Current Inspirations
- Ross Tran
- Has high-energy speedpaint commentaries on YouTube
- Uses inspiring/interesting photos on layers like Overlay, Multiply, and Soft Light, using Colour Balance and the Warp Tool to change them into more textured images that add something to the piece without being overbearing
- Has a loose, painterly style with emphasis on composition
- R.J. Palmer
- Known as "the artist who painted those realistic Pokemon"
- Has speedpaints on YouTube - one of the processes I noticed is the Colour Dodge/Lighten layer used to add skin/fur texture with cyan/magenta/bright colours
- Sometimes streams his process - bounce light was the focus in the part I watched. Animals and realistic anatomy form the backbone of his illustrations
- Daren Horley
- Worked on "47 Ronin" as a concept artist/creature designer
- Uses parchment/stained paper textures beneath sketches
Current Processes Used
- previous sketches on low opacity beneath/near newest sketch
- previous sketch used as a basic guide for the next one
- grunge paper/parchment background (Daren Horley)
- dark red brush for sketches (Feng Zhu) - use darker red for neater lineart over the top
- reference images on page (Feng Zhu) - more tendency for them to run along the top of the page than the side
- texture brushes (Aaron Blaise, Aaron Griffin, Charlie Bowater)
- texture brushes used on Colour Dodge/Multiply layers (RJ Palmer)
Catch-Up
To begin this project, I thought of the basic world and environment, and what might live there, as a prelude to my actual work. Essentially it consisted of a forest with lakes/oceans on raised plateaus, and a savannah with a nomadic civilisation. Technological advancement would be at the same level as our world, as I didn't want to fall into the trap of alien worlds being hugely futuristic and fantasy worlds being caught in an obscure medieval era.I added the creatures I thought of (each built of up to five animals) to an excel worksheet to organise them, and began drawing a couple. I also tried to draw the creatures that built up said animal, but it was a very lacking task and I quickly gave it up:
First Excel worksheet and a failed diplocaulus/fu dog creature.
Instead, I began drawing environments using the thumbnail technique again (though I intend to research into other environment processes, if only a little). The world evolved into more colour and vibrance, with multiple standing rock platforms and lake plateaus. Essentially, the world is full of lakes, rivers and oceans, and this altered my perception of the creatures I had stipulated. Thus, I dropped the previous creatures and instead made a list of the animals that I was interested in combining:
Thumbnail environment. Hazy landscapes broken by trees, rock formations, and lakes.
Current worksheet (as of 16/03/16). Each creature is colour-coded into the end column, meaning it is used in that creature (names are typically made of an amalgamation of the inspirations).
By having a more open-ended view of what could build each animal, I found it a lot easier to design things. Whenever there was a hard decision to be made, or too much choice, I kept a main thought in mind for each creature, and let it lead decisions. For example, my first creature combined a shark with a Fu Dog - it was becoming more and more vicious looking until I decided it should subvert expectations and be incredibly friendly. This made the design more bouncy and dopey looking, with a wide smiley mouth, even though it still appeared stocky and intimidating.
The idea of subverting expectations actually fed into the following designs, too. My horse creature is predatory (and actually began looking like a t-rex towards the end). Another creature, my otter/seal, lives on the beach and plays with everything it finds without a care (actually inspired by watching my staffie play on the beach). It would also be very family-oriented and protective.
No comments:
Post a Comment