Semester 3 and Masters Evaluation...

I can honestly say i am pretty deflated to be typing the evaluation of my Masters in Games Design!

Not only that but my final days in education are now coming to a close and i would be lying if i where to say 'I won't miss it'. However its not all doom and gloom guys!

Ive learnt a MAHOOSIVE amount of techniques and methods during my time on the Ma and even generated theories of creature design! My drawing skills have improved on such a dramatic scale both digitally and traditionally from my time on the B.A in Games Design and the exciting part is that its only going to get better!

My approach to design is more professional, i consider flaws before the initial concept, i rough it out first and most importantly, i think.... I use my gained knowledge of Natural History and Anatomy to make design decisions for my creature designs, which is a knowledge that is only going to become stronger as my career blossoms.

Key techniques learnt include the use of Textures in my designs enhancing the look and believability of a design. Silhouetting; generating random shapes and just seeing what i can do with them! Using the Pen Tool and masking off my image to generate clean cut artwork without the aggro of using the rubber afterwards! Finally the most beneficial has to be Grey Scale, using this method to figure out the basic rendering and building the detail and colour upon that. I believe this has helped me gather a greater understanding of Colour Theory which used to be a bit of a 'grey' area for myself. I have grown more confident in Photoshop than ever before and considering i hadn't used it at all until University i am so pleased with my progress and i know its only going to improve which is an exciting concept for all of us!

Enrolling on the Masters course was easily the greatest decision of my life. Now i actually feel ready to be let loose on the world and continue providing my artwork for people to enjoy, but hopefully on a larger scale in the future... fingers crossed. I know with experience in the industry and within a studio environment my skills will flourish further as i observe the professionals and gain valuable knowledge, methods and techniques from them.

After the Ma experience i finally feel my career has direction, its been a long road to get to this point but wow, it was worth the wait.

Thank you so much for following my journey as a Masters student.

See you somewhere in the future! :)

Final Creature Update... for now...

Insect

These pesky critters are everywhere in the deep damp forests. They don't tend to both you unless provoked and i don't intend on experiencing the stinging pain from their fangs!

They can be seen feeding upon rotting carcass's of other creatures or even sucking the blood of live ones!

Quite a large fly with a wing span of 20cm and body length of 15cm.

Flying Catfish aka Water Dragon

Flying Catfish head redesign

This huge creature with a a body length of up to 10metres and a wing span almost doubling that dominates the vast intertwined rivers and lakes. This creature is unique as it can breathe above and below the surface. Like a fish it uses gills to breathe under water but like the mud skipper it can also breath above the surface. I can only do this by keeping its gills and body as moist as possible. Adapted glands cover its body like an amphibian which secretes a lubricant enabling it to exit the water.

they have been spotted around wetland bog areas, lakes and rivers and even gliding on thermals around waterfalls. This truly is a water dragon. It feeds upon fish, birds and even small mammals.

King Fisher.

 This king fisher is like no other, this creature has earned this title purely on its skills at fishing for prey. Its hawk like eyes pick up on the slightest movements beneath the waters surface but what is more clever is its ability to pick up on heat signals enabling pin point accuracy when swooping down for a kill. The long snout with piercingly long teeth easily puncture skin and bone making them sure of success.
Its flat feet are used for balance and skim the waters surface when capturing a meal, the huge wing span enables a greater lift when pushing back off the water.
Can be spotted in most wetland marsh areas.

Similar to the Water Dragon it too has adapted the ability to exit the murky depths and can be seen basking upon beach fronts during the daylight hours absorbing the heat from the sun. Its lubricating gland ensure its precious skin doesn't dry out. When too warm it simply slips back into the sea to cool down or feed upon seaweed and algae. Its two front limbs help the creature support itself when feeding off rocks or even allow it to forage amongst rocks and coral.

 This ray is difference to anything Ive seen before, it hosts a single large eye and a stinging tail. These creatures are only small at most 1metre from nose to tail tip and a body size of less than half that. It has a small mouth opening below the eye and it appears to feed on anything floating by; plankton, seaweed, small fish and even rotting creature carcass's.

Ray progression

Stressful book building times?!

The past week has been a stressful experience to say the least. I am generating an Art book of all my best bits from the MA which in theory i need to send of to Blurb for printing..... Tomorrow in any hope of receiving it in time for the deadline on the 9th Jan 2013... EEEK!

As you can imagine in usual designer fashion its crunch time... wine and late nights/early mornings it is! Its funny, no matter how prepared you feel deadlines always manage to sneak up on you! So I've been beasting out as much work as i can whilst organising it into a pretty book for you all to check out eventually :D

You may sense panic in this post... you'd be right, however don't don't fret! I CAN DO THIS!

Despite my final deadlines only being on the 9th Jan 2013 i will be doing my Semester 3 Evaluation aka MA Evaluation shortly as i also have an EPIC blog book to complete and send away for printing as well which contains every post, image, inspirational piece and photograph's from day 1!!!

WOWSERS!

Anyway here's a few things I've been doing this week besides book building :)

Wintry Tundra with creature grazing - speed painting attempt of environment.

Spiky Tree dweller!

Bird of Paradise vs Dino

Bear hug.... or not...

Front, Side and Scale, Back, Skeleton.

Completed design

Originally inspired by a Bear/Beaver cross this design underwent some design decisions turning it into a Bear/Hyena inspired design. This creature has a powerful bone destroying jaw with two prominent canines which puncture even the thickest skin and bone with ease.

They can be seen hunting in packs of up to 10 and even working seemingly together to take down larger prey. These intelligent creatures can be seen assessing situations... sitting on their hind quarters and looking out as if they are working something out? Perhaps their next move? I wouldn't advise hanging around to find out!

Their fur provides a highly camouflaged coat against the dense woodland back drop. They can be located in woodland areas and occasionally upon the plains when scouting for larger meals, this tends to happen within the colder months when most creatures are hibernating and larger prey like the Rhino/Bull seems the only obvious target...

When running on all fours this creatures can reach speeds of 10-15mph, which as part of a group is fast enough to take down larger prey. This creature is built up mainly of solid bone, strong muscle mass and dense fur standing at around a metre in height when fully grown and sat on their rear limbs.

Size comparison next to a tree and a Crimson Wasp's Hive (very similar to a bee hive)...

The design process

Once upon a Wintry Tundra...

Completed design

Ok so this creature based around a Rhino and a Bull but i liked the idea of a fluffy warm fur coat. I picture this creature gathering in mass numbers like Bison upon a wintry tundra. Cold, blowing plains where the trees these guys feed upon thrive in sub zero temperatures. Mainly grazing and sleeping they may appear to be lazy creatures or an easy target to a hungry predator... possibly a predator like the Gorilla/Lion cross i did earlier or even the Bear creature above this post... perhaps a pack of those guys could take one of these down if they worked together?

Both males and females have an impressive array of sharp horns however the males do tend to have larger ones, to compete and size up, showing off to surrounding females. Its not uncommon for duels to break out on a regular basis, some for fun, some fights to the death.

This powerful creature should be approached with caution!

Colour variation

Ice Creature...

Above; colour samples

After watching tutorials over the past few days i now know how to use the pen tool, turn into a selection, and then create a 'masked' group to create neat images without wasting days of my life rubbing out and correcting afterwards!!! THIS IS A GOOD DAY! :D

Generated a few options colour wise at the top and the bottom image i have selected a colour and now starting to work into it so far been working around the head. BUSY BUSY!

Above; final polish in process

The Leech Fish

Above: Top down, side and perspective view.

The Leech fish is given its name from how it devours unexpected prey... Similar to the Upside down Catfish this fish is basically to wrong way up to look at, but there is good reason for this...

This creature stalks its prey from below, its darker coloured top side helps it become camouflaged against the dismal watery depths below and looking up from below at this creature it has a lighter underside to help it camouflage against the shallower waters. Its patterning is an attempt to create the effects of sparkling sun kissed waters at the surface.

The Leech fish has a long slender tail which once latched on to prey initially with its piercingly sharp tooth lined jaws it begins to wrap around the prey and squeezing the 'life' out of it, making it impossible for the prey to breath eventually leading to its death. A large paddle at the tip of this tail forms a vacuum  making it near impossible to escape and insuring control of the writhing prey. Along the dark top side of the creature there are ridges lined with tiny tooth-like structures to ensure further control over prey and movement from the prey could cause abrasions to its skin.

This creature can reach sizes up to that of the length of a human arm!

More Designs...

Above: Reptilian Bird design.



Apologies for the silence guys, with the deadlines looming the pressures are beginning to mount and as a result i am trying my best to wap as much crazy, funky, weird and wonderful creatures out as i can!

Above is my take on a reptilian bird creature which dates as far back as the times of the Dinosaurs,its scaly body and beaked face eventually give way to feathers with a long plumage of tail feathers in bright colours which for the males are used to dance and display like those of our peacocks today. The males also have a distinct red throat sack which can be inflated resembling a balloon also used in the 'showing off/display' process.



Above: Rough colour variation.

I also tried a few colour ideas which lead me to consider sub species of this bird, some that have evolved feather colouration's to suit their surroundings such as ice blue, white and grey to assist camouflage in snow environments. I also like the bottom of these four colour options, the deep reds oranges and purple suit the extravagant nature of this creature.



Above: Bat/Snake inspired design

After watching various animal TV shows recently one interesting mechanic was how the skull of a snake operates. With its top and bottom jaws being split in two halves the enables the snake to open its mouth wider and literally walk down its prey using alternate parts of the jaws. i applied this mechanic to this creature design enabling it to snatch larger prey out of the sky and swallow it whole on the move. This creature primarily lives within the shelter of a dense tree cavity or crevices within caves or rock faces enabling the element of surprise when targeting prey. Its sharp clawed fingers and adapted single clawed rear limbs enable it to climb rough surfaces such as tree bark and rock faces with ease.



Above: Gorilla/Lion inspired design.

This design i believe needs a little more work as i am not 100% happy with it. This creature can run at high speeds and take down prey with a devastating bite and brute force. They hunt in packs making it hard for prey to escape unless they are much faster than this creature. They can be spotted within the tree canopy on the edge of the plains or on the plains themselves.

Bradford Animation Festival!

On Wednesday this week I was lucky enough to head out on a 'school' trip to the BAF (Bradford Animation Festival) which was one of the longest days I've ever experienced but also one of the most inspirational!

I attended a series of fascinating lectures from many big names in the industry including;

*David Bennett from Faceware Technologies. (Worked on Avatar, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Polar Express).

*Christine Phelan from Valve. (Dota 2, Team Fortress and Portal 2).

*Jaromir Plachy and Peter Stehlik from Amanita Design. (Botanicular and Machinarium).

*David Brown, Philip Gray and Bill Martin from TT Games. (Lego Franchise)

*Neil Thompson from BioWare. (Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age 2 and Command and Conquer).

All had uniquely inspiring points and opinions in particular Christine Phelan displayed some creature design sheets and concepts for Star Wars' Rancor which I found similarities between my own work including silhouettes, rough skeletal line work to final bone structures and final concept presentation; from this I can apply these further to my own presentation for my portfolio!

Also Faceware is an interesting piece of software I'd like to attempt to use for one of my creature designs if I get the chance before D-Day! It's is a software package enabling photorealistic facial motion capture, which was very impressive!

Furthermore Amanita Designs approach to games design was linked greatly with being able to interact with everything within the game world specifically discussing their new game Botanicula and even providing a comical value making their game addictive, interesting and so pleasing to the eye with its colourful 'crazily fun' environments. Amanita Designs and BioWare couldn't stress enough the importance of working outside the box, taking inspirations from everything around us not just games but nature and other art forms.

BioWare's Neil Thompson also stressed the importance of being able to draw in the games and entertainment industries, everyone can have ideas but these are useless without the ability to show, design and display those ideas to their full potential!!!

All in all it was a fantastic day and would recommend to everyone with an interest in games and animation to attend next year! I will be!

The Silent Hunter...

This eel creature is one to be feared amongst the corals by all it shares residence with. Lingering in the crevice's of the corals it has mastered the art of stealth becoming within striking distance of its prey before launching itself jaws gaping. Like a snake the left and right upper and lower jaws operate separately enabling them to open sideways as well as upward for a greater surface area furthermore they are lined with razor sharp backward tilting teeth gripping prey, making it harder to escape. Equipped with these impressive deadly jaws this creature is capable of devouring larger prey such as sharks. Its abdomen becomes enlarged after eating larger prey which can take weeks to fully digest but these larger meals suggest longer amounts of time between feeding.

Fully grown adults can reach lengths of up to 25 meters shadowing the vast majority of its locals. It prefers to hunt anytime after the sun sets as its eye sight is at is peak in the darkness, also to assist this its whole body is equipped with tiny sensory glands picking up the slightest electrical fields given off by every living thing, although these are only faint the eels glands have no problem identifying them. This helps it to manoeuvre between the smallest of gaps successfully and most importantly pin point the exact location of its prey, enabling it to become close enough to strike without raising the alarm.

A deadly silent predator.

Progression.

The 'Torpedo Fish'...

Completed design

This week i have created a 'battering ram' or Torpedo Fish, once again developed from silhouette this creature has a solid reinforced head, face and spine a streamlined muscular body and a powerful tail propelling itself forwards into its unsuspecting prey. The solid grains engraved into this solid head structure increases chances of breaking the skin of its prey causing fatal injuries. In the disturbed waters of the islands shoreline it blends, patrolling in wait for its victim, spotting it at a distance it prepares gaining speed and slams the prey unexpectedly causing confusion and sometimes paralysis. After this blow the Torpedo fish can return for a second hit or begin to feed tearing its prey with shark like teeth and bone crunching jaws.

It is not uncommon to see these creatures hunting in groups of up to 8, in which case they almost appear to play with their food before feeding, passing and charging down the prey as part of a team.

These creatures can also bee seen launching themselves from the water in an attempt to remove pilot fish clinging to their bodies or show off to others hence their name, Torpedo Fish.

Progression phase

This design took a little longer that others as i changed my intentions during the development process which i do not believe is a bad thing as a result i believe the design is stronger for it. At the beginning i pictured a small coral fish with a solid beak for breaking off and feeding upon corals. However it was decided that the head looked much more solid and appeared to belong more to that of a predator. From that point the design transformed into a streamlined solid predator.

Progression walk through and creature design...

Werewolf (Halloween special) progression.

As it was Halloween weekend i produced a Werewolf portrait (which i will be creating a body for :p) so i thought I'd show you guys basically how i did it and how my work tends to be unfolding at the moment. A few weeks ago i was introduced to silhouetting out creature shapes, grey scaling in light rendering and finally working in colour using either a 'color' or 'overlay' layer. This so far is working great for me as i am able to figure out light and dark values easier than working out which is the correct colour tone, it is opening my eyes to shapes i 'accidently' stumble upon generating randomised creature silhouette's and most importantly i have discovered this method is a lot quicker!

Good news all round! I strongly recommend using dark silhouettes when trying to discover a new creature design to develop. I also advise flipping the canvas horizontally to view the imagery from both angles helping your eye not to get lazy and spot potential rendering mistakes.

After several kills during the moon lit hours this creature finds itself feeding upon decaying flesh of its victims for days afterwards (if other scavengers haven't beaten him to it) leading to the harbouring of bacteria within the saliva which acts as a poison or venom when delivering a deadly bite to prey. Some can die from what wouldn't usually be considered as a lethal bite due to the harmful levels of bacteria... This creature relies on this to feed its hunger during the day time, replenishing its energy ready for the following nights rampage.

Wolf by day, crazed Werewolf by night... All creatures fear the Werewolf. 

Crowned Ray creature design.

Continuing with the silhouette method i; Selected, Developed and Finalised another creature design. Based around a Manta Ray and a Cat Fish with a head piece twist i named this guy the Crowned Ray... 

However this 'crown' is not just to look good and flash around at potential female mates, it is used to blend within its environment; a dense coral bed filled with a wide range of corals and sea plants, the Crowned Ray buries itself under a layer of sand between these corals and plants assisting this predators camouflage. The 'crown' fully erects and sways in the sea current and also has the ability to change colours to attract prey. The dorsal fin also sways in the currents but this has a primary purpose; to pick up on movements in the waters nearby. Filled with sensory pours the Crowned Ray can identify predator and prey movements nearby and also changes in water current. Its long tail houses a fin for extra speed and agility but also comes to a stinging point; its only defence against predators. Its 4 barbs mounted on its head and those mounted on its anal fins assist locating creatures below the surface of the sand and also help detect movements nearby. The colouration of both the males and females are similar, variations in colour patterns can be seen but these are entirely random, the blue, green and yellow hues and the black pin striping help in blend with the natural colours and shadows which occur in shallow sea waters. During the mating seasons males flush their crowns with colours of the reef to attract females.

Selected shape of interest from rough silhouettes (Bottom image).

Detailing from rough silhouette selection.

Selection, development, Finalise.

Above shows the entire process i am working to at them moment.

Rough silhouettes - 5-20minutes each max.

Silhouette detailing - 1 hour max.

Rendering, detailing and colouring - 2-4 hours max.

Working roughly to a time frame will help me speed up and produce more in less time.

MUST CONTINUE!

Have a Spooktacular Halloween!

Heres a Halloween treat for you all. A blood thirsty Werewolf with a deadly bite!

More Silhouettes!

Above: Further development from the previous silhouette blog post

After selecting one of the five previous insect silhouettes i chose one to develop a little further; adding rendering using grey scale, detailing specifically the head as i wanted that to be my focal point and finally using a separate 'color layer' to apply colour similar to an overlay however 'color' only applies colour to visibly drawn areas hiding messy bits! This was completed in a few hours at most, but further detailing could be applied if it was chosen as a final concept.

Above 2 images: More creature idea generation using the silhouette technique.

I am enjoying using the silhouette technique as it produces shapes and ideas i hadn't necessarily considered before. Some my not make it further than this but the creation of such diverse ideas is great when i need to churn out designs quickly; at the moment in preparation for my Book but in future to show ideas to potential clients. This saves time but produces more, i spent roughly an hour on each page.

In terms of these assisting my book and 'the undiscovered creatures of a forgotten island' concept, these silhouettes are great as a 'get the basic shape down' and detail later, as if i am churning these out as i see the creature, quickly documenting silhouettes before observing detailing and its habitat.

Silhouette practice and skeleton building?!

Above; Silhouette and detailing

Above; Brief colour suggestions.

The purpose of my trying out silhouette designs was for me to discover forms i hadn't necessarily considered and to produce a range of simple design ideas in a short period of time. With these i then added basic colours to show what i am thinking.
With these basic designs complete i may then choose to take one of them into further development stages.

I think this is a great method of conveying ideas for discussion.


I have also started my first display piece for in my final show. Early? yes, however it is time consuming... I've included a few sneak peeks below. Basically i am in the process of producing a skeleton of one of my designs using modelling clay and wire. When complete i intend to display it in a perspex box similar to how stuffed animals are displayed in museums.

'Speed Painting' practice...

Attempt at 'speed' painting (45min-1hr)

In my recent post i commented on how i wanted to attempt a faster method of painting, here i used the grey scale and overlay technique to achieve an image faster. I didn't care for detailing and kept zoomed out the majority of the time. A little more practise and i am sure i will learn more like; becoming quicker at painting and learn more about rendering along the way.

This is my first attempt at 'speed painting' and i believe with practise i will be using this method a lot more to convey my ideas quickly and effectively.

Female Marine Lizard (Head Shot)

Female head/neck shot.

Above is the head detailing of the female marine lizard i sketched earlier. Honestly this took way too long and i need to find a way to loosen my painting style and reduce time spent. This is my aim for my future Photoshop work as in reality, in industry time is something we don't have!

This creature has a metallic blue and turquoise detailing to the larger scales and spine plates, helping it to  camouflage in the blue depths of the ocean, that is until it becomes closer to a target which by then it would be too late. The spinal panels assist heat absorption as this creature is cold blooded.

I am now going to attempt some faster Photoshop work to see what i can achieve in short spaces of time.

More Drawings...

These are last weeks addition to my sketchbook, i will continue to work in my sketchbook however i am now taking some into Photoshop for further experimentation. I will update on my progress as and when :) ...