Category: Personal Project – Concept Art

So overall I have managed to paint two pieces in total which I am not too happy about. I really had hoped to produce work of a higher calibre but it wasn’t to be.

My first painting depicts ‘invaders’ journeying through billowing cliff faces to an unknown world. I’m not too sure if this comes across in the painting but I guess story-telling through art is not my thing at the moment and is something I need to work on. I really tried to get the colour looking right for this one and in general I felt it turned out ok. I used a little texture on the rocks but not too much as I didn’t want to mess it up. I feel the crowd of people/creatures could be worked on more as it I hard to tell what is going on, maybe something to return to in the future. When looking at it now I feel there isn’t much depth in the actual painting itself and I could have developed this more as well. Maybe I didn’t thumbnail enough before I started?

My second piece shows the other side, much like our own world but has elephants with cool stripes. Haha I wanted to keep it simple so that I wouldn’t run away from it. Just a moment in time in the late evening, sun is getting low… some huge elephants are carrying cargo away from the nearby town. You can faintly see a palace in the distance which feeds into my visual development sketches but I kind of went off on a tangent… something I tend to do quite a lot… I find it difficult to focus at times.

Overall this painting is OK, but far from perfect. Again I felt I played it safe just to get something done in time for submission so I am disappointed in myself again. But anywho, best to move on and hope for my next painting to tell a better story.

I made a whole bunch of quick sketches in photoshop to get some ideas down for the concept project. Sometimes it is just easy to doodle to get some ideas going. Although nothing stood out to me it was fun in general and actually helped me to re-design a palace in my animation. Since I was hoping to go for a middle eastern vibe in a concept art piece I thought some little drawings of shacks and huts would be fun to draw.

Examples of shacks found in many eastern countries.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Some of my quick sketches below, I spent about 20-40 mins max on each page.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I thought to maybe have a antagonist whose purpose was to rule over this awesome land full of weird and wonderful creatures. I wanted him to look Turkish and have a sense of power. I didn’t have much time over Christmas to put more effort in due to family issues but I drew a few very quick concepts for how he may have looked.

I was also hoping to do a few painting or even model the inside of this guys palace where he displays all his collectables but I didn’t have enough time. Below are more sketches of little items that may have been found.

I had many ideas running through my head of these turks/middle eastern invaders coming across old robotics amongst huge masses of rocks. This idea came from an old game Wildarms I used to play on the PS1… so I drew some sketches but ultimately thought it didn’t really fit in well.

Some environmental sketches

I drew up some really bad creatures.. I blame how bad they are on the lack of time I had to produce anything good 😛

Ok this guy creeps me out…

 

In this post I am going to add some of my environmental research and inspiration that will hopefully inspire my concept designs. This initial research is crucial and finding the right images I could take inspiration from is important. I may also consider trying some photo mashing in photoshop for a quick piece or two that focus on getting the composition correct. For photo mashing it is best to use royalty free images… there are quite a few good sites which allow for use of their images!

My favourite royalty free site at the moment is unsplash.com  – their photographers are amazing ,with each photo being of exceptionally high quality.

Oh so Greek ….

I love when the Greek culture is brought into concept art, from the pleasing aesthetics and old ruins to the beautiful colour palettes. I am considering basing my designs off this time period… mainly the architecture/building style. Having said this I also love the Moroccan architecture so I am still a little unsure which direction I will take at this point. I will just continue to explore and I’m sure I’ll take the right direction soon.

Image Courtesy : theartofanimation

The slideshow below shows some images I’ve gathered in relation to environmental research. I love the various rock formations along with the different terrain. I especially like the sandy colours of the desert and would love to hopefully bring these colours into a piece.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I am thinking of sticking to a simple enough idea of doing a painting or two of a world that has been taken over. I would like to do a painting showing the journey into the new realm and maybe another depicting some creatures going about their daily business. I would also like to create plenty of sketch pages with varying ideas.

References

The Art Of Animation. (2017). [online] Available at: http://theartofanimation.tumblr.com/post/92177725493/flavio-bolla [Accessed 12 Nov. 2017].

Unsplash.com. (2018). Beautiful Free Images | Unsplash. [online] Available at: https://unsplash.com [Accessed 13 Nov. 2017].

I cannot wait to get started on some personal work and I am very grateful to Alec for assigning such great assignments! I have a clear focus and idea on what I want to produce for this section of work. I am hoping to combine modelling with digital matte painting techniques to create some atmospheric concept art although due to time constraints I may have to stick purely to digital painting. I would also be happy to create some smaller pieces that would work well within a visual development portfolio.

I am hoping to try out different styles at the beginning of the process to help me decide upon which visual route will best aid in telling the story. Although I have a good idea on the direction I am going to take with this project I have included my ideas below and hoping I might think up something better whilst doing so.

Concept Ideas

• I have an image in my mind of a large palace that is hidden in a deep forest…although not in the forest itself, it is perched on a mountainside. There is a story behind this ‘palace/castle’ but I need to think on it more.
• An interior scene of the palace above showing a glimpse of what goes on therein. Is it magical? Maybe dark? Maybe it is quite similar to how you would imagine a greek goddess’ home to look? If going for the latter I feel the colour palette would test my colour knowledge as it is quite different from what I would normally go for.
• Within the confounds of an overgrown city…. the reminent’s of an arcade takeover can be seen. This takeover is fantastical and has sprung about by characters escaping their ‘virtual reality’ (although not so virtual as its more retro, but you catch my drift) I think this idea would allow for a lot of creativity and detailing within it’s environment. My main problem with the idea is how this type of over-grown city has been done so many times by other artists it may be getting very cliche.
•   Odins Hall – I thought this type of piece based off Norse mythology would be an interesting route to take as he was known to be a man of many talents and I could only imagine what his hall might have looked like. I got this idea from a children’s book my friend suggested to me….’Magus Chase’. According to wikipedia, Odin was associated with healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, battle, sorcery, poetry, frenzy, and the runic alphabet whilst also being the husband of the goddess Frigg…..that’s one busy man! There’s a strange interpretation by Georg von Rosenof (1886) of how he might look below…more like a wizard, but cool nonetheless.

• A once magical world where beautiful creatures roamed is now invaded by unhumain people who after years of searching, finally found their way in. These once undisturbed creatures have now been forced to live by their rules. I think it would be cool to have a very simple narrative to show in some concept art as I tend to over-complicate things at times. Maybe a piece or two depicting this might be enough.

 

References

En.wikipedia.org. (2017). Odin. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odin [Accessed 14 Nov. 2017].