Hai Phan - Freelance Character Artist

Hai Phan is an artist I came across when I was looking for tutorials that involved the entire pipeline. It was in CGCircuit that I found his videos and the fact that he wasn't going for a realistic approach but rather a really nice stylised that made it so appealing. 

His tutorials were helpful as he didn't approached a software specific but rather explaining the general concept and industry standards. 

Hella is the character he mainly worked with and it was amazing to see most of the process on the making. 

His portfolio is fascinating and quite extensive (have a look!); the amount of different characters and creatures that he creates varies a lot yet you can still sense a style within. 

Not only his videos were really accessible but it was really easy to get in contact with him and he was kind enough to answer some questions that will be useful as primary research for my dissertation. 

Inspiration / moodboard

For the initial ideas for the character I'm making I couldn't help to rely on my all time fabourite games such as Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts. Among all the genres of games JRPGs have always been my favourite ones. Also at the same time the E3 trailer for Kingdom Hearts 3 came out and it blew my fandom to very high levels.

I took a lot of images from the internet to create a moodboard. Most of the graphics are from recent entries, trying to get some angles and textures that are relevant. Obviously the images are rendered from the high poly versions or the ones rendered for cinematics, but others like the Agni's Philosophy are made on a real time engine, so the high quality of textures still is there. 

The reason why I love this style it's because they are loyal to the stylisation of the concept art and yet with the textures and lightning they manage to get a result that is believable and appealing. 

I know I'm aiming to high for this project for now, but other wise I won't push myself to get something I really admire. 

Rose Ellen artwork

My daily life involves a substantial dose of tumblr just to keep up on the top 'news' of the people I'm following which are mainly artists. While skipping through my likes I notices that I pretty much have liked every single recent update of Rose Ellen. Now because of my recent idea about working on 3D sculpting for my dissertation, I thought about making a post about her work. There wasn't much information about her on her tumblr page, so I sent her a private message. 

I was surprise to get a quick reply from her, as previously some people haven't done in the past -_-u 

We shared a few emails and it turns out she's a really nice 21-year-old girl that studies college in Detroit, US.

She told me that she's only been using Maya about a year and a half ago, and that's when guiltiness stroked as I think I've been using it for the same amount of time and I'm nowhere near her quality.

The 'Harpy' (work below) was her project for the Creature sculpting assignment that lasted only two weeks. Apparently most people chose to go for ugly monsters, but she wanted to do something to put on her demo reel. Over all, her head sculpts usually take around 10 hours, depending on how realistic she wants to go. 

http://rosecole.tumblr.com/

Not only she's an amazing person, but she's talented; what else could anyone ask? Also very glad to hear that she got an undergraduate program internship at Pixar starting this June! I wish her the best luck and please have a look at her gallery as I only put a small taste of her talent. 

Spaceship - Concept

Having eyes as a big part of the story I wanted to keep the concept to the extend to make it into my spaceship.

Eyes can be beautiful, but with the right movement and perspective it can become something sinister and scary. 

I remember watching something similar on an anime called 'Neon Genesis Evangelion' in which 'Angels' were creatures trying to cause and apocalispse ... (or something like that) 

One of them morphed into various things and most of them where eye-like shapes. 

I have a certain aversion with technological and stereotipical sci-fi at the moment, so I wanted to make something more organic, and at the same time something abstract.

The of the outside of the spaceship is for it to be constantly moving in all direction, as if it was scanning things quickly. A massive eye that appears through the clouds and starts staring and analysing  down on society. The core of the spaceship is hidden behind a series of screens and moving lights at different levels, making it look as if it was made of transparent layers.
I found it hard to make it look as scary as I portrait it in my head, but hopefully the movement brings a different perspective of it. This is the concept I made for it:

The inside of the spaceship still a bit unsure. I'm thinking of something organic and dark. I dont want to get too much into details for the inside as my plan is to focus on achieving a good level of quality for the alien.
My inspiration for it so far is fractals. I love the composition that can be achieved with simple algorithms. I found loads of inspiration but mainly looking for architectural driven ones.

Ni no Kuni

Another game that inspire me for the process was the upcoming Ni no Kuni for PS3.
I started following this game from the very moment I heard it was made in collaboration of Studio  Ghibli  (to which I'm a massive fan).
You can tell straight away that the mark of Hayao Miyazaki is everywhere in this game; the world and characters are just full of this incredible magic.
The game hasn't come out yet so the game play and other part of the story are something that I can't say I have experienced, but something that I absolutely loved is that Level-5 did a great job on keeping the fidelity of the concept to it's maximum.
The game has some anime openings (which where to be expected) but during the game play the textures are just astonishing, as it keep at all moments and incredible amount of detail and the iconic charm of any Ghibli film. The cell shade works just fine, and even thought the characters could have done with a bit of more expressions, I really can't wait to get my hands on it and give it a go.

The Backwater Gospel

Came across this video on tumblr the other day called "The Backwater Gospel" and so far I've seen it easily over 20 times. 

It just happens to be an incredible piece of animation part of The Animation Workshop in Denmark and not only the animation itself but the style that it has makes me drool every time I watch it. 

A well done animation that it's aimed not for kids it's probably something that you dont see a lot, specially with the quality that this posses. 

Feast your eyes: 

Amazing isn't it! 

Well I was really glad to find the making off, and seriously would love to do a project with this level of character and definition in style. 

On the video I'll put below you can see the way they worked in facial expressions and how little details become incredibly important, like the little "pen strokes" that come off the silhouettes of mostly everything. Props and scenery just works in a perfect harmony. 

This video has cause a massive impact on me...seriously. It is actually making me think that this could probably be the way I want to take my dissertation project or at least a personal project, but for now, enjoy the process of the making of The Backwater Gospel. 

Moodboard of ideas

With some initial concepts that went from spies, mermaids, chinese zodiac and a few others, we decided to go for a steam punk theme but also with a stylised concept for the art.
Our main inspiration I would say, was the game The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. It has an iconic style for the saga, really heart-warming graphics and not mention the epic gameplay.
These is the moodboard that we came up with. It's a mixture of Machinarium, FF: four heroes of light, Lost winds and other few ones.

From there we looked at several other games in the same range. Knowing that we planned to add a robot character and a Victorian girl . Something characteristic of Steampunk is that is trying to imitate the functionality of a modern life without having the developed electricity to the actual stage and having coal and steam machines as their mayor source of energy. This can only mean one thing: loads of details.

Game art

Over the years video games have improve and created a more dynamic way to tell stories within the same game. Trailers, intros, cutscenes and other cinematographic processes have been used to generate a deeper connection with the player. 

I still remember when some games will reward you with some pixel-still images back in my SNES days. Soon after pre-rendered scenes took over my attention and even now a days I still find them an impressive part of games even when it finishes and the real graphics come up again. 

My personal favourite for making me scream like a girl with trailers and cutscense will always be Square Enix (if it wasn't obvious). Their work with the in-game graphics is fantastic, but the quality, effort and detail put on cutscenes is just outstanding. As examples (plural as I couldn't make up my mind in just one) I have the opening of Kingdom Hearts 2 and Final Fantasy Dissidia.

Now this opening is not only beautiful but it also works as a summary of the previous 2 games (Kingdom Hearts and Chains of memories). The way they combined it and made look like a music video without loosing any important parts of the previous stories is remarkable, but at the same time I wouldn't consider it as an introduction for someone who didn't play the previous entries; it was simply a quick compilation that clearly only satisfied fans of the franchise (me). 

When I heard they where making a fighting game using all the main characters and villains from the Final Fantasy franchise I thought Dissidia was going to be just a way to abuse the huge fandom of the characters and sell something badly made. Sadly I wasn't THAT wrong. 

The video above is the intro for the first entry of this new franchise, Dissidia. Again, beautiful pre-render graphics that in my opinion look absolutely fantastic, specially when you think that it will be an entry for a portable console. There was no way the PSP could ever run any graphics like this ones, but my surprise was that the game actually look really pretty. Way too pretty if you ask me and it didn't took long for me to discover the reason. The game was just like the intro; just the bunch characters from all the games you loved fighting together but with just a really forced story behind it. The fighting system was a bit odd and it contained loads of slow motion attacks that where only useful to feast your eyes with the gorgeous characters. 

Sadly I bought the game and loved it at the end. 

As for in built cutscenes I think my personal favourite at the moment is anything related with Journey for PS3. I still think that ThatGameCompany made a great job with the feeling given by the game and it is reflected in every point of the game. I couldn't find a video with my favourite part of the game (sliding though sand with a sunset in the background) but here is the trailer of the game that gives a good idea of the game's concept. This is a concrete proof that realistic graphics or pre-rendered scenes are not needed to achieve a majestic cinematographic product, and even when the whole world around you is a dessert. 

Pandore

On the clouds of the mythic Mount Olympus, a young girl unleashes a dangerous monster from a mysterious box. Is he match for the little devil that set him free? 

A pretty cute and funny animation produced at GOBELINS, l'ecole de l'image in 2009. The closest style I can think of is Zelda wind waker, but never the less, I'm a big fan of this kind of animation. The texturing matches the style in a unique way and the whole cartoony way is really charming.
The monster in specific is the character that I believe had more work on, as his movements are really well done, it has a lot of personality and the design itself is fantastic.

Credits: Created, Directed and Animated by Meryl Franck, Elen Le Tannou, Nicolas Caffarel, Marion Stinghe, Benoit Guillaumot. Sound design by Vincent Hazard. Voice of monster by Das Panzer Benz, Girl Voice by Kaycie Chase. Music by Pascal Franck (Mathilde Alloubert on harpe, Isabelle Hebrard on flutes, Gae Ascal (mastering and remix). Sound Effects by Andre Fevre, Sound engineer Clement Naline.

Pixel Art

According to Wikipedia:

   Pixel Art is a form of digital art, created though the use of raster graphics software, where images are edited on the pixel level. Graphics in most old (or relatively limited) computer and video games, graphing calculator games, and many mobila phone games are mostly pixel art. 

Image filters (such as blurring or alpha-blending) or tools with automatic anti-aliasing are considered not valid tools for pixel art, as suck tools calculate new pixel values automatically, contrasting with the precise manual arrangement of pixel associated with pixel art. 

 Don't know if anyone notice before, but the current logo of my blog is made by pixel art. I'm not very experienced in making it, but I certainly have a big crush on people who know how to work on it. 

Sadly for me, there aren't many people out there that specialise in this form of graphics, and with technology evolving, even in mobile devices, I can see my fandom staying in memories of some of my favourite games like Final Fantasy advance or KH: Chains of memories. 

As a working process I must admit it requires a lot of dedication, as it requires a perfect idea of what you want to do and apply it in detail, pixel level detail. 

Most of this pixel art video games use an isometric view or parallel projection usually working on a 45°/30° ratio meaning that it's not a "true" isometric, but it had to be done like this due to the limitations of raster graphics that 8 and 16 bit games had. Now a days all of this can be corrected by using anti-aliasing. 

A complicated aspect I found when working on this style is that you have to have a extremely clear idea of the size of the final image. Because the work is done on pixels, the chances of stretching the image without getting weird looking or distortions are very low, so it does have a really high level of planing. 

The fact that people are using this style less and less every day doesn't take off the credit of some magnificent recent work some people have done. I hope I can manage to fit a future project where I can work with this technique and demonstrate that even with  an "old fashion" way of working the possibilities are and a good aesthetic of a game/animation can be achieved. 

Limitless Hiroyuki

 

Hiroyuki Takahashi (タカハシヒロユキ) is a Japanese designer that has no limits.
His work has clearly established his style as playful, colourful and over the top. His compositions are masterly composed and every design he makes he works in every detail on the character, for the character and around it, ending up with really dynamic yet simple piece of work where chaos and technology seem to be iconic of his.

The mechanical precision in his vector lines gives to his work the possibility of multiplying its effect and working along with his iconic patterns and his fashion sense the outcome of his work really stands out.
It is definitely a very attracting style, which like in the picture below, I think it could work very well as character design or even as a concept style for a video game. Would love to see more games with more colourful and surreal styles rather than just semi realistic. Make sure to visit his website as he does loads of other stuff and collaborations with other artist.

The Last of Us

First... take a look a this trailer:


... I think...it's awesome!
After I saw this on Tumblr, I couldn't help myself to find EVERYTHING I could about this game and the makers of it.
It turned out to be the latest project from Naughty Dog company called The Last of Us.
Naughty Dog is a game company that officially started in 1994 with the well famous Crash Bandicoot title.
Their latest success is one of the biggest titles for PS3; Uncharted, a title that is universally acclaim and prise for its storytelling, graphics and cinematic quality.
One of the first titles I got with my PS3 was Uncharted 3 (I just got my PS3 recently) and even though I thought it wasn't my type of game, I felt curious to try it because of its graphics quality. After trying it for a bit I realised that it was much more than a linear-shooting game but it had an incredible cinematic direction that merged perfectly with the controls and the story.
That's is why I can't wait for this game to come out. So far from the trailer, I can tell that the story is going to stand out and can't help to feel a lot of personality in the characters.
This is the synopsis that is on the official website:

Abandoned cities reclaimed by nature. A population decimated by a modern plague. Survivors are killing each other for food, weapons; whatever they can get their hands on.
Joel, a brutal survivor, and Ellie, a brave young teenage girl who is wise beyond her years, must work together if they hope to survive their journey across the US. 

Last thing to mention: the concept art is absolutely fantastic!

Run, run, run!

For our PPP project I've been thinking about loads of stuff that I've learned over the last year and certainly it's been difficult to come up with one concrete idea. 

After a while I decided to start thinking about the stuff that I haven't done over the last year and that certainly is...excersise. It's been a year since I stopped running and going to the gym and after having an afternoon talk with a friend of mine that's been training really hard to run for a charity event on Manchester it kind of inspire me to do something related to it. 

I don't really have time to do anything in fancy in 3D so I'll stick with some sketchy 2D animation and to get some inspiration I went on youtube and found some inspiring Nike videos: 

Eternal Sonata

As part of the result of my compulsive eBay-biding face I got my hands on Eternal Sonata by Namco Bandai for the PS3. 

As a single-player RPG that I usually go for, this one has a strong anime style which I think goes really nice with the cel-shading graphics and despite the weird plot that spins around the story of the pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin and a fantasy dream that happens just before his death, the graphics of the game is what capture my attention. 

After I started playing it I discovered that the amount of detailed they put on the scene was absolutely fantastic for its style. It's good to see some games stepping aside from the dark realistic graphics once in a while, and this one features an incredible well use of colour the whole time. 

The game itself is based around musical features, so the sound design is well appreciated for someone with some musical background, although I naming the characters after music styles is a bit too much (I mean, come on! Polka, Salsa, Allegreto...really?) 

I heard bad reviews about this game, but to be fair I haven't found anything wrong with it, and in fact I think it has a decent level of difficulty and I really hope it carries on like this. (I haven't finished it yet) 

Might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I certainly helped me to carry one with my scene and inspired me to work more on my detail levels. 

Journey

If anyone asked me to describe the latest game developed by the famed-indie studio thatgamecompany, Journey I would say: Deep.

Ever since I saw the trailer for it I became curious about this title, reasons being the fact that it's only a 3 hour game, no status bars, no "bad guys" or monsters and narrative based on images (no text through the game or voice at all).
After downloading it from the PS Network I started the game and there you are; in the middle of the dessert with no one to tell you what to do or where to go, on the distance a mountain with a bright light on the top.
Regardless of this, and with out spoiling anything important, the game posses a very clear plot, but it is something else that captivate me all the way until the end.
I believe that Journey is a tale of devotion, persevarance that shows you the power of determination and the cyclical continuity of life.
With a fantastic online feature, as long as you have internet access, the games automatically puts another player along your side (randomly) so the feeling of not being the only one in the whole world seems to be shared between two, but saying this, the only way of communication is a single-note whistle. Might not sound like much, but I couldn't believe how "attach" you can become to a complete stranger that follows you along side your journey.
Deep...

Graphically speaking, and despite the minimalistic style of the game, the whole scenario and levels of the games are an orgasmic feast for the eyes (seriously). The feeling of a boundary-less vast world rarely changes and you get straight away the idea of being in a unique post apocalyptic world that yet is gorgeous.

Sound wise... I'll just say that I'm eagerly waiting for the soundtrack to come out; already pre ordered...that's how good it is.

Certainly Journey quickly became one of my favourite games of all times. I hasnt come out of my head and I'm eagerly talking about it to everyone, yet no matter how many time I try to explain it, it just doesn't sound nowhere near as how good the game actually is.
It might be just me who got obsess with it, with the concept, with the music, with the playability and re-playability, and it might be just me who gets really attached to games that go deeper into the user's emotions, but I'm sure that everyone can fit the game to more than one episode of their lives and therefore make of this 3-hour experience into a unique journey.


(It even inspired me to do some fan art lol ... still working on it) 

A Pulse of inspiration

While thinking for some inspiration for the style of my game environment, I certainly look at many kind of games just to give me an idea of the level of details.
Even though I know that Unity can export games to many platforms, I decided to look at PS3 references (since I can always "experience" it for myself.

While playing the game, Final Fantasy XIII became a strong influence in the process, and more because of the pretty cinematic, it's because of the detailed and beautiful work Square Enix has done with most of the scenarios. More than looking at the high-tech ones, I focused on a part of the game called Pulse (Just got there, took me ages!)   

This image above is the concept art for it. Full of details and breath taking I would say. Knowing the company they could make part of the cinematic in this kind of scene and make it look surreal, but is it going to look just as nice inside the game?

For me...I think it does. I spend some time (while levelling up... this is a good harvesting area) looking at the flowers, rocks and cliffs, plants and little details that normally I wouldn't notice for the urge to go and kill the next monster. This made me realize that for game engines, you cant just expect to spend ages modelling everything perfectly, but spending time on the textures, that's what makes the difference.

I started looking more and more at the concept art and other screenshots of other parts of the game, and pretty much it game me an incentive of populating my scene with low-poly details. Hope this helps to get my scene to look decent.

Kara

I found this video of a concept that Quantic Dream Studio (creators of Heavy Rain)  made just to test the idea, but it's not currently a developing project.
It's really sad, because the mechanics that they used where made on a really good quality basis for any PS3 game. The graphics and sound are stonishin astonishing, but it's the plot that really captivate me. In such a short clip you get a really good gesture of the hard work on emotion that this studio has, just like I appreciate in the few hours that I played from Heavy Rain.

Some ideas

At the moment I've done some ideas for the scene of my game. continuing with the Mayan idea, I came up with this concepts:
At first, you arrive to an altar with a massive feathered serpent that's dripping water from its mouth. Around it, there will be walls fallen pillars with inscriptions and decorations.

Once you step into the main part of the altar, a secret realm will activate and everything will change. The idea is somehow similar to Zelda's twilight realm or silent realm, where everything is basically the same but the textures will be changed and the snake will be alive. 

It took me a while to decide to make it indoors or outdoors, but at the end I came up with the idea of placing the altar into a secret location, somewhere that makes a special conecction between the character that is the only one to find it and the spirit of the serpent-god. So everything will be based in a Cenote (like an underground lake) where the character is going to fall into.

I'm still working in more ideas, specially cus I'm planning to spend most of my polygon count on modeling a decent snake, so if anyone has any ideas for a cool snake-god-type then I would appreciate it.