C) Concept Art: Character and environment designs. Create a range of concepts that describe a world of your choice. Before diving into this project I made sure to do some research on the topic. A book I always turn to a lot is 'Drawing, sketching objects and environments from your environment' by Scott Roberston (https://www.artstation.com/scoro) and Thomas Bertling (http://www.thomasworks.com/). Below is a video of the book I have. It's mainly good for learning how to use perspective to improve your thumbnail sketches and concept art for vehicles ect. In turn it improves the overall design of what you're trying to create.
Concept Art tips from Donglu Yu 1. Establishing a silhouette. A silhouette is the outline of an object against a unique colour background. It helps the viewer to quickly recognise the subject matter, such as robots, cityscapes or characters. A strong silhouette will ensure your designs have greater visual impact. 2. Composition rules. The rule of Thirds is popular composition tool, because it's both simple and effective. Divide your image into thirds vertically and horizontally: the focus point of your images should appear on the points where the line cross. 3.Brush strokes. Your brushstrokes should reveal the material, textures, body structures, and changes in lighting and volume. Large brushstrokes and also used to indicate areas of light and shadow, to further areas of light and shadow, to further enhance the volume differences. 4. Build up a reference board. It's crucial that you study your subject, and put together a digital reference board. Consider dividing your reference pictures into different categorises, such as fog density or rock shapes. In addition, having a referencing board to hand makes it much easier to explain your art. Imagine Fx issue 2014 Creating characters
When creating characters for film or games, you'll probably need to explore your characters more. The key aspect about creating characters is their story. It's crucial that you get to know as much as possible about the characters and their story before you create them. The more you know about them, the you'll feel about sliding under their skin and finding the right visual solutions to bring them to life. 'Creating your own world and characters is a great exercise in understanding relationships. Weapons, structures, characters, streetlights, rocks, plants, vehicles, clothing and on and on- they all have to be related in both subtle and obvious ways. They have to be believable, all part of the same world. It's up to art directors and concept artists to visualise virtually every inch of the world, and the most successful game worlds are ones that have a unified wash of stylisation and coherence.'- Daren Bader.
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As well as looking at art for inspiration I also looked at cities that exist today. I picture a combination of Hong Kong, Tokyo and Dubai. Drawing cities and cluttered spaces is one of my weak points but I still gave it a go.. practice makes perfect. I put together some drawings (with a combination of textures and images) to show some environment settings.
Starting off with the character designs I had three which I wanted to develop. An usual trio- two being assassins and one a bounty hunter- working together. I also wanted each of them to have a weapon of their own. Early mock up designs didn't really fit with the genre I was going for, I also wanted their outfits to be practical to an extent, especially for the female character. First concepts Jazz As much as I wanted to go for a 2B (Nier Automata) kind of look it just wouldn't be that practical and although these characters are in a sci-fi world I also don't think it would be an agile outfit to work in. I steered more towards the design of Asuka Langley Soryu from Evangelion, with her fiery red hair and personally to match. I also liked the design of her suit and how it is full coverage. I didn't wanted to be overly complex with design. If it was something I was going to draw over and over again or even model, there doesn't need to be any unnecessary detail. I did play a bout with a couple of the designs but I liked the third outfit the most from this line up. Matrix I decided to make him match his assassin partner so they would have similar if not identical outfits. So if Jazz has skin showing he would also have skin showing like in the first outfit. The only difference is their colours so they have a colour which is unique to them (blue and purple).
Designing a gun for Jazz- I started making basic silhouettes then gradually adding detail til I came up with this line up of different sci-fi looking guns. I then picked the design I liked the most and made adjustments. You can see most of them don't have triggers- I wanted to go with this idea that if she is holding the gun (it only works for her) it will simply fire when she wants it too. Concepts Final design Design a weapon for Matrix- I decided to stick with the whip idea as it's not overly common. I didn't make massive changes, more just added pieces to it and changed the handle so that end can also be used as a weapon. It's a slick and fast moving weapon which matches the kind of character he is. Designing a sword for Jackel- You might be like, why does he have a sword in a sci-fi world? ..Swords can do more damage than a gun if you use them right.. Not sure if that statement is entirely true but it seems like it could be. I liked the basic shape of the sword he had to start off with but I still drew out some others. I developed the first one further into something more visually appealing and suited to the character. Concepts Final Design
I ended up going with the suit design for Jazz and Matrix and just added some details. I also added glowing strips which help match their weapons. The boots they where are designed to let them climb better and fall from high places without taking damage.
For Jackel I did decided to use white in his colour palette only because it goes well with the other two's designs. It also looked good with the outfit I decided to give him. |
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