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And finally, here are some base values for Mayumi himself! I’m wondering if I should add brighter values to add some contrast but at the same time I don’t want to make it look like I slapped it on him. Additionally, I might look into some slight change to Mayumi’s head and legs/feet as I feel they could be improved further.

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Color studies based on a couple of my thumbnails. I picked palettes I liked and have roughly applied them to the scenes. The top one is still very rough and could use a bit of change in terms of the background to midground which is still quite blocky and doesn’t define enough going on back there. The bottom one I really love, but the background could be darker to allow more contrast in the area of the focus (the characters and the tree)

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This is a re-design of the quiver concept from earlier. I wanted to make it a bit more interesting while keeping it mostly simple. I wanted to re-incorporate the bird beak with the energy source in its mouth from the bow as a recurring motif. 

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Here’s a very simple sketch of Mayumis clothes! I wanted it to be reminiscent of Hakama’s (the bottom dress-like part of the kimono) although I would be open to giving him more outfit options! As a warrior from the forest, I feel that a simple garment like this works, but if I were to go full body I’d likely make it very rough and ragged to match his background.

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Here was a very simple isometric room of the temple where Mayumi discovers the energy source he uses for his bow. It is very simple and I will develop it further down the track, but I wanted to lay down Mayumi as a sense of scale and the general outline of it (the steps, the podium, the energy source, etc.) As this is something I wanted to have as a game, overtime I may work on more Isometric concepts!

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Some value thumbnails I did earlier on for the project! The first one didn’t really go anywhere but the second one was looking much better! I wanted it to be a ruins in this large vast space and I was gonna play with perspective to show sheer size but I’m not sure if I want to develop it further.

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And another lot of development sketches for a goat monster/demon design for my project. I started off following the goat proportions and I’ll try to push them further later on!

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More thumbnail sketches for my project! They are very rough but I do like the ideas behind them quite a lot. I might try to do some value painting/sketching next though.

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Bow concept for Mayumi from the early shape outline to the features added and values implemented. Features include an energy source within a crow beak, a grip for him to hold onto, a flexible string for powerful shots, crystals that are part of the energy source and a tag with a picture of the bows previous owner.

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More environment studies of paintings done by Jeremy Fenske, another one of my artistic inspirations. His work can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/user/jair428 and here: https://www.artstation.com/jandrew

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Environmental study based on a drawing by Kienan Lafferty / KNKL, one of my biggest art inspirations! His work can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/user/KienanLafferty

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Also some Mayumi expressions. A couple are looking off but I’m just trying to get that beak right,

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Value study as a market-place concept! :D

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Names for my crow character - Mayumi

The first thing I did was note down words that I felt related to the character. I came up with: Archer, Rebellious, Crow, Warrior, Calm/Collected. I then went through the website https://adoption.com/baby-names/origin/japanese?page=3 and looked through a variety of Japanese names and their meanings to see what I felt worked well.

After looking around, I settled on the name “Mayumi”, for a few reasons. The name Mayumi has the meaning of “true bow” in Japanese, which I felt was absolutely perfect for my crow character whose primary weapon is a bow. Just finding a name that sounded good was not gonna cut it though, so I searched deeper to find if it has any huge significance or other meanings from the same or different languages/cultures. While it can be written in a variety of ways using kanji and hiragana, the most common use of the name involves it meaning ‘truth’ and ‘bow’, so I felt it was still appropriate to use. It also means ‘graceful’ in Filipino and some say it has an origin in the Philippines, but either way, both matches elements of my character. As an archer, one would to have rather graceful and elegant movement to hit their shots. I could not find history of the name being sacred, so by using it I should not be infringing on a sacred aspect of Japanese or Filipino culture.

Another thing is that Mayumi is often a name for females. While my character is a male, I would argue he should still have the name Mayumi for two different reasons. One, it is not uncommon for names intended for one gender to be given to a person of the opposing gender. This is present not just in Western culture but also Japanese culture, so Mayumi can be a name for a male. On the other hand, it would tie into the story. This character is a crow taking on human features, traits and tendencies as animals were left to roam a modern world mankind had left behind so therefore they adapted to the environment. However, the character never had a name for a long time, so he got the name from a journal he found from a human who died hundreds of years before him, who was an archer. This is where he’d get his bow, his bag and his name. I feel like with that in mind, his name will give the character some backstory and add a bit more depth in the world!

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And finally, an older landscape I did as a personal sketch that I might be able to re-purpose for this assessment! 

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These are references for the forest environment/home of my bird character. I found some drawing examples but also found pictures from the Tarzan section of Disneyland.  I can observe the general layout of a large tree home from the inside and out using this, even if I don’t use all the same elements.

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Here’s a practice of headshapes as I try to figure out how I want to portray a human character... Figuring out things like face length/width and general proportion placements!