean the most photorealistic thing it can be, it is simply the structure of an image that invites the viewer in and shows what the artist is trying to portray. Lines in the art can be viewed as the point at which different colours and shapes meet. These lines create directional lines which act as a path the artist is wanting the viewer's eyes to follow, usually brought to a focal point. Colour is a powerful use of the composition as an artist can convey different moods and emotions they want the viewer to feel based on the different colours they use, for example, blue to represent sadness or red to convey anger or blood. Texture in a piece helps the viewer to understand how the artwork feels both physically and optically. The human eye will always be immediately drawn to light, which relates to the value of lighting, this can be used to structure a focal point where the artist wants the audience to focus their eyes first and be pulled into. The form is a three-dimensional illusion, as opposed to two-dimensional shapes. The form is created by the illusion of something with 3D dimensions on a 2D surface, commonly found in realism and refinement. Space is the area within, outside or above an object. Space in composition usually relates to negative and positive space, where positive is the subject and negative is acting around the object.
The composition can be structured in many ways, for example, The Rule Of Thirds. Rule of Thirds is very popular in art as it shows the division of artwork into 9 divided sections, which helps to highlight where important elements and subjects should sit within the artwork. Golden Ratio is another very common structure technique, it consists of a spiral that helps locate aesthetically pleasing areas of a piece as well as the direction of lines an artist wants the viewer to follow to a focal point.
(Art Station 2017) (Musart 2017)
In my examples, I used Glen Southern who is a Digital Sculptor in the Games industry. His example perfectly shows the structure of a piece of concept art by using the rule of thirds to identify the study of value and find areas of interest. The Golden Ration was then used to show the directional line he wants the audience to follow in the piece and highlights the areas in colour. With this composition, the story is created with the dangerous beast being highlighted and the spiral stairs taking the audience down to the frog-like family that are hiding from the beast.
one best example of a composition in Traditional art is Piet Mondrian. Mondrian is very important for the Abstract Movement of art. A lot of his work is based around the structure of the Golden Ratio by Volume or the Golden Rectangle (an indefinite amount of squares). One very important tactic Mondrian uses in the composition of his work is the idea of the Rule Of Odds. Mondrian would usually colour his squares in odds, for example, the above piece has the colours red, blue and yellow used three times. Mondrian would do this because people will naturally try and pair the things they see. If there is an odd number used the eyes cannot pair everything and will naturally begin to look around the whole piece to make sense of what they are looking at.
Composition In My Own Work
Golden Ratio
Negative Space
Rule Of Thirds
Meeting At A Focal Point
Directional Lines
Perspective
Perspective in art is the method of scaling, where an object will diminish the further away it becomes from the viewer. This means that an object will appear smaller than those nearer. The horizontal line that separates the sky from the ground is known as the vanishing point. A form of perspective is known as a one-point perspective which is when all elements are formed and structured from a single point on the horizon line, similar to looking down a straight road. A very popular example of a one-point perspective is 'The Scream' by Edvard Munch, known for its perspective pulling you from the corner of the horizontal line towards 'The Scream' and the directional lines along the bridge. Pulling the audience from the couple towards 'The Scream' presents human emotion along a scale to build anxiety and dread. This example also shows that a one-point perspective can be built from any point along the horizon line and doesn't have to be in the middle of the piece.
(Munch, 1893)
Two-point perspective builds the composition from two points on the vanishing point, usually these two points being on opposite sides of the line, creating two vanishing points. This form of perspective is commonly used in architecture for building exteriors from a corner. A great example of a two-point perspective is Nighthawks by Edward Hopper, where two vanishing points align to create the compositional structure of the building and acts as the frame to where the audience will be drawn to. Usually, in a two-point perspective, a vanishing point can drift off of the canvas and can't actually be visibly seen and has to be imagined to understand the compositional structure.
(Hopper, 1942)
Three-point perspective (or Multi-point) is when a composition is built upon more than two vanishing points. This is common in architectural sketches for creating a birds-eye perspective viewing from the top. The most common structure of the three-point perspective is two vanishing points on the corner of the horizon line and one vanishing point below the line. This use of perspective is most common within the gaming industry for the structure of landscapes. In my example, I used a piece of concept art from the Batman franchise by Matt Allsopp. In this example, a three-point perspective has been used to identify a top 3D view of one of the buildings within the landscape. Similar to the two-point perspective the vanishing line will usually exist outside of the image, known as the Nadir.
Colour can also be used to create using colour and value which is known as Atmospheric perspective. This structure is created by having structures and forms closest to you being the most colourful and high in detail but as the draw distance increases, the environment will become duller in colour and lose detail and usually take on a blue hue.
For our practical this week, we took on the challenge of creating our own perspective piece. In my example, I used a one-point perspective, creating quadrangles above, below and intersecting my horizon line and creating several directional lines out from my one vanishing point.
More Perspective analysis I made on canvas using watercolour and ink.
'Optimism'
'Boats' - Pastel on board and scrap paper.
Skeletal Anatomy
Anatomy is the key to the fundamentals of any character base design. Skeletal anatomy is the most important form of the anatomy as it acts as the foundation to the body, from the skeleton, 3D motion and force can be created from forming muscle, tissue, joint and ligament anatomy upon it. One of the biggest challenges in creating anatomy is finding reference and keeping it anatomically correct. For the average human, the body is 7.5 head in length tall and around 2 heads wide. The ribcage of a human is about 1 3/4 heads tall and 1 1/4 heads in length on average with the pelvis being ahead tall and the lower limbs being 2 heads tall. Skeleton bones are designed to create the motion of the body in certain directions. The spine has the most unique structure, allowing bones to slide over and creating curvature motion in the torso. The spine is very long, the Cervical spine is at the top and acts as a support for the head, the Dorsal is the longest part of the spine and supports the ribs/torso and the Lumbar spine connects the spine to the pelvis. The dorsal spine also connects to the arms of a body and usually has an ovoid shape. The shoulders are supported by the clavicles and scapular that allow motion of rotation and extension of the arms. The upper arm bone is the humerus that is connected to the elbow to create motion in the forearm, built of the Radius and Ulna. These articulating bones help create flexion and extension in the elbow joint. The leg acts as a similar joint to the arm but in opposite motion, here the articulating bones are the femur in the thigh connected to the fibula and tibia in the calf below the knee.
When looking for examples of skeletal forms within video games, I was reminded of a secret Easter Egg within Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 zombies mode that contained combatting skeletons that would attack the playing in-game. Despite their cartoony appearance due to smooth texture, low detail and bright glowing eyes, these skeletons have an accurate human bone structure that moves and articulates accurately in-game to real-life human movement. However, not all art forms will have proportionally accurate skeletal forms. The right image shows Inner Beauty by Perez Banus, an abstract illustrationist who takes skeletal forms and simplifies as well as hyper exaggerates proportions such as sharp pointy teeth to portray emotions such as dread or pain. Banus will usually use materials such as acrylic and ink which can be used to allowing running and sharp aggressive shapes in colours like black on white with occasional use of red. Skeletal forms are great to portray human emotion due to their nature of being the fundamental structure of humans upon which we are built.
Our practical task for this week was to create imaginary skeletal anatomy for the video game character MegaMan. This was a fun challenge as we had to consider the correct proportion, for example, applying head heights for anatomy and blowing up/scaling down the skeletal proportions of areas such as the legs and torso. Although all skeletal bones are present in my drawing I was not happy with the overall outcome. I made my skeletal form by using a skeletal reference and scaling the bones accordingly, but this created the challenge of making all these bones connect properly. Also, the hands of my image are too large.
The most popular skeletal form is the skull, as it is the area that most emotion and thought can be pulled from in the art industry. In some cultures, the skull is used in the depiction of death, being the symbol of mortality and what every living thing is built upon and inevitably ends with. However, this depiction is not always gloomy, in cultures such as Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the dead) skulls are portrayed as a celebration of death and remembering those who have been lost.
My own skull form study in Sketchbook
Ink Collection
Byro and Chalk
Muscles and Body Mass
Building upon skeletal forms you can begin to understand the structure of the muscle anatomy. Drawing muscles may come across as challenging due to their complicated shapes and ligaments, however, above skin tissue, only certain details will come through with the exceptions of bodybuilders or superhero comic characters that have these intense muscle group decals. A lot of muscle will be hidden by our skin or fatty tissue, this sags slightly over our muscle groups and hides the sharpness and minor their detail. The thickness of fatty tissue will correlate to muscle appearance. Females have a thicker layer of skin than males, where thicker skin will create a softer muscle depiction. Even if someone was to have an average muscle mass, thinner fatty tissue will create a chiselled appearance, highlighting and sharpening muscle appearance. Muscles act as the agonist and antagonists levers that push and pull articulating bones and create the movement of the body. When a muscle causes flection and contracts, these muscle groups will bulge and become hard, highlighting through the skin. This acts vice versa to muscle groups that are relaxed and inactive. It's important to consider the factor that when one muscle acts and contracts, the antagonistic muscle pair will relax. This is because drawing movement can look incorrect when muscles are not depicted with their correct contractions and relaxations. For example, when the arm wants to flex for a weight curl the biceps will be bulging as it is the agonistic muscle that contracts, whereas the tricep will be relaxed and flatter as it is the antagonistic muscle.
The arms muscles are an area where most artists will go wrong for character design in areas such as shape as well as length. For the arm, the outer shape from the shoulder will usually begin to bulge out, slightly dip before bulging and flattening into the elbow. From the elbow bulge, the arm will dip then bulge before flattening out towards the wrist. For the torso, the muscles begin in the neck, these being the Sterno-mastoid from the front and trapezius that stretch on the back towards the shoulders. These muscles help create the motion of the neck with restrictions. For the shoulders, the muscle groups that help create adduction and abduction movement are the deltoids (usually acting against the trapezius). The arms have a similar range of movement to the legs.
For the front of the torso, the most common muscles that bulge through the fatty tissue are the pectorals and abdominals. For the motion of the stomach, the abdominals will group with the latissimus dorsi muscles on the back. For the flexion-extension movements of the legs, the active muscle groups will be the quadriceps on the front thigh with the hamstrings on the back. Towards the shins, there is very little muscle, which is why the area is very hard and thin but also very delicate and weak.
Besides muscles, the body also contains mass. This mass is represented by body fat which is stored by the human body in certain areas dependant on gender. For men, fat is stored in the belly whereas women will store this fat in the underarms, thighs and glutes. When a body increases in weight, this fat reserve will begin to grow which in extreme cases can also cause the skin to stretch and bulge out. One area of the body most commonly misdrawn and in some cases, over-sexualised are the female breasts. Breasts are glands with hard mass surrounded by soft fatty tissue which produces weight that is acted upon gravity. As is had fatty tissue, it can increase or decrease in proportion to body mass. Breasts also bulge below and sag over the skin and do not bulge on the front of the torso. The breast will curve inwards as the nipple will point forward and slightly out. A natural distance for breasts will be between 1 to 3cm.
Sketchbook work experimenting with the human form
Ink Collection - Quick sketches from life
Digital Sketch
Rembrandt Lighting
This week we studied lighting techniques when it comes to considering shading or lighting for our characters. One very standard form of lighting technique is Rembrandt Lighting, where the source at an angle has a light source shined upon one side of the front of the face with the reflector angled to illuminate the far side of the face. The important indicator of this lighting is the triangle or diamond light shape created underneath the eye. One side of the face is well lit and bright whereas the other side is consisting of both shadows and light.
Examples of this lighting can be seen in Rembrandt Van Rijn's own work. In this Self-Portrait, Van Rijn has created realistic lighting in his own painting by considering how shadows react on the human face, also painting the triangle light on his left cheek under the eye and no bigger than his nose or eye.
(Van Rijn, 1660)
Our task for the week was to create our own self-portrait in our sketchbook using this lighting technique. For my example, I used a set of greyscale pastels so that I could easily highlight the lighting and shading. Although the proportions are not correct in areas such as the eyes which are too big, the lighting on the face is depicted correctly. I was able to create very good shading and lighting around areas such as the chin and lips and around the edges of the nose, as well as keeping the far side dimmer and more shadowed in colour but also still achieving the triangle lighting beneath the eye.
Sketchbook Self-Portrait using Rembrandt Lighting - Greyscale Pastels
Traditional Studies - Character Development
Why Do We Use Silhouettes?
In development, a silhouette is a black outline of a character with little to no detail to show the shape or size of a character, weapon or landscape. Silhouettes are effective at creating very unique characters as an effective character is one that can easily be identified by their simple outline. Some artists can also use silhouettes as a way of getting ideas down very quickly with little detail. This is effective because it allows the artist to get a big variety of characters without the fatigue of needing to add detail which can cause problems like fatigue or loss of ideas.
Silhouette work from Sketchbook
Taking Silhouettes further - Thumbnails and Sketches
After developing several silhouettes, it is time to push these outlines further into sketches. Sketches will hold a greater amount of detail, giving a greater picture of how the character will look but are still simplified with not too much detail. Less detail will mean a greater quantity of sketches to choose from. Looking at my silhouettes, not a lot of human form is used as a lot of them are deformed and obscure in their shapes. Using a more alien form will mean I can have fun with their proportions and scale.
In my character sketches, I wanted to highlight and shade muscles groups to show understanding of how my characters are structured and built to make it a lot easier to take forward. For very quick detail I used watercolour because watercolour does not bleed into byro and creates a quick and easy colour layer beneath. Subtle shading and lighting were created using a pencil over the top and cross-hatching with a fine liner.
Taking forward peer feedback, I found an even split across the board. I took this as all my designs being unique, fun and themed, letting me have my own personal pick for the one I will take forward in the task. For this, I decided to take forward number 3 as the purple hue colour scheme stood out to me and I really enjoyed his facial design as it stood out a lot to me.
Facial Studies and Emotion
For this week we studied the facial structure and creating emotion. Facial proportion can be a challenge, especially when sketching faces that are at an angle and not head-on. A technique taught to use here was the T technique. This ideology is where a T is created on the face with the top aligning with the tips of the ears to resemble the top of the eyes and the length of the T creates the thickness of the nose, location of the mouth and chin. This shape can be exaggerated to create a variety of facial shapes. This technique can easily be applied to faces at angles and in different directions. Although I may not take this technique forward, it does help me in considerations of proportions such as the placement and size of the eyes in considerations of the ears and nose shape and proportion. Another study we went over was hair and the importance of making sure the hair meets at a seam/part to make the appearance more natural. We also discussed eyes, and how the eyelids overlap the eyes in creating natural eyes in a variety of shapes and directional viewing.
Examples of my Facial Studies - Sketchbook
Lighting and Shading
When we finished facial studies, we then went over Lighting and Shading studies. We must learn this after as we need to understand the facial structure before we apply any lighting to make sure it appears natural and realistic. Lighting is created from a light source, which can come from any direction and will directly affect the shadows. One very standard form of lighting technique is Rembrandt Lighting, where the source at an angle has a light source shined upon one side of the front of the face with the reflector angled to illuminate the far side of the face. The important indicator of this lighting is the triangle or diamond light shape created underneath the eye. One side of the face is well lit and bright whereas the other side is consisting of both shadows and light. Sometimes a light source can be head-on producing entire lighting and very little to no shadows, usually having a flat appearance. Shadows are important because they are the driving factor of creating depth on an object, whereas lighting will usually pull the image forward.
Facial studies with a variety of lighting and shading applied over.
Taking this further, we had to then apply lighting to the character of our choice. To start, we had to consider proportions, so we used the grid method of the skull to get an anatomically correct head, however, my character is inhuman which made getting the grid method work very hard. After shading in three tones of colour, I decided I wasn't very happy with my final outcome and in my own time, I planned to do more lighting work in my sketchbook. The right image shows a fine liner cross hatch to show shading and proportion of my characters face, using darker and sharper cross-hatching for darker areas around the eyes, nose and mouth.
'Where's Your Head At?' - Digital drawing (Multi-media)
To have some fun with my character, I decided to use his design for reference for an abstract piece I planned. For this piece, I used a range of multi-media, both digital and my own original work that also has colour used for subtle shading and lighting. The plan for this piece was to be spontaneous and experiment with a variety of filters, brushes and features on photoshop as a way of familiarising myself with how everything works.
Orthographic (Turnaround)
Our final task was to now produce a turnaround of our chosen character. Here, we are to consider proportions and scaling. To start the task, I began sketching proportion lines across my sketchbook, to show consideration of how I want my character to proportionally work, my character is designed as being very small with an over-exaggerated head shape and small body.
I began with working over the pencil lines to allow error in working in proportions and detail of the body. One challenge was considering how my character's back would look as I had not worked on this area a lot and there wasn't much going on. My original sketch also had a cloak covering the entire torso and leg area so I had to research how I wanted my character to be designed in clothing terms.
From research, I decided to go for a Vision from Marvel or M Bison from Street Fighter design, being really minimal in detail for the design of the torso and legs. In my sketch I began to consider shading and muscle groups, highlighting areas like the pecs and abs on the torso.
References Used for Character Design - Vision (Pinterest, 2021) and M.Bison (Pinterest, 2021)
After the design was sketched I worked over the design in Byro pen to then remove my pencil outline. This is because I planned to use watercolour for my character and didn't want the pencil to blend and darken the colour.
When using watercolour, I would add darker and lighter tones into my colours I had made to begin adding lighting and shading over my character. I used this in areas on the face, torso, arms and legs to consider muscle anatomy and skeletal forms. I decided on the name 'Disturbia' due to his disturbing nature of his eyes being spiralled and sunken, similar to a void or black hole, as well as, his design being really small, unnatural and skinny.
To finalise my turnaround render, I went back over my character with fine liner and byro, producing light and dark crosshatching tones for greater shading and lighting on the body. This is more prevalent in areas like the face and torso.
If I was to improve my design, I would have liked to make the back turnaround more interesting, maybe by applying more designs and patterns to the cloak to make it more interesting. I also should have given the whole design the same amount of lighting and detail attention as the face got as this area really stands out to the rest of the design, where all the detail has been applied here and the rest of the body comes off as very flat and lacking in detail. What I'm most happy with with my design were the proportions I achieved, as well as, the shading that helped bring forward muscle groups on the body as well as the Shading on the face. I'm also very happy with the colour scheme of my character, where no colour stands out drastically and all play harmoniously together.
Profile Card
A turnaround for a character gives complete detail of all aspects. This information gives the ability to produce dynamic poses and positions for the character. Our task was the create a profile, this gives us the capability to show off our character and how they work or what they do. As the proportions of my character are small with an exaggerated head shape I used Mario poses as my reference.
(Tysonhesse (2021)
Once I found the pose I wanted I used the same process as the turnaround to build up my character. I started with a simple pencil outline and began to work the clean line art over in byro.
I used watercolours as they're what I'm most comfortable with when producing colour, shading and lighting as well as being easy to work back into with other materials such as pen or pencil.
The sketch was rendered with fine liner to highlight shading and texture.
To finalise the card art, I took my drawing into Photoshop and rendered out a card art design to show off my character's profile. I based my design on a Dungeon and Dragons style by giving him a text-based ability and roll score as well as changing his name from Disturbia to Confusius The Mage. I enjoy using traditional in a digital format like my Profile Card as it reminds me of the old limited edition Pokemon cards that come in a range of media such as clay models which is something I would like to try in the future. If I was to improve my character I would do my final sketch (Profile) of my character in digital media such as Photoshop as traditional is very easy to produce errors and mistakes which happened in the left eye when I tried to produce shading with Fine liner. Using Photoshop would mean I wouldn't fall into mistakes that were irreversible, as well as allowing me to experiment more on the character. However, I am still happy with the highlights and shading I achieved on the profile as it gives the character depth as well as a higher level of detail. I do however need to experiment more with expressions to give my characters more emotion and character in the future.
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