Semester 2 Evaluation

This Semester has seen me grow as a Creature Designer. I have learnt to consider facts and science to support my design process to ensure believability. I have always aspired to achieve new levels of believability both as a designer and an artist and i feel this Semester has played a vital role in helping me achieve that.

My traditional art skills using pen, pencil and paper has have improved further using light and dark pencil on brown paper enabling me to create rendering techniques, this i also carried through into my digital art, using new grey scale and texturing techniques which enabled me to achieve new levels of realism i hadn't discovered before. I believe the use of textures i made myself using Maya software dramatically changed the look of my final concepts as well as saving me time i would have spent individually painting each hair as i have been known to do in the past. As a result of the discovery of these techniques i am very happy and comfortable using them within my future artworks.

I have also learnt to identify flaws in other creature designs and how i would personally alter that design to achieve a greater realism with consideration to natural history. I realise how important it is to look to creatures in existence in the world today for inspirations as it is surprising what can be achieved in a creature design when combining and using aspects of nature.

I feel this Semester has taught me so much and i have improved greatly as a Creature Designer from this Semester alone, and my discoveries and achievements will continue to flourish in my future works which i believe is a very exciting concept!

So as this exciting Semester 2 draws to a close, below is a list of potential plans and ideas for the 3rd and final Semester starting in September 2012, but between now and then i will be updating this blog with any thoughts, inspirations and works i arrive at over the summer... 'break'.

• To produce a Creature filled book, either in the style of a Field guide and discovery of a new found island, or in the style of a 'Art of' book.
• To experiment with a new found technique i read about in Junes issue of ImagineFX, where artist James Gurney uses Maquettes (Wire frame and Sculpey models) to help understand rendering techniques. (see below images).
• To come up with an effective method of displaying my Natural History knowledge in my show, possibly using either; a life sized model of a creature design using Wire Frame and Sculpey and/or a technique of showing off skeletal, musculature and skin with inspirations from both Terryl Whitlatch and ROA (see INSPIRATION section of this Blog).
• Possible use of Maya to model one of my creatures (or ask a 'Maya whizz' to do this for me) and i will texture and attempt to animate... This is a huge challenge for myself but one i have always aspired to do for as long as i care to remember!

So... busy times ahead to say the least! Summer? What Summer? I'll be doing what i do best... 

Designing Creatures! ;)

Above: Two of Six pages from the ImagineFX June 2012 Magazine (see all in Inspiration Section of this blog).

Above: Rough idea for 'Art of' Style book. Left shows brief progression, Right shows Final Design.

Final Analysis & Theory of Creature Design

During the course of Semester 2 i have worked specifically to create believable creatures. I believe throughout my workings i have discovered a successful Method of Believable Creature Design.
Below are the steps i have arrived at during my creature design processes which i believe have helped me design successful believable creatures.

1. Initial Idea/Inspiration - this can be in the form of visual inspirations and/or experiences and/or a spark of creativity in the mind.
2. Looking at nature and using the 'Cut&Paste' method to create a potential creature starting point.
3. Selecting an initial 'Cut&Paste' design.
4. Using facts from Natural History appropriate to the design - decide which factors of the design are achievable based on Scientific proof and alter accordingly those which couldn't physically work.
5. Facts and Design Decisions create and shape the creatures final design.
6. Decide which techniques best to use in Photoshop to compliment the creature designs believability.
7. Consider the Final Concept in a snap shot of its environment and include environmental shadowing and lighting effects to tie the concept together.
8. Design Complete.

This method has purely come about as a result of my own personal experimentation's and design process. I believe it is a logical place to start by looking to existing natural life today, whether that be animals or plants. I will continue to use and perfect this newly discovered method until i discover new ways of achieving believability within my field.

Completed C02 - Experimenting with Grey Scale

Above: Final experimental piece.

For this creature design i went about the same design process as before, initially combining existing creatures and eventually altering the design to represent fact. This flying lizard has the rotating eyes like a chameleon enabling it to spot predators more effectively and identify prey with ease. Hyoid bone in the throat can be erected to display the spiny bones and skin to both attract a mate and make them look less desirable as a meal to a predator. It has a streamlined light weight body for gliding on the wind and flying. The spines on its back protrude out of the body making it look further less desirable as a meal and helps it look more like a thorny foliage. It has an independent finger on each arm which as evolved to support the wing and is hinged so it can be folded back against the body, and most importantly it has a helmet like structure upon its head which like the veiled chameleon can pick up on infra sound, this enables it to detect movements of heavy footed approaching predators and analysis weather more specifically wind conditions for it to glide upon.

The main purpose of this exercise was to use a new techniques of grey scaling the piece initially to add depth then adding colour and detailing later, which i found to be a useful method of working as it didn't seem to take as long as it would getting straight in with the colours. I also used my existing knowledge of applying textures to further enhance this concepts believability. The full working process is available to view in the CREATURE DEVELOPMENT section of this blog.

I also tried to incorporate this creature in part of a scene as apposed to my previous creature which had a small snap shot. I think these scenes are best for setting the mood and type of environment the creature lives in but for the actual creature design and showing it off as a design i prefer the smaller snap shot. I intent to attempt a looser approach to 'Scene Concepts' as a quick way of displaying my ideas, but keeping the perfectionist style in the 'Snap Shot Concepts'.