Misc. Studies 2

 I've recently been doing a few studies to help me think about my work. Now that I have narrowed down my scope, I have come up with the first concept for one of the creatures I wanted to include, the falkerdeer.

 

 

Attempted to draw a figure from memory. 

 

Goblin concept.

 



 

Misc. sketchbook junk.

 

 

 

 

Below is a Zbrush "sketch" which didn't take me long to do. I did this before I did the hobbler troll to get me used to using Zbrush again.

 

 

 

A picture of Rio done for a mother's day present.  

 

 

Another attempt to do anatomy from memory.

 

 

And finally one of the species from GG - the honey dragon - done in the style of the "Gravity Falls" cartoon as colour practise.

 

 

FINAL final book idea

After completing the Hobbler Troll sculpture recently, I have decided to change the idea for my book. It will now be “Gretchen Goosander’s Top 25 Specimens of The Hidden World”. The reason as to why I wanted to change this is because I feel that 50 species is far too many. I do not want to include every single species I have thought of for the sake of completionism. This will result in having too many species and therefore too much to draw for the book. I would rather pick quality over quantity.

This book will no longer be just a fictional encyclopaedia. I have realised that there are too many magical species in the Gretchen Goosander series to include them all and even when I narrow the scope down to species included in just Upshire, it is still too many to handle. Doing it as a top 25 list can still give the book an encyclopaedia quality, but without it being too heavy. This is intended to be a sort-of gateway book to entice people of the Gretchen Goosander universe into the idea of hidden ones and the world they live in rather than being a proper encyclopaedia. It will also be more original than just going for a straight-up encyclopaedia since this has been done to death by many fantasy writers.

I have written a list of 25 hidden creatures which I would like to include, plus one dishonourable mention (the blood dragon). I can now have 5 of these as Zbrush models instead of 3-4.

Zbrush project - Hobbler troll

 

After studying “Anatomy for 3D Artists: The Essential Guide for CG Professionals” and “ZBrush Creature Design: Creating Dynamic Concept Imagery for Film and Games”, I wanted to try out making my first 3D model of a creature. The creature in question is a hobbler troll.

 

Unlike many of the Gretchen Goosander creatures, I have never drawn an initial concept for a hobbler troll before. This is because hobbler trolls do not appear often in the story book and only appear as minor characters. The most I have thought of for the hobbler troll is the following description;

“If you can imagine a humanoid pug with skin like rotting bark, that’s a hobbler troll in a nutshell.”

But I want to be more experimental with this concept outside of just “humanoid pug”. I want to demonstrate the workflow of coming up with a creature concept for zbrush as well as see just how much human and creature anatomy I have managed to remember. This workflow will be similar to what I did with the unicorn girl, only this time I will be using zbrush mostly.

To begin with, I design the creature using thumbnails and sketches. This is recommended in the Zbrush creature design book which gives a number of ways to go about doing this, but I go with old-fashioned pencil and paper since this is quicker for me. Meanwhile, I play music that fits the character (as suggested by the Zbrush book) and I also look at a good number of pug and rotting bark references. Before going into this, I had already gone through numerous books that have helped inspire the design. These are;

·       Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastic World around You.

·       The Natural History book.

·       Animals Real and Imagined

·       Faeries

·       The Goblins of Labyrinth.

These books have been created by experienced creature designers, biologists and illustrators such as Tony Diterlizzi, Brian Froud and Terryl Whitlatch and I have learnt a lot about character appeal and design from them. Meanwhile, I am always keeping in mind the character’s gesture, weight-distribution, form, presence, personality and appeal. The anatomy is important for grounding, but all of these other character design principles are probably more urgent and need to be tackled first.

I went through a lot of initial designs for the hobbler troll. The third picture down was the image I ended up liking the most as it was simple and effective, though I still explored other design ideas from there until I couldn't think of any more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I did the final design in Photoshop and started playing around with colour schemes. I quite like a lot of these, though some are a little bland while others don't really fit the idea I had in mind. The third, 10th and 11th troll designs are the ones I prefer, though I could only go with one for the final design which ended up being the 11th.

 

 

Here are some progression screenshots.

 

 

 

 

 

And this is the final design! I closely followed instructions from the Zbrush creature design book to achieve this and I am happy with the final result.

 

 

 

Final book idea.

I have considered the final idea for my book now. I am still mulling over a title, though it will be something along the lines of “Gretchen Goosander’s Guide to the hidden creatures of Upshire”.

My biggest worry about the book was that it could have potentially included too few or too many species. The problem with a global encyclopaedia is that it would take too long to put together whereas a book confined to a small region such as Darkling forest would omit far too many interesting species that I wanted to include. Therefore, I will just go with the county of Upshire for now. I can now include Upshire valley, Precarious Rock, Darkling Forest, Pirthing-Trot, Heralding Peaks and Talonton in the list of locations that will be mentioned. Considering that Upshire is a counterpart for Yorkshire, it has very similar Geography and places.

I have written out a list of fifty-one species which will be included in the book. I haven't decided yet how I will group these or if they will be alphabetised.

I have included as few non-native species as possible. This includes Peruvian Thundersnatches which have only appeared in Upshire a few times during the worst storms in Upshire’s history.  I may also be omitting extinct species or placing them on a list on the back of the book, which include unicorns and Woreknuu. Species such as the Auroraphrax and the Loch Ness Gatekeeper may be mentioned by name but not included in the plates despite their importance to the overall story as, yet again, they are not Upshire species.

Of these species, each individual will have their own sketch included so that people can get an idea for how they are supposed to look. However, a select few will come with their own Zbrush rendering. I am going to pick just three or four creatures to get given the Zbrush/Photoshop hybrid treatment.

I will probably be wrapping up all of the preliminary work for this project soon so that I can begin all of the final designs. I feel like I have done a sufficient amount of character studying, anatomical studying and experimentation with Zbrush and there isn’t a lot more for me to do now.

Character/Creature analysis - Trico

I recently finished playing “The Last Guardian” for PS4 and wanted to do a blog post relating to the game.

 

This is because I feel like Trico is a perfect example of how to design a good creature/character. The developers went to great lengths to make Trico feel believable and organic in his design, behaviour and movements, blending elements from many different creatures to create a chimera of sorts that fits together seamlessly. Trico is memorable because of how he is able to connect with the player despite not being anthropomorphic in any way. His characteristics are very similar to that of a dog or cat and his mood is conveyed entirely through body language and the noises he makes. The game has been designed in a way that makes the player and Trico depend on each other from the very start. Consequently, there is more of a need to protect and help Trico since you need him and he needs you. 

 

Above all, there is a Falkor-like charm to his design, though he can also be frightening when aggressive. The game’s director, Fumito Ueda, explained that the game is targeted towards people who have pets as they will be able to connect with Trico. Gamers such as Pewdiepie have indeed made comparisons between Trico and his own pet dog.

Something that this game highlights is an important aspect of character and creature design that absolutely cannot be overlooked, and that is experience with creatures from the real world. One reason as to why creature design comes so naturally to me is due to how many animals I have looked after over the years. This experience helps add little nuances that add up to a bigger picture. It is simply impossible to pull off a convincing creature design, even if you have a vast knowledge of all the character design principles and techniques, if you do not have that real-world contact. Here is a quote from the game's Wikipedia page.

"Much of the creature's behaviour was based on Ueda's own childhood experiences growing up in a home full of animals"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Guardian

And as someone who owns greyhounds, they have in fact expanded my knowledge of how to structure an animal. Perhaps if I have time, I may do some life studies of my dogs.

Proko studies.

I have been taking online anatomy courses by Stan Prokopenko (AKA, Proko) for some time now. Here are some of the figure studies that I have done from his course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recently, I feel that my understanding of anatomy is much stronger than it used to be. I can draw a basic skeleton from memory and a basic musculature of the upper body (though I am still having trouble remembering all of the leg muscles and may need further practise in this field). Drawing more complex poses is starting to become less of an issue, though I always find it easier to draw from reference.

I also finished reading through “How To Render: The Fundamentals of Light, Shadow and Reflectivity” and have gained a deeper understanding of how to do efficient rendering of shadows. As a quick little activity, I did some colour-picking on skin tone to study the values and the variations of colour in different areas. What I found was quite interesting considering that the palest areas of skin are near-white and the darkest areas in the occlusion shadows are almost black. This wide range of values gives the figure a great deal of depth.