First concepts

Before we went on Christmas holidays I knew I needed to hurry up and start working as soon as possible to avoid making the same time managing mistakes as the last project so I came straight to the idea of wanting to make the last scene with a bit of a spice. With this I mean that the alien I have in mind has to be a sexy or very feminine type.
The idea is that when the photographer get abducted he'll find himself I front of a non human yet good looking space form of living. The inside of the spaceship will be quite dark but what he can see he finds attracting. As soon as he tries to make contact he'll notice that it wasn't what he expected.

There are loads of examples I could find in games of feminine monster/boss that fit the sort of description that I want to my character.
For it to be attracting it has to share some similarity to human features and specially the ones men are attracted to.
With this in mind I came up with the idea of a space mermaid; a creature that lures man with its beauty but has not good intentions.
This is tan inspirational moodboard of examples that I found in games I've played.

Also, over the Christmas holidays I went to the beach got really inspired by all the sea life. Coral reefs, lion fish, manta rays and many other textures gave the idea of some possible looks for my space mermaid.
This is the moodboard of some inspiration for colour, texture and shapes:

Loads of doodles gave me two tentative options for my ending:
-The first one, he only sees the part above the waist as he rest is in the shadows, then he freaks out when she comes out and she has the lower anatomy of a crap like creature.

-the second one she is like an angel until he discovers that she is the bait part of a bigger creature. At the end a massive eye behind her opens indicating that the ship itself is the the massive real creature and that she was and 'organic' weapon made to lure man.

At this point I don't know which one is better and how mad I'll go when I try to make any of them.

This is the final storyboard:

Some progress VI

Almost there!
Just wanted to add some concept art, sketches and the floor plans and elevations for the environment :)

Isolation - I

Finally talking something about the second poem we're doing, I'm glad to say that we decided to make an animation! (nothing to do with the fact that I kept insisting over and over) 


Now, it was great the fact that we decided to go for that, but being realistic... we have no time for it! so despite the fact that we probably went too ambitious with it, we decided to carry on with it but at the same time to keep it as simple as possible.
The poem itself helps:

Isolated like the emotions I have held for many years.
The cold weighs hard on my bones.
As the dark clouds begin to gather,
quiet surrounds the air.
The rural space echoes with stillness.
The picturesque image engraved in my mind.
Like a single tree embedded in a field,
The wavy grass hangs around to help ease the loneliness it feels.
The sheep wander aimlessly in this desolate sphere. 

Zenam Bi 

Getting on with this subject of loneliness we also integrated the part of simplicity. 

This are some of the ideas I came up with as 'concept art' : 

 

After some discussions and brainstorming we came to this storyboard:

My job in here is to do the scenario. Even thought I haven't try much on animation other than simple gifts, I'll give it a try, and specially because Ryan is in charge of doing the character and he is AWESOME! so I'm sure it will look great at the end :) 

Key image for the front scenario. Something I did quickly to give us a point of start. 

Next I'll put the animatic and some of the sound test my friend Adam has made for us.

Reban - Crystal environment

The final stage for our project was to build an environment for our character.
Since I'm basing all my images on the scene where Reban is escaping from the laboratory where he's been captive all his life, I decided to make work on this one for his environment.

To give an idea of living in a steampunk-like world in the 1800's the laboratory has been adapted in an ex-church with a gothic style. The place is in a cliff just outside the capital city.
Inside the place, the whole attention is in a big test tube where all the scientist test and study Reban's crystals to create a new fuel that will help them win the war.

Even thou I come from an architectural background I never got a chance to make a gothic structure, so I was really eager to work on this, but due to some issues with my computer and time wise I couldn't give the essence of it. Also, mixing this architectural style with steampunk is a meaning of working on details. (hell of a lot of details)

This is a colour sketch I made first to get a general idea:

At the end I decided to take off the multiple windows in the main tower and leave just the big one in the back (the one that Reban jumps through). The final design of the stain glass was simple and modular, but if I felt that if I went into more details or even a specific picture for a design it could steal a lot of attention.

From here I tried my best to make a perspective, but since it was hard to decide from where to make it and because I love the way 3-point perspectives add a touch of drama, I ended up making a cut to the building so that the inside and the outside could be visible.
It might have ended up looking weird because of the walkway around the test tube, but it was one of the most difficult parts to make.
Also, it is on black and white because my computer was misbehaving and the work I did at school I lost in my USB. (bad excuse, but true :( )

I know it still lacks of detail (and colour) but I think I aimed to high at the moment, since it took me more than expected to do this, but I got the idea of having the building covered inside out on pipes comming from everywhere and more steam ducts.
One of my inspirations for that was the bath house from Spirited Away like in the picture below



Also I made the plans and elevations of the lab, trying not to go too technical with it but still showing the more important parts of the buildings and its measures:

First the plan.-

The front view.-

A cut viewing from the center of the main room to the main entrance.-

The side.-

And a cut on the side to see the test tube properly.-

I didn't wanted to put aaaalll the measures to avoid making the image to congested. I used autocad to make them, and photoshop to save them in a web-friendly file so some details got lost in the process.
I hope I was able to transmit the whole concept of this building (otherwise the past four years of my life where a mere waist of time lol).
Once again, I feel really sorry for not being able to bring a colour render of my final product...

Reban - life in crystals

The animation that we had to make for this project was based on a flipnote and 20 frames.
To be honest, I underestimate this process; I thought it was going to be an easy job and that 2 second animation was nothing.
At first I had an ambitious plan in mind of having Reban standing there and while his crystals and expression changed the view/camera was going to spin around him from the front to the back and at the same time zooming out. When I actually tried to draw that I realize after 3 frames that I had no clue how to make that happen.
So after that, I had in mind to make a scene showing two guards and Reban jumping down in between of them and as he hits the ground he killed both of them. Once again, a scene too complicated for 20 frames.

At the end I decided to plan more properly and be a little bit less ambitious for my first animation, and since I was working on some images related to Reban's scape from the laboratory, I decided to focus most of my illustrations and this animation for this scene, so I came with this storyboard:

Basically he jumps down to a walkway that surrounds the massive tube he was in, then jumps up to the hand rail and finally breaks through the stain glass in front of him.
This is the final result:



At the end it was composed on photoshop at 12 fps, and it didn't came out too bad...
I did wasted loads of time doing details and trying to get the crystals to change shape as well, but since is such a small animation and is in black and white, those kind of details get a little bit lost.
Another big mistake I found much later on is that he's not suppose to have the hoddie at that point of the story, but ...I suppose that's not so important at this point.

Also, I'll try next time to get a reference for movements so that I can manage to capture a more realistic scent of movement.
Anyway, this was my first attempt and as such is got some special value for me ♥

Jerad S. Marantz

Remember the Kraken in the recent film clash of the titans or the amazing creatures of infamous 2? Well if you do, then I assume you understand the high quality of work that the concept artist Jerad S. Marantz does when it comes to creating fantastic creatures.

I came across this artist by accident, and almost refused to take a look at his work since part of the title of that post included the film sucker punch, which I never wanted to see after watching at the trailer.

Thankfully I had a look at his work and realise what an amazing artist he is and how many interventions he has done for many projects in the film and game industry as he is the lead designer at the Aaron Sims Company.

Anyway, what calls my attention from his work is the amazing detail in the textures that he puts for most of his monsters. Mixing that with an incredible ability to render and you get real life-like creative monsters and creatures.

After watching all his work, I got got really impressed at the ones for Zack's Snyder’s Sucker Punch, so I think I'll give it a chance to the film.

Even though my project with my character Reban (and also Belina) doesn't go that far, I always had the thought of adding this kind of creatures at some point in the story being Belina the one creating this weird creatures. If I ever keep with the story, I hope by that time I have a good technique level to achieve concepts of this quality.

Meanwhile, have a look at his gallery and start stalking /following his blog

Reban - Crystal Archetype

REBAN'S ARCHETYPE

While building a character, we need to think about every aspect possible this with the main purpose to understand him/her better and be able to show and develop a more accurate personality.
Reban, being the main character, would fit into the description of Hero due to his unusual circumstances of birth and the series of traumatic events that will lead him into his quest (and not to mention his supernatural ability), but in some way he's also got a similarity to the Child archetype due to his age and the way he reacts thanks to his horrible past. Also he will have to act mature and take responsible decisions after escaping the laboratory.

I wasn't sure which style to go for, but at then I went for the one I feel more comfortable at the moment (just not to make things more complicated...I mean, come on! drawing crystals itself is complicated!). But I'm definitely trying new styles for future projects.

With the help of a character sheet I manage to get this for Reban:

Physical Description:
12 year old // blond-brunette (just the inferior back of his hair) // 151cm height // mid-tanned skin // eyes amber // crystals always popping out his forget, neck and part of his back // crystal colour is normally turquoise but changes with emotions // sharp teeth // basically the only wears a short overall and rarely any tops, due to his constant change of shapes (crystals)
Character Traits:
He doesn't know much about his past...ever since he has memory he’s been changing from hand to hand like an animal. He’s been spending his past few years in containers and only been able to establish contact with a few scientist. Right now, he’s being studied to make use of his crystals as an alternative fuel for new machinery, that is planed to be used in war.
Character Background:
-Family Background: Unknown
Story based on early 1800’s with a steampunk-like environment in which some countries are about to start a war.
-Habits/Vices: Very curious about everything, and even though he’s language skills are not very good, he’s always asking questions.
-Education: None. He learned basic language by scientist and previous owners.
-Personality: Curious and scared of people.
-Likes: Anything new. Food. Natural landscapes
-Dislikes: Needles, medicines and vegetables.
Motivation
-What is his goal?: After he’s realised by the daughter of a scientist he run off with her. His new goal is trying to merge into society, learn about his past and try to find a future.
-His plan to achieve goal: With the help of just a few people he´s trying to escape from being used as a tool for war.

People have been asking me if he's an elf or an imp, but I never got to think about it in a deep way. My original plan was him to be a human (with deform ears) and the only difference with the society would be his skin colour, but that only because he's in a european-like society where most people have white skin, but this doesn't mean that in that world, in other countries, there isn't any others like him.

As for the design, like I said in the previous post, the crystals change in shape and colour, and later on, he will be able to control them by controlling his emotions.

This are some of the crystals' shape according to the last post that I did, just picture the colour on them :)

For the colour scheme I didn't do many variations, since i knew I wanted a good opposite-like look of a classic european person, so the skin had to be tanned, and for contrast I went with blond hair and amber eyes.

Lili Ibrahim

This time I'm going to talk about Lili Ibrahim, a Sweden artist based in London who's studying Illustration and animation.

I was just looking at her website and couldn't help to fall in love whit her work. Thinking that she's a student like us and she does that quality of work makes me want to push myself a bit further to improve (probably she's not a student anymore, but still...she's awesome).

Apparently she's got a lot of inspiration from acting, which would explain a lot in how well she represents facial and body expressions.
Just like me, she's aiming to work on the game industry and for that she has done some work in 3D using software like Zbrush, maya and 3D max, but for her illustrations she uses Photoshop CS5 and a Wacom intuos 4.

I strongly recommend to pay a visit to her website, deviant account or tumblr account, and have a look not only to her final illustrations, but also she's got an amazing quality of sketching (which is something I still need to work more on).
She's got a really nice technique on digital painting, in which she changes a lot from the original idea, but I think this gives you a really good opportunity for polish the final product, instead of getting stuck in the original idea, which might not be as good. You can see her process in some tutorial she made for her deviantart profile.

Looks like we've got a big competition or even better a good companion in the concept art industry.

Jace Wallace

While trying to look for an alternate type of drawings that could take me one step aside to try different styles, I remembered one artist that I've been following for a while (not stalking). He's name is Jace Wallace; an american concept artist and illustrator who seem to have done more works about fashion and naked women than anything, but still, the way he works is just impressive.

Proportions and shading for skin is one of his strong aspects that I admire, but also the composition and originality in most of his works is impressive itself.

Something that I notice while looking at his blog is that he refers at his works as "sketches" or "doodles", even though for me they are really professional looking... I suppose that's call talent.
For my character, Reban, I'm not even trying to change my style, since 1) I don't have enough time to do everything again and 2) it would look awkward to have to different styles in the same project, so I'll stick with it for now, but I'm definitely going to try to be more quick with my sketches from now on... at the moment I need to improve my quantity of ideas, and then the quality.

by the way...this is his website