BA1a Character Concepts

This is the piece I chose to be my final concept. I feel the mood portrayed is the exact look I was trying to achieve.

I felt as if this piece was too 'cute' and didn't quite capture the feeling I was aiming for.

Whereas in my other two designs my character is quite obviously not an adult, this piece makes my character seem older. This was not appropriate as I was designing the Shoemakers "boy".

BA1a Persian Character iteration

I went with the design I had previously taken an interest in. My character is draped in a vibrant red cloak/shawl, with baggy blue patterned trousers. As the shoemaker's boy did not play a large part in The Tinderbox I wanted to make him stand out as much as possible, a hero in his own quest.

Using sketches of "Hiro" from Big Hero 6 as a reference I drew out what I wanted my character to look like with a face, something I dreaded since starting on this brief.







Trying to establish my characters hair colour and skin tone was difficult, I really need to practice drawing humans. This is definitely not my forte.

On my character sheet I show my character's running movements, I could have shown more than this. I feel that it would be a struggle to animate my character doing much more considering the detail I would like to be applied to his clothing.

BA1a Persian Character Silhouettes

After being given the brief to design a character from Hans Christian Anderson's "The Tinderbox" I chose the 'Shoemakers boy'. I began by creating interesting silhouettes. I'm not happy with this first set of silhouettes, I used alchemy to create an interesting shape and then added to and subtracted from it to form some 'interesting' iterations.

These worked a little better, I had decided at this point that I would be designing the "Shoemaker's boy" character from The Tinderbox story. These characters look a little more child like than my others.

I quite liked the first paint over of this silhouette, though it really didn't fit with my time period, being the Persian empire. The rightmost design could work quite well however.

These designs all appear a little too mature looking to become a child character. That is, assuming the shoemakers boy is a child.









Having found the designs on the far left the most interesting, I decided to develop them and add more character in the form of clothing.

BA1a Timepiece and Model Sheet

Above is my final representation of my timepiece. My timepiece casts light on the runestones surrounding it to signify important events taking place in the surrounding area. Each stone is individual (one for sacrifice, one for feasting, etc.)

Model sheet, this design is absent of colour other than a deep red glow and white veins on its roots.

BA1a Timepiece Development

When given the brief to design a timepiece, I first thought "I'll design a skeleton pocket watch!"... but that's already been done. I wanted to create something original, even if influenced by existing time measuring devices. On the left is a timepiece idea inspired by sundials and Stonehenge, I liked this idea but it was too simple. The stylised nature of this piece was inspired by Eytan Zana.



I started creating some silhouettes in Alchemy, just looking for interesting shapes and compositions. The design that looks reminiscent of a willow tree was by far the most interesting, looking both eerie and imposing. I decided I would create a totem to place in the middle of my stone circle.

Atop my totem I placed a deer skull, to further enhance the eerie-ness. This totem would be almost like an altar where tribal villagers would come to sacrifice small mammals or make other such offerings.

Trying to develop the totem further was a struggle at this point wasn't working. I was painting without any reference imagery.

The stones for my circle needed to be more interesting, I turned them into glowing runestones (because glowing stuff is cool).

This is a terrible, but an informative layout thing.

BA1a Insect in Environment

I started off by sketching out the basic composition I wanted to achieve with this piece. My horse sized insect sprinting into the foreground.

After I started adding colour to this piece I quickly realised I wasn't achieving the look I was going for. Though in hindsight I probably should have stuck with this piece.

This is where the problems started, after painting a reasonably successful background I started painting an awful mess of an insect atop it. I'd have thought working into it would have made it better, but it only got worse.

This piece could have been so much better if I had continued with the previous composition. Though I feel it does accurately represent my insect, there is no depth or emotion in this painting.

BA1a Insect Character Sheet

My character sheet for my insect. As you can see it displays horse-like qualities, whilst still retaining the exoskeleton, three body segments and six legs that many insects have. While I would like the insect to run like a horse would (rendering its middle legs useless), the insect still displays the jittery movements associated with its tiny counterparts.

BA1a Insect Bodies

Creating insect body silhouettes was interesting. Knowing that insects only have three body segments, six legs and can be pretty much any shape otherwise was interesting. I wanted to create something imposing, the sharp edged form suggests aggressive characteristics.

This first silhouette looked a little too ant-like, form not strong enough.

I liked the assertive qualities this form suggests, being that is it quite aerodynamically shaped. This would make the insect more maneuverable at high velocities.

Over-paint of the previous silhouette, I kept the same exo-skeleton style as used in the leg designs. I feel like this design lacks depth and interest.

Colour swatches of body design.

BA1a Insect Research / Inspirational Imagery

The contrast between the vibrant yellow and deep black on this insect is a similar colour scheme to what I had in mind for my designs.

The hair on this wasps legs would look great on my insect design.

Dragonfly - http://animalia-life.com/image.php?pic=/data_images/insect/insect4.jpg
Wasp - http://7-themes.com/data_images/out/72/7019479-bee-insect.jpg
Grasshopper - http://www.top10listland.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/grasshopper.jpg

BA1a Notes on Lighting

This is a photograph I took in Manchester recently. There's a lot going on in this image concerning lighting.
1. Reflection: The slightly warped reflection of the building opposite to the center building is being produced by light being reflected almost perfectly off the smooth glass.
2. Diffused reflection: This can be seen on the grey panels dotted about our subject building. The rough surfaces are reflecting light, but in to many directions to produce a clear reflected image.
3. Absorbtion: The dark surfaces under the subject buildings protuberances are both absorbing light.

BA1a Notes on Composition

 This image is a still from the animated film Tekkonkinkreet. I find the composition of this piece interesting, it clearly makes use of divine proportion. You can see there is an increasing amount of information further into the spiral, when it is applied to the image.

 A painting by the renowned Feng Zhu, one of my favourite artists. It is apparent that the artist has followed (however unintentionally) the hexagonal grid method; to increase interest in his artwork.

 The cover artwork for 30 Seconds to Mars' album "A Beautiful Lie" surely uses a root 3 hexagon grid. With the grid applied, it can be seen that all three arrow points line up perfectly. The skulls aso fit perfectly within this grid.

BA1a Insect legs colour

Having decided on a style of exoskeleton for my insect I began to paint over and add detail to my silhouettes. The legs in the last image turned out better than the rest, I put more thought into their functionality. My first limb iteration to the left was the simplest, I liked the idea of my insect having a cracked exoskeleton.

My second leg design has a little too much going on for it to be taken seriously, with the two smaller balls removed it could make more sense.

Though this design appears almost entirely impractical as a leg, it could work as a wing. I tried to keep the style of exoskeleton constant.

This leg design is my favourite, it looks like it could actually function. I will definitely be using this in my final design.

BA1a Insect Limbs

I selected parts of my Alchemy creations that I found interesting and attempted to extract them. Painting in Photoshop I was able to create several interesting insect leg silhouettes. Though some of the limbs I have created appear impractical...