fyrelegend - Tumblr blog

[fyrelegend]

Character creation (rebellion)

continuing with my exploration i continued to look at zelda as a form of escapism through taking on the role of an avatar other than yourself as you take on a specific character to act as a hero,i used the character i had created and decided to emulate some of the style choice within my work to create a new art style inspired but the link’s design

i didn't like how stuck in the singular character design i had become as the whole point was the idea of expression through character choice so i decided to create an avatar in a video game called Final Fantasy 14 that was completely the opposite to me in real life as to further the idea of being anything you want to be away from society and expectation.

after looking at retro games i decided i wanted to move forward and look to more modern games,i used my character from final fantasy 14 online as a base to start designing what i wanted them to look like,i used my actaul avatar as a starting point and worked on a few different versions of the character to try and get what i wanted.

i tried a few different poses and styles of clothes however i was unhappy with the compositions and the poses so i looked for more inspiration to help further my ideas.i also wanted to link back to the idea of escapism through fantasy further by creating a more princess design.i used aspects of zelda as well as my character model to help create a interesting concept for a model.The idea of escapism and freedom against expectancy of appearance in society is evident as i tried to capture other worldly elements rather than have a more human design however keeping the original design i had made in the game.

[fyrelegend]

Rebellion

for this task we had to come up with some form of rebellion to show in are art,i decided to focus on the idea of self rebellion in the form of persona and self vision.since a lot of people don't feel they can look the way they want as most view on people are as one dimensional stereotypes of what they present to be.which cases people to be unable to express themselves properly i looked at this through the lense of avatars and character customisation.

i made a mood board showing various types of character customisation and stereotypes to come up with ideas on what exactly i wanted to explore,examples being the characters of scooby doo who in earlier episodes only had one personality trait that defined them rather than being more complex and multi leveled like a real person.i decided to look at character models in video games as well as Vtubers who create online personas rather than use their own image online.

i first decided i wanted to create my own persona so i discovered a website called picrew which allowed me to customise my own characters and easily visualise them in a consistent style. i then played around with different design and a variety of appearances to try and get something i liked,i used aspects from my moodboard of the various stereotypes of characters to help give more personality to them as well as fantasy elements to help bind it to the idea of escapism by adding in horns or point ears.

eventually i settled on a design that i liked and then set to work creating a version the the character in my style that was more detailed and clear.i looked at different films that took this idea of characters having their own avatars such as ‘Ready Player One’ and ‘Avatar’.

i used different aspects from these films to add more detailing to my avatar,such as accentuating the fantasy elements originally seen in my drawing as well as adding more gradient and texture to my design to make it stand out better and give it a more digitised appearance.

after coming up with a clear idea of what i wanted to make my character look like i decided to explore more styles within the video game world and further expand the use of textures from video games and pixel art,i decided to first try to to a retro pixel style and recreate my avatar in this style,i used a clipping tool to get the square shapes,using various pixel arts to understand how to get the correct shape and how to represent the design with such limited space 

i tried out more styles of pixel art and furthered a technique.i did this by using a grid assist in my app as well as altering a selection tool into a square to help get a consistent pixel that i could use to draw with,the end result worked as i was able to emulate the style however since the grid assist had no lock on feature my pixels are sometimes slightly disjointed and krooked.if i was to further this i would try and find a programme that was specifically designed for this style.

after looking at the pixel art i wanted to more forward in time and look at some of the retro 3D models,so again i looked at the legend of zelda as a reference as well as the the old tomb raider games.from this i realised that i would be unable to have the same colour hair as the white background made the character look to washed out and his design got lost,so i decided to try out a different palette just to see how it would look.the lack of lines was really difficult to grasp as i had never done anything like this before,i eventually created a style that i felt reflected what i was trying to replicate.

[fyrelegend]

Zeen work

for my zeen i decided i wanted to try and create a comic book,so to do this i created two designs for the characters to use within my comic to give reference to when i was redrawing them,these character pages also show some of the key items that the character have so that i also have good reference for those designs as well.

i tried to use complex enough designs that could be easily simplified if need be but also to have enough that i had plenty to work with as well as making that characters distinctly different

For my zeen i wanted to tell a story rather than just write out my ideas.so i created a comic book strip about a convict and his captor escaping from the confines of an oppressive city. The final comic doesn't look as polished as i intended however the overall panels and style i was pretty happy with the end result. If i had more time i would have like to have properly redrawn all the panels to give it a more detailed and consistent style as well just generally tidy it up.

[fyrelegend]

Printing

i decided to try out printing as a media for the first time using this etching technique,i realised i would be unable to draw my usual level of detail so i created this chibi style character which i was easily able to etch onto the foam.

i applied ink onto the print and attempted to print onto the paper,out of all the prints i think the orange ink picked up the best as it didn��t leak or accidentally print parts i hadn’t intended to as much resulting in a much cleaner image

[fyrelegend]

Photoshop workshop

in this lesson we practiced using photoshop and trying out the various tools,i decided to take this cartoon character (tartaglia-geshin impact) and add a christmas hat as i wanted to test out the drawing tools.

i struggled to grasp the program due to the outdated and struggling mac book which made it very difficult to create anything polished.if i was to continue to use photoshop i would try and interstate my tablet in some form as that is a lot more intuitive.

[fyrelegend]

Photoshoot inspired by Saul Leiter

for this assignment we looked at Saul Leiter whos work used altered and stranger perspectives of photos in his work which i tried to create a similar style but taking pictures of reflections and refractions of light and motion,i think i was able to get some pretty good photos that really show the spectrum of motion and the abstract.

im particularly happy with the glass reflecting glass reflecting glass as although it isn’t the same as Leiter’s work it does give a similar aesthetic as the reflections creates the same type of distortion that warps and causes the subject to become hazy.to help bring out some of the colours in the image i also played with the saturation and focus of the image to help bring more life and vibrancy to the photos,i like the effect this had on the pictures as it gives this fantasy element to them that make it pop.

[fyrelegend]

Drawing from life

(sketches of second years)

for this we were tasked with drawing strangers from life,this helped gain a sense of reality and movement as these people were not models so we couldn’t look and examine them properly.the difficult of this was the constant shifting in poses which i had to adjust my drawing to whenever they changed as otherwise i wouldn’t have anything to base off of,the sketchy lines helped compile these lines together into the general figures.

(sketch of strangers)

i decided to try and draw the main shape and pose rather than detail as i had to quickly get as much of the overall composition in as possible,i used blocky shapes to gage the general pose and anatomy of the people however i think i should have tried to use guide lines more heavily as some of the poses are not as defined as they should be.I also looked at the artist Karl Kopinski who's work focuses around illustration and drawing people,i looked at his work as i wanted to better see how to translate the real life aspect into a drawing.

[fyrelegend]

Anatomy pieces

moving on from drawing sculptures i decided to use my picture of a skull as a base image for my large A1 piece,the canvas i used for this piece hadn't properly set which caused some blemishes on the paper,however this didn't much effect the actual drawing as i am rather happy with the result,although i think i could have made some areas a lot darker i think i kept the tone of the piece consistent with the correct light levels and was able to how the reflection of the skull in the piece.

For my main piece based on human anatomy, i used the skill i had gained from practicing guidelines to try and establish the main shape.i also used a rough grid method to get the body parts roughly in the correct place and then i used marked points to guess the general length and diameters of the body.

The final result of these techniques allowed me to get all the body parts the correct size however i think i should have made the hair larger as it was inaccurate to the image,i was also happy with how the shoes of the person turned out as i managed to get all the details as well as keep them consistent to the overall image without drawing away from the subject.

the most difficult part about starting this drawing was picking the finishing points of where the leg and hand finished,as i didn’t have anything to properly base this from other than then the grid,in the end i think the result is pretty accurate to the original image.

if i were to do this again i would try and include a more detailed version of the persons clothes as the design on their t shirt doesn't show well on camera and i don't think i accurately portrayed the creases that were in the image,my interpretation although not terrible wasn't as close as i could have gotten to the original but it did help frame the body well which was what i aimed for 

(a life study of a classmate)i was unhappy with the result of this as i should have pieced a better angle with more details to draw,the final sketch looked boring due to the angle and out of proportion as i didn't have a good view of the subject.

[fyrelegend]

Anatomy lessons

in this lesson we were tasked with replication various poses shown on the board and translating them to paper,the main skill learnt was trying to practice various guidelines to better gain understanding proportion which can be seen in this image as David had demonstrated the ares to mark and where things should be comparatively.

Once we had practiced a few times with smaller images we then went to A1 and tried to replicate an image selected by a class mate,this pose was very difficult to replicate as we were not allowed to erase as well as the new size casuing unexpected size translation issues.i think the final pose was reasonably accurate however the back leg needed more work as well as the face.

the pose caused many issues as the perspective looked odd in the actual image hwich menat that many of the aspects of the drawing looked out of proportion due to this if i were to do this image again i would try and establish the shapes better by blocking them out and refining it,similarly to sculpturing so i could get a better feeling for the general shapes and sizes in comparison.

[fyrelegend]

Routine project

for my investigation of routine i wanted to explore my own routine,mainly my morning routine,i knew i wanted to create an animation as i felt this reflected the idea of repetition well in its process.i had never animated before so i started off with a simple bouncy ball to help gain understanding of the process as well as examining 2d animations such as finery films and particularly the pixar lamp for the bouncy ball.

the result is a rather clunky animation however i did get a lot more understanding of warping the shape as it moved to help emphasis certain frames which i put to use in my next attempt.

after my first attempt i wanted to create something more dynamic so i tried to show the ball bouncing forward,this was way more successful than my first attempt and had a much better direction a sense of movement this time.i was still unhappy with the consistency with my image however i felt that i was ready to move onto more complicated designs.

I looked at “the animators survival guide” by Richard Williams to help gain understanding if key frames for character walks and better understand how to bridge the gaps between wall frames,i learnt that by redrawing the image completely instead of copying the frames and altering them although it looked less consistent it gave the image a much less robotic feeling and helped give it more life.

now that i had figured out what i wanted to do i decided to create an animation or a walk cycle of my trip to college,my first attempt didn’t go very well as there were a lot more moving parts than the bouncy ball that i didn’t take into account,this resulted in a walking cycle that looked like the feet were dragging and the arms were not swinging correctly.i was also unhappy with the body itself as it was to difficult to replicate repeatedly and i knew i would have difficulty going back and fixing the mistakes i had made,so i began creating a new style to help combat this.

i decided to create a simpler version of myself to animate with more characterised proportions,that i could easily replicate quicker and with more consistency,i did a character sheet showing the front and side profiles which i needed up using both heavily as i decided to further develope my idea into a second animation as well,i wanted to show more aspects of my morning routine to help further develop the sense of a progression and journey through the course of my day so i additionally created a animation of me brushing my teeth.

For this animation i created a secondary sprit sheet which i used to draw all aspects of the image as to easily animate,this process turned out very well as it meant i had all the components infornt of me before i even started.a problem i faced however once finishing the actual line works was a limitation with the program i used (procreate) the program didn’t allow for multiple layers to be in the same frame of the animation which meant that colour the animation wasn’t possible.a work around to this however way to merge the frames after colouring them, however this was very time consuming as well as difficult as i had to guess where the colour has to go which meant i had to abandon colouring the animations in.

now understanding the limitations of what i had to work with i began to create the final image,the final product i think turned out very well,the new walk cycle i created had a much better flow to it with all limbs moving in correct timing,for this image i decided to try and create a background to help further the movement of the image.

i wanted to include more aspects of my journey into the animation so i decided to try adding in real images to help further develope my idea,white against a real image made the animation really bold which did help show of the details of the animation which i thought would be lost,however upon further attempts at multiple panels the issue with overlapping and being unable to see the under image made using real images as backgrounds impossible.

finishing my morning routine i created an animation of me finally getting to college to begin my drawing, still tired from the quick wake up,i used less frames than the other animations as i wanted to give a slower more gradual movement, this is contrasted by the quick jolt at the end which helps juxtapose the rest of my animations.in finally completing my animations i would say that i made a lot of progress over the animations.

I enjoyed the process of it however i would next time try and make a longer more continuous animation to help bring together these frames better and make more of a story next time. Deciding to use animation to show these project was a great idea as it really helped portray the hurried movement of my normal routine which i felt really captured what i was going for and worked out well.

[fyrelegend]

Drawing machine experimentation

in this image we were tasked with exploring and building are own art machines,for mine i decided to create a spinning machine out of lego parts that would create spiral and circular patterns when used.the design originally had two modes in which one was stationary and the other was on wheels,however the stationary version was so unsuccessful i never actually used it without it falling apart,the wheel version however was very successful and i was able to make many patterns with it.

after a while of use i realised that the actual gripper for the pen had become loose over time meaning it would no longer hold the pen without breaking,to fix this i added a rubber band at the end of the model to aid in holding the pen in place which also made the lines steadier and smoother.

[fyrelegend]

Sketchbook observation

After finishing the sculptures i then created a sketch book of quick sketches to try and figure out which part i wanted to expand into a proper piece,i decided upon the skull as the composition and focal point didn’t come across as over cluttered and to busy,which meant i could get a closer perspective to the sculpture without having to include random parts from other sections,this worked out well as it made the mirrored reflection stand out which was what i wanted to mainly focus on.

[fyrelegend]

Sculpture life drawing

during class we were tasked with creating two sculptures that linked together to create interesting compositions with,using these i created a digital sketch which i then used as a reference to create a much larger scale piece.

The scaling up process to wasn’t as difficult as i oringinally thought however filling the extra space was harder to do as most of the original sketch had a lot of blank space,however after finishing the piece i think the blank space helps give the image a stronger focus with the lines being darker on the actual skull to further emphasise the focal point.

[fyrelegend]

Storyboard exploration

while traveling around the local park close to the college i took a variety of photos in the hopes to try and be able to come up with some sort of story to go along with these random but interesting photos.

using these images we were put into pairs where we created a story board using these images as main plot points. We decided that the rat we found would make a good point for a character in the story so we began to build out from this idea and give him more personality and more of a journey.

From all this we created a story about a Rat who went on an epic quest to slay an evil duck dragon, we added in many twists and turns such as a rabbit betraying the main rat hero. We wanted to make are rat the hero rather than the stereotype of them being gross and ugly, so he became a knight which is where the story spiralled out from.

we also went a step further by doing a full design of the main Rat character Sir Gibbins (drawing by @blogbyfreyr )

this task was a great way for me to begin trying to tell a story in my art and really makes me want to try putting more animation in my work as i enjoy telling the story through art.

[fyrelegend]

Group music exploration

in this image the whole group took it in turns to draw on each page while our playlist played,as we rotated onto different pages we added to the previous artist work to create a continuous image across the paper resulting in a almost timeline of work.

furthering our experimentation we decided to arrange the pieces into the shape of a person,as aspects drawn into the pages resembled various aspects of a person so to exentuate this we arrange the pieces into what we thought best connected them

[fyrelegend]

Music interpretation

After creating art base on songs i decided to to a full drawing based of the song ‘Come along’ by Cosmo Sheldrake, using the dream like lyrics in the song i created a fantastical character, using details to help link to certain lyrics, such as "Don't let moments pass along And waste before your eyes"

i decided to take these lyrics as living in the moment as my character sits relaxing as he takes the world in. Linking my work to a piece really helped me try and explore new avenues in my art and allowed me to be a lot more creative with the design to help emulate some of the whimsical parts of the song.

[fyrelegend]

Music interpretation

Again we had to listen to a piece of music, however this time were blindfolded and were asked to interpret what we heard through hand movements and tone.

My piece didn't end up take up much of the canvas which resulted in a denser image with many colours being layered over the top,similar to the songs overlap of instruments ,within the image you can see almost a face within it as highlighted by the blacks graphite