First Blog Evaluation.

This is a short blog post to sum up what I have learnt over the past several weeks for the first three learning outcomes. I will be reflecting on the work I have done and using it to understand what direction my work will be taking after this point.

What I have learnt.

Firstly I have learnt a great deal about basic character design principles and some of the terminology used to describe different aspect of character design, (eg, presence, gesture, shape language etc...). I have come to understand how important it is to create a striking character design that immediately appeals to someone viewing it and how not to make a character feel unappealing and generic.

I have also learnt the many differences between character design and creature design and where these overlap. There are a lot more principles to take into account for designing a character than just a creature, but all principles of creature design can also apply to your character.

I have learnt a great deal about anatomy, though perhaps not enough as I will elaborate on shortly. I at least have a fundamental and basic understanding of skeletons and the muscular system in humans and animals as well as many adaptations of vertebrates and invertebrates. I can create a skeletal and muscular system for a fantasy creature without too much difficulty.

Lastly, I have learnt a great deal more about ZBrush and how I can use it to speed up my workflow. Dynamesh is a very fast and powerful tool and I have been using it a lot. I now also understand Zbrush's strengths and limitations. On top of this, I now understand how to blend the elements of Zbrush and Photoshop to create a high-quality end product.

What was valuable.

It is very difficult to say exactly what was valuable without resorting to "everything I have learnt so far is valuable". But to be more precise, the most valuable lessons have come from what I learnt in "Zbrush Creature Design: Creating Dynamic Concept Imagery for Film and Games". Many of the other books I took out were good to give me inspiration or to fill the gaps in my knowledge, but this book alone gave me a fast and concise lesson for every single one of the first three learning outcomes, especially on the Zbrush side of things.

That's not to say that every other book, video and audio piece relating to character design didn't help, because they did. However, some were a little on the time-wasting side and others just summed up what I already knew.

What was not valuable.

I don't want to say that nothing was valuable, but perhaps there were times that I didn't need to do as much work as I did. This includes when I decided to draw all of the horse breeds just to try and hammer horse anatomy into my head or when I went through the Loomis books and drew the same figure three times over. I did learn from these, but perhaps more than I needed to which ended up tiring me out and making it harder for me to learn more as a result. A few of the books weren't really worth reading fully, either. These include "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" which didn't contain illustrations of creature designs.

What problems I have encountered.

Other than minor bugs with Zbrush and the occasional bout of burnout, my biggest issue has to be time. This pertains to both managing time in that I have not been very efficient in maximising my study time and that I feel that there simply hasn't been enough time to learn everything I need. A lot of artists say that you never stop learning, which is true, but that's never an excuse for having extremely weak fundamentals. I am talking mostly about anatomy. This is somewhat a catch 22 situation. I spent a previous paragraph complaining that I spent too much time agonising over anatomy, but I still feel like my sense of anatomy isn't strong enough to be "industry standard". If someone points to a muscle, I probably wouldn't be able to remember the name of it. I certainly couldn't draw an anatomically correct human figure from memory, either. Perhaps it is that the time spent doing the negotiated skills module wasn't enough to fully learn and understand anatomy. It is better than it was a few weeks ago, but perhaps only marginally.

How has the learning informed the final learning outcome.

The knowledge gained from the first three learning outcomes has helped me understand just how much work I need to put into the final book in order to complete it. It has helped me pull together my ideas and solidify my character designs so that hopefully, the final product will be of a very high quality. It has also helped me understand that I shouldn't overwork myself and my ideas.

Wrapping up the first 3 learning outcomes.

Now is the final stretch for this project. I have done as much as I can on the side of planning and character design and I feel like there isn’t much more for me to do now considering that the deadline for learning outcomes 1, 2 and 3 are coming up. I am using this blog post to bring together my final creature ideas and sum up what needs to be done for the final learning outcome.

As mentioned before, I am including 25 species plus an extra one for a dishonourable mention. The majority of creatures are creatures that I have already created and fussed out the designs for over the years. These include; Lunarphrax, Auroraphrax, cervichaun, moonstalker, Peruvian thundersnatch, angel spider, vykurian nightshriek, jeckersnapper, stigs and glaistigs, solarphrax,  chidderin, fenree, whistling unicorn, seaboys, mollasserphrax and blood dragon. There isn’t a lot that needs doing to these creatures other than perhaps a quick brush-up in their anatomy and overall designs. Therefore, I’m not posting any re-designs of them here.

Next are the creatures that have already been created, though need significant redesigns or more added to their species. These include; Gatekeeper serpent, sea fury, gut-guzzling-gut-ripper and vampire. I have included some updated ideas for these below.

 

 

 

 

Lastly are creatures that I haven’t drawn before that need designing. These are; Sonicaphrax, audiaphrax, vorkuu, falkerdeer, brain bird and deadly pathway. I have posted designs for these below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After I have done my evaluation blog post to sum up what I have learnt, I will be moving on to the final book itself and bringing a close to the first three learning outcomes. After that, I will be just planning the drawings and pages for the book, plus what will be written.

ArtPrompts and misc.

 

I recently found out about a website called "ArtPrompts" which gives prompts to artists who have artist block. Some character designers like Jake Parker use the website and I thought it would be good for me to try it out as well. Here is a link to the website.

 

http://artprompts.org/

 

Below are three character designs I did from the website.

 

First is a fisherman in a peaceful place.

 

 

The next is a cheesy sci-fi villain

 

 

And lastly, non-typical beauty

 

 

I feel that ArtPrompts is a useful website for trying to think of new and interesting character designs on the spot. I may use it if I find myself struggling to get new ideas.

 

Lastly are two more drawings I did. One is a music scientist who wears a boombox on his head and the next is some kind of professor examining a dragon specimen.