REALLY short post today but that’s ok. I just posted the comics like… yesterday? I don’t even know. I worked a two day auction and haven’t been to bed before 3am for 4 days. It’s 2:44am right now so maybe today I will!
Anyway, this is just the updated thumbnails I created from the last assignment. I know they don’t look much different but it was hours of experimenting and erasing ideas that didn’t work. Just showing it before I start the next step tomorrow. Just lots more details and a more dynamic perspective.
Anyway, go read the comics I posted previously, why not?
After months of character and creature designs the class has finally shifted towards environments. I will still be doing characters and creatures each week but they won’t be the real focus of the assignments. The assignments are also starting to become more specific as if I was hired to draw something for a client. I was given 4 options for environments and 4 options for creatures/characters.
For the environment I chose to do a Interior Computer Science Building. That’s all the description I was given. But as always I have to make it unique. If I just draw a picture of a regular every day computer lab then why hire me, right? They could just take a photograph of a real one.
So I’m doing a 1960’s computer lab from Americas side of the Space Race. Essentially scientists building a satellite in a room full of computers.
The design board:
I love those big chunky computers. They will really give me an opportunity to play with Smart Objects in photoshop but I’ll get into that in another post.
I’ve also been trying to practice my thumbnails. The shots aren’t nearly dynamic enough but the perspective and scale are getting better. I had the critique on these thumbnails two days ago so I’m going to actually redraw them soon to make them better before moving onto the next step. The satellite needs to be the focal point.
For the creature I had to draw an eel. Just that. An eel. So naturally I decided to give it robot bird legs and arms.
Board:
Paints a picture, doesn’t it? The thumbnails:
You can see how much I struggled with getting a good shape/perspective for the eel. I didn’t want it to have a perfect snake slither. I wanted him all loosy-goosy in an asymmetrical shape. Snakes move in a very wave-like fashion but eels are influenced more by the water movements. I think the legs and arms really give him some personality. Once I have him redrawn bigger I will play with more details and mechanical components.
And that is all. I will write again this weekend to talk about some new comics I’ve been drawing lately.
Finally got a good chunk of my assignment done. This week I have to do some thumbnails and explorations of different creatures. Isn’t that just the broadest assignment ever? It’s awesome. Adrian taught me a really cool way to go about it too. For my design board instead of just pictures of creatures I should just do pictures of neat stuff. Anything that inspires me.
And then I just grab an image and use it to guide my creature. And it’s not tracing, either.
See? That’s like a flower or something. A creepy awful flower that probably kills you but still just a flower. And I made a doofy slug AND a monster guy. It’s not supposed to be a finished artwork. Just lots of drawings to decide what I want the finished piece to look like.
Arg I love that fox. Did you know that you can own Fennec Foxes in Alberta (my province) legally? And a baby one is only like $700?! And that’s as big as it gets? I would name it Fuzzers.
This is a good example of not just tracing the fox. The fox is already a creature. So I tried making the ears a hat. It was fun for like a second but then I decided big ears are more fun than big hats so I tried again. The goblin shows how I drew one thumbnail and then copied it to change the hands and feet. Never assume your first drawing is as good as it can be because it almost never is.
Here’s all the thumbnails I did for these images:
The eyeball fish I drew a long time ago when the baby wouldn’t sleep but tonight I tried turning the optic nerves into squid tentacles. I only spent a second on it but now I think I might want to do a finished version of it because it’s creepy. Needs longer tentacles.
What’s that? You think I’m done? HA! I decided to do this assignment twice! And this time I’m using Christmas images!
These creatures were WAY TOO MUCH FUN! Seriously. First the Santa Hat. The middle one on the bottom with the wrecking ball tail is my favorite of the hat drawings. But the Christmas tree has been my favorite over all.
Haha oh man. So stupid. So fun to draw. My wife likes the fuzzy guy best out of everything I drew (She HATES the eyeball fish).
Anyway this is the whole page.
My wife has pointed out that the tiny creatures wrapped around the berries make them look like testicles.
…
I agree. And I don’t mind either. Testicle monsters are creatures too.
I have to do cityscape thumbnails too but that page is only half finished. I’ll get it done tomorrow. Night!