s0ulchili

[s0ulchili]

Other Class Stuff!!

This class in particular took up all my time and drained the life right out of my body. They don't mess around in SOTA. I got some cool pieces out of it, though, and that's why I want to share them. I also feel guilty that I couldn't put this kind of effort into DFX 452, but I seriously just couldn't. This course was seriously like working a full-time job, except I had 5 more part-time jobs on top of it plus all the crazy stuff that happened to me this semester. Not to be like, "woe is me" but I don't care! I'm gonna be a baby about it!

^^^ This is the painting I mentioned in my last post!!!!!

^^^ I also referenced this one!!!! No idea who the artist is, I just know they're very dead.

^^^ Forgot the name of the guy who did this one too but I think he's still kickin'

Tumblr has a post limit so we'll stop here. This is only half of them. This is what kept me from doing my 4 pieces!! I wouldn't have traded this class for anything though. The skills I learned here complimented DFX 452 extremely well and made for some stronger portfolio pieces, which is what really matters.

[s0ulchili]

Final Update + Thoughts

A lot has gone down since the last update, which was actually pretty long ago but for some reason it went missing so I had to repost. So no!!! I don't mean 10 minutes ago, I mean like a month.

Originally, I set out to do 4 pieces. FULL pieces, like the ones in the last post. That was a joke. Not even a very funny one. I have done so much work this semester that it's insane. In fact, I'm thinking about still using this blog even after school so maybe I'll post some of the other work! I've pretty much lived on my laptop for the past 15-16 weeks, but there was so way on earth I was gonna get two more pieces done. There just weren't enough hours in the day. Sadly I had to give up on that idea, but I have something else to present...

No, none of these are super high quality. Some are a lot better than others, but they all do what I needed them to do: Tell some kind of story in a semi-elegant way. We decided it would be best for me to focus on the cinematic side of concept art, so even if the pieces aren't fully rendered, we can still get some idea about where they're going even if they never actually get there. What I can appreciate about some of these pieces is that it almost feels like you, the viewer, are inserted into these scenes. The boat scene - the first one on the left - maybe you're in a boat yourself, right in the front. Maybe you're floating across this ocean to visit the village on the other side. Maybe it would've been smarter to take that little bridge, but you didn't!!! Also, if that one looks a little familiar, it was inspired by a famous piece that I'm pretty sure was done by Monet. Anyway...the middle piece on the far right! What is that thing??? I was going for a licker from Resident Evil 2 kind of vibe. It almost feels like you're standing in front of that window, peeking over the corner at whatever kind of abomination is crawling across the window outside. It's horrible. I love it. I also owe credit to the artist that inspired the piece with the castle and the ghost!! Don't know their name, but they're dead and very famous.

Like my last pieces, I also played with the framing of one of these pieces. I didn't feel like framing really enhanced the others enough to consider posting it, but this one in particular was nice...

^^^ Yeahhh!! Check it out! Not bad.

This is all I have for this update. In the next one I think I want to post some of the other work I've done this semester, mainly because it pertains to what I've done in this class. See ya there.

[s0ulchili]

Quick Repost?

I can't help but notice my last post (specifically my post for blog check #3) is missing...so...don't know what that's about. But!!! I needed to repost it anyway, as I've made a few adjustments to those two pieces. Here they are!

^^^ This is my first masterpiece. It was also the last one finished. It drove me crazy. I played around with the framing and got a few really cool angles of this piece. I'll show those down below.

There were a few more, but these were the ones that I found super cool. The rest weren't really anything to talk about. NEXT!!!!

^^^ I love this. This is it. My magnum opus. The pinnacle. Love this thing. Like our first piece, I messed with the framing. I also managed to "permanently" (I cropped the image then closed the file) crop the original and I almost panicked until I realized I'm a genius and I set my crop tool to not delete cropped pixels so I've lived to see another day, yay me.

These are pretty similar, but as you can see a LOT of information has been cropped. These frames really prioritize the main subject without all the filler stuff getting in the way. The first one is a little experimental, but I'm into it. There's already a lot of mystery radiating off this piece (like, what's even happening?) but that frame amps it up by cropping out my dude's eyes. Something about leaving out the eyes...it just does something.

That's all for this update! Stay tuned for the one coming at you in like 10 minutes!

[s0ulchili]

Piece 2 Complete!!!

Yes, I’m doing them out of order. Honestly I just liked this piece a whole lot better than Piece 1. So let’s have a look at my process...

^^^ Last time we saw this piece, it was pretty crunchy. Now it’s nice and smooth. I have an added bonus here now - the background was finished so it was high time to throw in some of the cool stuff. I decided my little archer friend would occupy the tall tree, but we needed some creep factor to keep things unsettling...so I threw in an ominous shadow creeping around the other side of the tree. Nothing more fun than that. 

The shadow was a little too straightforward to bother including it in this post, but the character was another story, so let’s take a closer look at him.

^^^ And here he is in all his bloody, beaten glory! I like how this turned out, I think it makes the viewer ask a lot of questions. Overall I’m really content with him, although it was a struggle to get to this point. I had a few issues with the face (probably because he was just so small on the screen), but I also encountered some pretty major issues due my own dumb mistake. I decided it would be a great idea to merge the lineart layer with the finished project and I didn’t catch it in time to undo it, so that was a really fun correction to make right after I’d completely finished him! Art is great. Maybe that’s how he got beat up - it was because of me pounding the stylus on the screen hoping the lineart would go away. Kidding, I’d never do that to my tablet but I sure did come close. 

Anyway, let’s take a look at the finished product.

^^^ And here she is in all her glory! I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I think this piece has the potential to tell a dark story, and it also challenged me as an artist because I’m not really one to do backgrounds. We have our archer buddy recovering from his wounds in a tree, creepy shadow man lurking around on the ground, and a stream of arrows slapped around all over our trees. What does it all mean? What story is being told? I don’t even know, that’s just up to your interpretation. All I can say is that it’s exciting. 

I also wanna brag for a moment because this was a big deal to me: I did all of this without a reference. The only reference I used for any part of this piece was the reference of my own character. I really am proud of myself for that. I think it’s a good showcase of my improvement even if the piece could’ve been made better through the use of a reference. What was important to me was knowing whether or not I could pull it off, and I somehow did. Overall I really think this one was a hit. It makes me hopeful for my other piece as well as the other two I still need to make. Life really kicked me around and as a result I’ve fallen behind but I don’t think it’s too late to catch up. I’m looking forward to keeping this momentum going and seeing what I can accomplish moving forward.

[s0ulchili]

Piece 2 Sneak Peek

I’ve been working hard on piece 1 but I don’t feel like I have enough for a good update just yet. In the meantime, I accidentally ended up with a second piece. It was originally for my art class before I realized how perfect it would be for this one. I had to come up with a new piece for my art class in a single night. It was tragic but worth it to keep the piece pictured here: 

For the most part, this piece is still in its rough sketch stage. I started working a bit on the background - I’m trying to start outward and work my way inside to the more detailed pieces. I think by the time it’s done it could end up being my favorite of all of the pieces that I do. I love the color green and the calm nature vibe of the piece. You already know I’m gonna add something creepy to it though. Hopefully soon we’ll be able to see this one evolve - I’m planning to add some very ominous shadows and maybe a character or two hiding out in the trees waiting to strike. It’s gonna be a fun one. 

[s0ulchili]

Piece 1 pt.1

This piece will feature two of my five characters - the mage and the knight. I imagine they’re brothers so it seemed nice to put them together. I don’t necessarily want this to be a narrative piece, but more so just something nice to look at. I’m kind of using this first piece as an opportunity to warm up, so I’m taking a lot of creative liberties as far as actually using a competent process, if that makes sense. I just kind of played around until I liked what I was seeing, and hopefully I can brainstorm up the rest as I go along. I’m taking a look at the Dragon Age: Origins cover art for inspiration. I really wanted to do a piece that was simple - monochromatic in red. Here’ the process so far: 

^^^ Here we can see a rough sketch of my initial idea. This piece doesn’t feature a background yet.

^^^ Here we have another sketch. This time I focused on the outfits, paying close attention to the references. I also took some time to fix all the proportional issues I noticed.

^^^ Now we’re taking a pretty big leap ahead. Here I’ve finished the lineart and, again, fixed any proportional issues I caught. I played around with different line widths and tried deviating a bit from my usual style. I’m planning to shade them in using only black so that I can go underneath them in a new layer and play around with color. 

Overall I’m content with my progress so far. I’m not sure where this piece will go, but like I said, this is my way of sort of figuratively dipping my feet in the water before I dive in. I think my guys look pretty great here, I’m just not sure if I’m content with the overall composition. That’s something I’ll look into before I start on the next stage. Hopefully I can establish a background and a general idea of where I want to go with this pretty soon, but until then, I’m happy with it.

[s0ulchili]

DFX 452 TIME!!!

Time to start a new project. I’m excited to see where this one goes. I plan on making this a continuation of the work I did in DFX-352. Now that I’ve established a set of characters and laid out viable references for them, I plan on testing the work I created and seeing if it holds up throughout the entire creation process. My plan is to take those references and turn them into complete pieces of concept art that will hopefully look tasty in my portfolio. Can’t wait to see how it all turns out.

[s0ulchili]

Final Thoughts

This was fun. I could do it forever. I really did put a lot of work into these, and I feel like I achieved every goal I set out to complete. Despite all my other obligations, I finished this project with over a week to spare. I’m definitely giving myself some applause for that. I can feel a change in my artistic abilities. I wanted to practice and improve and I really think I did. Even better, despite improving I feel like I managed to keep things consistent. By breaking each character’s details up into tasks that I completed simultaneously, I ensured my improvement wasn’t noticeable in a bad way. It would’ve sucked if my first sheet was mediocre compared to the last.

I think if I had to do everything over, I’d do more research. I did quite a bit of research, but I still found myself confused at points. I wasn’t sure what features I wanted to highlight on my characters. I ended up forcing details in at the end (like the elf guy’s ear, if you look back on old posts it’s not there). It worked out for me, sure, but it still wasn’t exactly ideal. All around I just should have planned a little better and had a solid end goal in mind. Instead, I winged it with almost everything. Another thing I’d do differently - sometimes I get sloppy. Luckily it’s rare. I wasted a lot of my own time trying to power through and turn in mediocre work that I’d just end up erasing and restarting later. Instead of forcing myself to produce something, next time I think I should just take a step back and finish up later when I’m actually feeling it. All-in-all, I’m pretty proud. I know I worked hard and I think it shows. Of course, I can always do better. Even the best can be better, and I’m still just a student with a LOT to learn. Like, seriously a lot. A ton. I can’t wait to take these new skills and see what I can come up with next semester. I hope I can impress myself again.

[s0ulchili]

10: D-O-N-E

After working for so long it feels a little surreal, but they are DONE. I’m probably gonna sit on them for a little while before I turn them in - step away for a day or two so I can look back on them with fresh eyes and spot any mistakes.

Wild.

[s0ulchili]

9: Final Additional Details

This was the last thing I had to do: close-ups of minor details I thought should go on the reference sheets.

I didn’t take many progress shots - I really powered through all of these. Here we have tattoos, scars, deformities, outfit details...any identifying trait I could think of, or anything I thought needed its own special highlight. Pretty crazy to think I’m done. All I have to do is put everything together.

[s0ulchili]

8: The Pondering Orb

Hmmmm....

I actually used a reference for this - the reference is the blue one. Mine’s a little off but I’m content with it.

[s0ulchili]

7: Weapons

Here’s the full process for the weapons. Side note: the bow was super fun to do for some reason.

^^^ The weapons were done in four different steps. The sword is already fully finished through the entire process because I drew it a while back and decided to use it since it would save me some time. I’ll get into the orb’s details in another post - lots of images.

[s0ulchili]

6: Outfits Done (Forever)!!

I decided to power through and finish all the outfits. I’m very content with how they turned out, but I may end up coming back to add a few extra details later on. We’ll see.

^^^ This was the full process - some of these images exist in previous posts but for ease of access I’m including all 5 steps here. Like I said, I’m happy with how they turned out. I also managed to do this relatively quickly, which is always a plus. Next post will ACTUALLY be the weapons unless I decide to lie again! hehe :-]

[s0ulchili]

5: Outfits Done (For Now)!!

It’s been a very demanding week so it took longer than I would’ve liked to finish the flat color on the outfits. I did manage to do it, though.

^^^ Finished flat color on all 5 outfits, front and back. 

Obviously I took a final look at each of these just to make sure I really like the look of everything before I set it into stone. Luckily, I’m content with everyone. I think the first four look diverse enough to keep things interesting while really driving home the point that they belong to the same culture. For the most part I wanted their palettes to be pretty desaturated - with some exceptions, like the red on some of the “knightier” uniforms. The last guy boasts a slightly more saturated look, definitely with a lot of darkness. I imagine the culture he’s from wears more colorful, saturated clothing, but he sticks to dark tones for crime purposes - each party has to have an eccentric thief and he’s the chosen one. Sorry, that’s just how it has to be.

Before I started this process, I made a little record for myself that detailed a few colors I’d like to use for each character. Now that I’m done, I wanna post those findings here. 

^^^ A little diagram depicting the original colors I had in mind for each character versus how they actually ended up. This step was pretty unnecessary, I just find it really interesting to see how my own brain sort of evolves as I go through the process. I’ve never really had to analyze myself in this way, so now that I am, I’m going all out. Side note: I’m cracking up over how massive this image is versus the one I actually came here to show off. Oh well.

[s0ulchili]

4: Outfits

It’s been a little while since my last post, but I’ve made a lot of progress since my last update. I’m working on outfits for my characters now, and I have them fully lined. I’ll post a bit of the process so far:

^^^ Progress shots. First I sketched out their outfits and redrew their faces to match the poses. After that, I finished up the rest of my line work. Once all the lineart was taken care of, I colored in the new faces and finished up the rest of the fleshy parts as well. Now, I’m working on coloring in all the outfits. I’m using flat color for now, but hopefully I’ll have the time to come in and add some serious detail. I definitely expect to have the time but in the event that I don’t, my main goal is to make sure they have a polished look to them. 

I’m still right on track despite taking a brief break after screwing up and buying the Resident Evil 2 Remake. Didn’t think it could get any better than the original but I definitely got addicted. I expect to be finished with the coloring process soon, and I’ll post the finished product here. After that I’ll be moving onto the weapon designs. Should be fun; I don’t really get around to designing weapons too often so I’m sure it’ll be an interesting challenge.

[s0ulchili]

3: Bonus Progress

As hinted at before in my last post, I’ve also finished references for my characters’ tattoos. As I imagine most of them being from the same region/culture, I wanted them to be somewhat uniform and look as if they belong together. I’m also a sucker for fine detail, and while the details may be overkill, I love them and I’m content.

^^^ 4 intricate tattoos. From left to right the tattoos signify a mage, archer, warrior, and healer.

I imagine these tattoos would serve as a class marker. They contain a lot of symbolism for the classes they represent, like foliage and herbs for a healer, so on so forth. Despite varied subject matter, the line work and shading are uniform throughout the four pieces, and I feel like they all complement each other well and hopefully get the point across. 

Aside from funny little tattoos, I’m making pretty good time. As of right now I’m right on schedule with what I outlined in my project proposal. I already have a pretty huge portion of my next phase completed as well, so that’s always a plus. It’s all turning out to be really fun and I’m excited to get into REALLY designing these bad boys.

[s0ulchili]

2: Beginning + Progress

So far I’ve managed to get a lot of work done on my project. Obviously the first and most important step is to figure out a layout I want for my designs, so that’s where I started. I decided to go for a front and back full-body view of my characters, as well as their faces, weapons, and other noteworthy details about their appearance. I’ll also be including a small color palette. I don’t plan on muddying up the references with words, so I’ll be relying solely on images to convey my ideas.

^^^ Draft of one of my reference sheets. All 5 are complete but for the sake of simplicity I’m only including one.

Once I finished the layouts and had a rough idea of what these characters looked like, I decided it would be a smart idea to go ahead and paint their faces. I felt this would give me a better sense of who they are and how I should design their clothing, which is arguably the most important element here. So, I did just that.

^^^ Fully colored faces. Although I debated mimicking an existing style, I ultimately just decided to go with my own. I think the slight stylization looks nice. You also may notice all the fancy tattoos, we’ll get into that in another post. Would hate to use up all my material all at once.

After completing the character faces, I realized I was a genius. It was a genuinely good idea to start there. I got to spend quality time with each character, adding details and working them into a larger story that I can make use of later. Ah, it’s hard being so smart.

Now, thanks to all the time I spent pre-planning, I feel like I’m ready to get into designing the outfits these people will wear. I’ll probably refine their bodies first and add some color. Most of their skin won’t be visible but the coloring practice may be good for me, plus I feel it’s better to view the body as a whole instead of chopping it up into covered/uncovered pieces if that makes sense. We’ll see how it goes.