kattokkiblr-blog

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2nd Sem: Week 8

Brief 1 (Character Concept)

At the moment I am working on the detail for my character., adding detail to her sculpture and learning Topogun. Looking for best colours and soon will be painting her and finishing off.  On the same time I am adding writing to the final document.

Brief 2 (WoW environmental piece)

Finished sculpting and learned how to do plants, I will now be painting textures for my diorama and finishing it off.

Brief 3 ( Collaboration )

Finished plants and finished parrot for the game. Will give them to 2nd years to add to the game and might pick up more work from 2nd years to help them out with. 

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2nd Sem: Week 7

Brief 1 (Character Concept)

I have left this sculpture for later because I need to do topology first.

I will add more detail on the next week, retopoligize it and start painting. I have found out that it is possible to paint it in Zbrush which I would like to do most.

Brief 2 (WoW environmental piece)

I am finishing doing my sculpting part now, changes the floors and added many more stuff. I am also trying to UV everything now to have time for texture. Also, trying to add last details, check all edges and finish it all to have a good strong base for all the mapping and rendering.

Brief 3 ( Collaboration ) 

Finished a group of plants and did UV for them, now my laptop doesn't want to save targa files of UV snapshots so I will have to do it in University and later texture them.This will be easy because we only use block colours for small props and because of this I also decided to do a parrot for the planet I am working on.

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2nd Sem: Week 6

Brief 1 (Character Concept)

This week I focused on sculpting my character and now I have finished the sculpting. I am currently looking at Topogun youtube videos and making sure I am ready for the next stage.

Brief 2 (WoW environmental piece)

Currently trying to finish my sculpting so I can move to UV and texturing.

Brief 3 ( Collaboration )

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2nd Sem: Week 5

Brief 1 (Character Concept)

This week I mostly focused on my 2nd and 3rd brief.

Brief 2 (WoW environmental piece)

Started working on diorama and later on started adding details. I used both Maya and Zbrush for this project.

Brief 3 ( Collaboration )

This week I worked on some simple props for this project such as plants, sculpting them in Maya and Zbrush. I also did some concepting work.

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2nd Sem: Week 4

Brief 1 (Character Concept)

This week I mostly focused on the sculpting of my character and making sure she is as clean sculpted as possible. I reviewed the sculpting I had so far and realized it might give me some trouble later, mostly the flower details. This is why I had to clean up my sculpture and first think of how I can make this work. At the end I came out with a page that shows my clean sculpting stages and I am not continuing to progress with my 3D piece.

Brief 2 (WoW environmental piece)

This week I focused on both briefs but started to work more on brief 2 to catch up with it. I Finished my research on WoW and Pandaria that I chose to focus on and even decided that I will be working on a diorama for a place in Pandaria called “moving isle”. I found a lot of resources based on this place such as images, concepts and even a video preview on youtube that was done by Blizzard itself.  It gave me a few very inspiring ideas that I even made a story for. I will further explain my ideas for the diorama and story for it in my development text that I will give in with my finished project. 

I also have watched a lot of videos on sculpting dioramas in Maya and different environmental pieces. I have also took a lot of pictures of textures I see every day outside for example the wall of my house and wood to use them as references when I will be painting my textures for the finished diorama sculpture

Also I started sketching my ideas in traditional, such as trees , buildings and other details I can after include.

Brief 3 ( Collaboration )

We are currently working with 2nd Years and waiting for any work opportunities. Also, we have meeting every week on Monday to review as well as keeping up with each others work on Trello and Facebook. 

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2nd Sem: Week 3

Brief 1 (Character Concept) 

This week I mostly focused on this brief specifically because soon I will have extra work on 3rd brief. I would like to do as much as I can to have more time in later weeks.

This week I chose three final concepts that I will take further into digital. I had my 2 moodboards ready for the first development so I decided to merge interesting images from my moodboards together to make interesting concepts and look at textures. These are images I came up with: 

After this I wanted to add more detail like face to the silhouettes to make them more human like:

I also slightly added shading and textures for volume. After I finished I decided to choose one that I would like to develop further. My favorite one from the start was the middle one because of the interesting shapes and hair-looking like flowers on her head. I also added some bug - details to her which are weird ear-horn-things sticking out from her forehead. They are taken from one of the moth family bug which is one of the only bugs I find cute on our planet. 

After this I also checked out the tone that will work best on my concept and cleaned up slightly my character. 

When the tone was chosen I developed my character even further looking at it from different angles and did a few more moodboards for my further development. I also did a few shots of my character from close to have a better understanding of her face, this is because I have also started sculpting her and did this in Zbrush,

I started sculpting from scratch in Zbrush with simple tools mostly just adding shapes and moving them around with move tool.

Brief 2 and 3 this week unfortunately did not have any development since I am putting all of my time towards Brief 1.

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2nd Sem: Week 2

Brief 1 (Character Concept)

This week and the next two weeks I will be mostly focusing on this brief and slightly progressing on the others just so I wont end up with nothing.

This week haven’t yet finished but if I do anything extra later I will add it here. First of all to start this project as I said before I did my did my research. It started of looking at Fantastic Beasts and after some time I realized that Harry Potter films share the same world so I can also get some inspiration from them. My full research can be found in my work files which will be presented on the deadline. 

I realized that Harry Potter artist as well as the writer were inspired by Greek mythology and other legends which means I can also look into it. After researching I chose three types of creatures I wanted to work on:

- Ash tree nymphs 

- medusa: gorgons

- harpy

I did a full page of ideas on these characters inspired by my research and images from internet as well as stories about these creatures. After I finished this sheet of simple silhouettes I decided that Ash tree Nymphs will be the best choice for me because everything else was way too explored before in other movies and I haven’t seen as many tree spirits as many Medusa's I’ve seen in my life. After this decision I explored a few of my first silhouettes adding more detail and character to them. I also have decided to stick with a more non human looking face rather that human to keep this creature more magic than realistic. Also, after speaking to another concept artist he said that big eyes will do well since they can be cute but also scary and this sounds good.

I will add images of my work here as well and moodboards however full description of my creature and final design will be displayed later.

(Also this week I am looking more at maps and topology to improve my sculpting)

Brief 2 (WoW Environmental Diorama) 

This week has more of a focus on character brief which means that this brief didn’t get much attention from me but I still tried to keep up with it.

I did my research with my friend that plays WoW all the time, we took screenshots of places that I found interesting and I’ve decided on the place I would like to stick with: Pandaria,

Now I am researching Pandaria and making moodboards. If I get any extra time this week I might do some ideas sketching. 

(Images below from my research with my friend)

Brief 3 (Game making with 2ndY)

This week we only had a meeting with the 2nd years to see what ideas they had for the game and what it would look like. Unfortunately only 2 people attended from my group, me and Abdul however few days before and a day before I notified everyone about the meeting and they agreed (but didn’t turn up). 

Also, as an extra news I am fully using Trello and it is one of my fav things now.

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2ndSem: Week 1

Brief 1 (Character Concept)

On the first day we were introduced to the module and all 3 Briefs (projects) we will be working on. The first project is based on making a character inspired by a movie (for the movie) but this time the character has to be game ready which means perfect topology and etc which means a lot of work, studying and research for me. 

I’ve started on this project already with a research. I chose three films to look at as a start: 

Fantastic Beasts and where to find them 

Alice in Wonderland

 Guardians of the Galaxy 

My first choice of the Fantastic Beasts came from my long love for Harry Potter movies and the variety of fantasy creatures and characters they have. This movie has very interesting designs and I get a lot of inspiration from them. Alice in Wonderland is my second choice for the crazy story and characters, my love to cheshire cat and the colours they have in this movie. Guardians of the Galaxy are my third choice also for the interesting characters such as the raccoon and the tree creature Groot. I love how they use bridgt crazy different colour skin for their “human” like characters and pull it off so well.

Overall, for now I am researching into each of this movies trying to think of ideas for each that I can later on choose from. I will be doing sketches and silhouettes for the characters and post some of them here later on.

For now here is one of my favorite fantastic beast concepts: 

Brief 2 (WoW environmental piece)

This project is all about environment and trying to pull off Blizzard WoW style. At the moment I am looking for inspiration and ideas from different sources like WoW world itself and others (for example real life). I am sketching different parts of environment to understand the shape better and get an idea of what exactly I would like to do. I also doing sketches environment outside my doors, of the houses , buildings, nature and etc 

Brief 3 ( Collaboration )

This brief is based on working with 2nd year CGA students. We are only going to start working with them after 3 weeks however as the leader of the team I have already contacted everyone and created chats for 1st years. We are planning on meeting others on Monday and will start to put ideas and plans together to work on this project later on.

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Week 10: Summary

Monday’s Digital Sculpting (MOD005512)

Today we have learnt about uv and texturing sculptures done in Zbrush. It was pretty simple and very interesting, also learnt a lot about alphas and how to use them in both colour and sculpting tool.

Tuesday and wednesday this week (as well as other days)

were full of working on my projects however I would not like to post my work here just for now. I have progressed in all of my projects and learnt a lot from books, video and internet research. Even pinterest showed me a lot that will really help me in my work.☺

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Week 9: Summary

Monday’s Digital Sculpting (MOD005512)

Today I was ill so could not come in how ever I took this time to work on my project at home, I started sculpting Ruby in Zbrush and will include first steps below.

Tuesday’s Concept Art and Drawing for Computer Games (MOD003564)

Today we have learnt mostly about colour and colour theories. This was very interesting and I have picked up quite a few points that will help in future with my art.

Wednesday’s Introduction to Computer Games Art (MOD000122)

This session was actually a little bit different, about lights in Maya and anything that goes with it. We worked with spheres not with our projects so there is nothing really to show here but this session gave me a lot to work with. This session I have learnt how to work with renderman and how it works.

We have three projects for this module and this is mu current progress: -Furniture I have fully sculpted my room, at the moment I am working on my Uv's and starting to pick colour pallet's for my room. I will soon start adding textures and This shouldn't take me too long to do.

-Cyberpunk I have done my research on this subject and have a lot of inspiration from games such as cyberpunk 2077. I am currently doing sketches and ideas and choosing between doing a vehicle such as a bike or a weapon. My inspiration was to do a quick character for the police in cyberpunk world, an ultimate mecha character with a big weapon. The idea was to do this weapon as my project.

- Cute character This is the project where we are working on the given game and making cute characters for it. I decided to pick a festive theme such as Easter or Christmas. A lot of games do separate skins and backgrounds for festive days and I thought it would be fun to try this in the given game. I chose to do Christmas, making a skin for the main character , and an elf and a reindeer for the background. I will mostly work on my elf who is already done sculpting and just needs to be done in uv and textures but if I have time I would also like my animal done. This project is very fun for me since I love designing characters but I have never done a character like this. Also I like designing cute things.

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Week 8: Summary

Monday’s Digital Sculpting (MOD005512)

This monday we have learnt what retopologizing is and decimation. I learnt a lot more about Zbrush and how it works, also by looking and tutorials online.

I have also done quite a lot of work on my red riding hood project. I will include some sketches below to show the development of my character. I have also decided to name her "Ruby" as the red stone. I am also currently working on the second characters who I decided is going to be the wolf, also a main character from this story but the villain. 

(Images of my work will be included separately in a blog for this project)

(Just a sketch I did exploring autodesk sketchbook in uni)

Tuesday’s Concept Art and Drawing for Computer Games (MOD003564)

Today we were talking about Character Ideation Techniques or Silhouette. I have always knew that silhouette is very important for character development or even a start for a future character but I today I have learnt more about this which will help me with my projects. For example I decided to re-start working on my second character (the wolf) for my digital sculpting project. I also have explored a little bit more about basic shape and how the use of these affect the characters visual. To explore this better I will try these three techniques in my own time: PhotoShop- Simple Brush. Zbrush – Character Sheet. PhotoBashing – looking for interesting shapes ( Pareidolia). Also, I have noticed that after starting this course I look at characters and overall film, game and animations in more depth trying to figure out how the artists did their work for this creation. I also research a lot about this and I am sure this helps me improve my understanding for this industry.

(Character sheet done in Zbrush)

Wednesday’s Introduction to Computer Games Art (MOD000122)

This day was all about texture and how to put them on uv's. Instead of explaining what we did I will include examples of me messing about with textures and exploring. I will also say that this was very fun and I find it very interesting playing around with texturing.

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Little Red Riding Hood. Stage 1 (Plot and Ideas)

Report num 1. Thinking about the story of my character and listing ideas to have something to work from. 

I have decided to work on the story of "Little Red Riding Hood" that was written by Brothers Grimm. Originally in the story the little girl gets eaten by the big scary wolf but later is saved by the huntsman. The character of little red riding hood originally portraits a very naive good girl however I am making my character inspired by the movie "Shrek". In this animation all the characters are based on their original story but the artists of Dreamworks do explore them further adding their own twist on these characters. This is exactly what I would like to do to my little red riding hood and make her my own and somewhat special. In the original story that I have researched for quite a while, little red riding hood is a very young girl aged somewhere under 10 years old, powerless and cute character that is very clear to read (exactly what the wolf did). She believes in everything she is told and tries to make everyone happy. But what if the story went in a little different way? I would like to explore what could happen to Little Red Riding Hood in the future. For example, her grandmother gets eaten by the wolf and not saved, or if I am not allowed to twist this story a lot..Even if the grandmother would be saved, the little girl might of decided to have a revenge on the big scary Wolf. Let's pretend the wolf have escaped and just a few years after the girl named "Red" decided that the wolf should pay for what he did, and she would like to find him and kill him to make sure he wont continue eating old ladies and their granddaughters. "Red" will be searching for the right wolf but she might encounter other wolfs? What would she do? Continue her revenge by killing all the other wolfs as well since from her experience she believes all wolfs are bad. I think this would be an interesting start of a story for my version of Little Red Riding Hood. I would like to now get more into her character since the base story is ready.

-Few years have passed, let's say little girl is now aged about 13-15 years old. -I would like to keep the innocent appearance to contrast with her acts. This will include the "baby" face of a very young girl, short height and innocent looking body build overall. - However I would like to find a way to make her face look a little bit naughty and evil, I think I might be able to do that with the eyebrows and eyes and the face expressions/emotions - The red hood will stay in play since this is a very big part of this character and also in the story she might keep the hood to make sure wolf recognizes her when they meet again - I would like to give her a weapon or a two, however I will have to think carefully about the weapon since a little girl would not be able to hold a massive weapon like a sword or huge gun. I understand that in games anything can be possible however I would like to keep this character more realistic and this is also because I am working inspired bu Shrek. In this animation the artist kept the characters realistic, both the looks and the personality - I would also like to give my character some wounds, scarf or even amputees, this is due to the amount of fights she gets to encounter while fighting with wolfs. Of course wolfs are bigger and stronger than Red, so her style of battle will be different. She would take them by surprise, dodging the attacks with her speed and since she is pretty small she is a small target which is harder to hit. I might also give her two types of weapon: gun: for long distance range and possibility to kill the wolf without a physical fight which is dangerous for her knife: or any kind of small compact blade that she can use in close contact with the enemy I was also thinking about giving her an ax that relates back to the original story and could be a very useful tool not just in combat but also in everyday life of Red. She is travelling a lot, might end up sleeping in strange places like forest and an ax might be very useful. 

For now this is all I have, I would like to start on sketching the character and exploring more of her experience. I will write another report later talking about the progress and how the character had changed from this stage.

Also, I would like to make an extra character. This will be the wolf, rough design and ideas on his appearance. Overall, I think this character should look very dangerous and big compared to little red riding hood. I think since he’s been there for years he might also have some grey fur or many scars left from old experience with huntsman or other enemies. I think this character will be fun to explore and will help me designing Red. 

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Week 7: Summary

Monday's Digital Sculpting (MOD005512) Today we spoke mostly about the proportion of the body and particular of the face. We have learnt how we can overlay images onto our work and use them as a guise, texture, or a paint overlay. This is a very useful technique and I will for sure need to use it in future. At the end we were learning how to use the guide to make sure your head proportions are all right and look good. We also now know how to fix the sculpture in place when you loose your angle. All of these little things come together into one very big and important thing that might be super useful in future when I will be sculpting my final piece.  

Tuesday's Concept Art and Drawing for Computer Games (MOD003564) Today we had a very different class from the previous. It was based on concept art and how it is made. For example we spoke about composition in our art pieces, and even known I have studied this before myself I did pick up a few useful tips from this lecture.At the end we also spoke a little about colour and a lot about using photo reference. Now I know well how to use it and I decided to try making a few pieces with this techniques I've learnt. I also gave myself a homework on trying to make an environmental piece with photobashing and big reference use. This class was very useful to me because at the momment I am thinking about becoming concept artist in future myself. Images coming later.

Wednesday's Introduction to Computer Games Art (MOD000122) Today we got our third brief and I decided to start working on it straight away. I am currently doing my research into the game we should be working on and also trying to think of how I can make super simple shapes interesting. This process is very exciting for me because it is what I like doing in my personal projects as well, making characters and trying to make them as fun and cool as possible. I will include references for this week later since it haven't even finished yet.

I will also include here a few steps from my furniture project: 

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Week 3: Summary

Monday's Digital Sculpting (MOD005512) This lesson we spoke about ZSpheres and how to build a simple character body from the start. Nothing detailed, just spheres and proportions. In these 3 weeks I've learned quite a lot about Zbrush and got more or less comfortable with it so it wasn't particularly hard to play around with these simple tools. (Examples will be here soon)

Tuesday's Concept Art and Drawing for Computer Games (MOD003564) Today we did a rather interesting experiment and unusual for most of students on my course. It was an experiment with charcoal. We were separated into groups and each of us would fill in a white page with charcoal and smudge it with a piece of tissue. It would make a smoke effect on which we would have to scribble something that first comes into our minds. We were passing these papers around while adding or taking away something from each of them and overall it was a very unusual and fun experience. At the end every group had a bunch of funny and weird looking drawing which we displayed for everyone to see. For homework we had doodling and I will also include that in this blog.

Wednesday's Introduction to Computer Games Art (MOD000122) On this session we spoke more about the game industry and the actuall practical work was based on our first brief which is to create/scult in Maya furniture in a room. And I started trying this out and working on my furniture. I found a lot of interesting looking furniture designs in IKEA and other websites. However, my mistake was that I chose a chair that was way too complicated for me a newbie in Maya. This is why I failed and decided to give up on this exact chair for now and try something different.

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Week 2: Summary

Monday's Digital Sculpting (MOD005512) This week we moved on from doing little things and started working with simple shapes and geometry. We worked on building Disney villain and I chose to do Maleficent. This is because she is one of my favorite characters from Disney world and my favorite villain. I also tried sculpting a simple portrait with minimum knowledge of the program at that time. I was planning to finish the character of as Ahri from League of Legends(Riot Games).  This was a very fun experience and I started to enjoy sculpting. (Images of my work coming soon)

Tuesday's Concept Art and Drawing for Computer Games (MOD003564) This week was "Cambridge Safari" week. We were given a map with many places marked on it, the point was to go to these places and make sketches and photos of interior and exterior. It was very interesting because we didn't only got to sketch and improve our environmental art but also let us explore Cambridge better. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed looking particularly at the architecture in Cambridge. 

Cemetery was maybe one of my favorites. This is because it looked like a perfect environment for a spooky game and I enjoy these games from time to time (More images coming soon)

Wednesday's Introduction to Computer Games Art (MOD000122) This day was also an introduction to Maya, more of a deep introduction. I looked at a lot of videos as well on beginner Maya tutorials and wrote a lot of notes down for myself in the future just in case I will need to recap on something. I did not sculpt anything exact, only played around with different shapes and tools. It was a lot of fun also, and I started to feel like I know Maya better now and maybe will be able to sculpt something very simple without need in a help every two minutes.

Image below is an example of how I tried out simple tools in Maya to make simple but interesting shapes. 

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Week 1: Summary

This week was the introduction week to all the modules and everything we are going to be doing in this semester.

Image below is a sketch I did in one of the amazing graphic tablets available on my course. It was a welcome sketch for myself and a very fun time with my new friends.

On Monday's we have Digital Sculpting (MOD005512) This week we had an introduction to Zbrush. This program is completely new to me since I've never done 3D before. We started of getting to know the simple tools and how the program works overall, for example the lightbox and how to start of a new project. We also learned how to adjust the settings on our tablets to make it easier to work with the program. We were also introduced to many helpful websites like Lynda and Pixologic that really helped me after with catching up and researching.

On Tuesday's we have Concept Art and Drawing for Computer Games (MOD003564) This module is based mostly on improving our 2D art skills. This session was for us to warm up and gather sketches, ideas inspiration for our further work. We went to museums such as FitzWilliam museum and Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Some of my sketches are included below.

On Wednesday's we have Introduction to Computer Games Art (MOD000122) This module started of introducing us to Computer Games art as whole, telling us everything we are going to be working on and doing the next three years and further in the industry.  We also started this module from introduction to the new program Maya (Autodesk). We started of doing simple stuff like we did with Maya learning how to use the basic tools.

Overall this week has been a good but confusing start. I’ve never done 3D before so it is quite hard at the moment to understand each program but I am sure it won’t take me long to get better at it.