Thursday 29th

As i want to keep to some form of a formality In the civil war uniform i.e keeping them very standardised and keeping in line with regulations. So some where i thought i could maybe be a little creative and something that is of great importance as it represents the tinder box is the drum so are below are some drums looking a traditional native american drum iterations and some civil war drummer boys drums.

Tuesday 27th

Today i focussed in on my face paint doing in colour on the black and white faces. I then decided it was time to bring my character to life painting in skin colours and the white hair and eyes for added shaman affect, I'm really happy with the way they turned out with some real life and character.

Monday 26th

The last few days I've spent doing more silhouetes looking at the witch character as some food for thought. I decided the way i could interpret this character into my time period could be to use her as a native american shaman that talks to the wolfs. I did some silhouettes and one that looks rather similar to the guy i did with drum from my previous post. After this i decided i wanted to do a guy for sure, i just wasn't sure on wether or not to i wanted him to be young or old so i did some silhouetted faces of an old native american and a young native american. Later i did some musical instrument silhouettes due to the fact i know that i want my native american to be using the instrument like the way the tinder box works in the book. I have now been working on some different hair styles and face paints and i also decided that i wanted to go with the older native american due to the fact i really want that to be the feel of painting making him more ancestral rather than young.

Tuesday 20th

The final task is to create a character that is from the time periods we have been given my time period is 1800s America. The character however has to be from the book Hans Christian Andersen's "The Tinderbox", that character then has to be taken into our time periods. Some of the characters that stood out to me are the soldier, witch, the dogs and the princess. Below are some initial silhouettes the soldiers are some soldiers from American Civil War i also did some soldiers in the form of Indians these could also be perceived as the princess too.

Monday 19th

I spent today working up my model sheet. Im not initially happy with my model sheet, if i get any spare time at the end of the project i will probably spend it on this making it better and working up each visual direction and making them closer to the concept art finished version than the sketches at the beginning of the project but the next task is here and i need to move on.

Sunday 18th

The past few day were spent finishing the final concept art image of the snow globe. I really like how the image came out in the end. I may come back to this image later to add some background or maybe some text describing the snow globe as I'm not entirely happy with the white space around the object but i really do like the image as a whole.

Thursday 15th

I spent the last couple of days working up the image with colour and giving the entire image a grounded look, although i did make an artistic choice which was i wanted the image to look like a snow globe and is why i have give bricks a very marshmallow effect. Instead of a more realistic effect with lots of little bricks. When getting to the top and drawing up the cogs i decided i wanted to do a couple of colour variations to see what suited best, i also added more cogs for depth and then grounded the image with some large bricks on top. After doing the colour variations i went in favour of the gold as it popped the most and added some colour where it was needed most.

Tuesday 13th

 After deciding that i wanted to go ahead with the snow globe design and idea. I wanted to do some iterations and on the top of the castle's design as i wasn't too happy with the initial design as it seemed crowded and didn't show off any of the time elements. So i did two more sketches for the top of my keep one with a more traditional feel with bricks running around the top and one with a cog showing off more of the time aspect. I decided the cog was my favourite of all the designs due to the fact that it shows off more of the time aspect and highlights the middle sectioning that is turning in the keep design.

Monday 12th

After drawing my original idea up, i decided that i ought to try something different just to expand on ideas. So today i worked up one of my silhouettes that i did with time and weapons, the bow. I chose the bow as it was the most interesting and intricate design. Although i enjoyed painting up the bow design the idea behind the snow globe design was more interesting. My idea for the weapons however might be that the weapons will be in the keep of the castle and you can use them inside the keep against some time inspired creatures inside.

Sunday 11th

The last couple of days I've spent sketching up the design for my time piece, i decided to go with my snow globe maze idea which hopefully can be understood in the sketch below. The idea is that when you touch the snow globe it sucks you in and you have to scale the inner keep to make it to the top, in the bottom of the snow globe is a watch and every fifteen minutes the keep changes much like a rubber cube would creating the maze. The only way to exit the maze is by getting to the top.

Thursday 8th

Today i did some more weapon silhouettes/ iterations on what i have previously done. These included iterations on my wind up robots including one wind up nut cracker toy. I then did some more work on time weapons. The last thing i did was some very basic iterations of my globes. The idea behind the globes are that they are an object that if you touch you get sucked into, and as time goes on in the places like a castle the corridors change like a maze and the only way out is if you can work your way too the middle.

Tuesday 6th

This morning started with a workshop with Nigel after getting an email about task two, to create a time piece, yesterday i wanted to wait until today to begin because i was a bit foggy about the second task and how creative we were allowed to be. So instead yesterday i did my contextual studies and got them out the way. At the workshop Nigel told us we could be as creative as we pleased and so i begun the process again. Below are the beginnings of my silhouettes ranging from a typical sun dial to a key that changes shape as time goes on.

Contextual Studies Task two

1980-Pacman

This as far as i can tell is the first character in video games and so is the reasoning behind why i chose this character.

Wikipedia (2001) Pacman [Internet] Available from:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man#/media/File:Pac-man.png [Accessed October 2015] 

1986- Samus Aran

I chose this character Samus due to the fact that she was the first prominent female video game character created by Nintendo. She first appeared in the NES cartridge Metriod and is still in games these days. 

Wikipedia (2001) Metriod Prime [Internet] Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samus_Aran#/media/File:Metroidprime3_1.png [Accessed October 2015]

1992-Scorpion

This choice was made more based on the game, Mortal Kombat. There was a lot of controversy at the time when this game was released due to the gore in the game and the use of digitalised graphics with the this then resulting in the introduction of age-specific content ratings for video games.

Wikipedia (2001) Scorpion [Internet] Available form: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorpion_%28Mortal_Kombat%29#/media/File:ScorpionMKXRender.png [Accessed October 2015]

2008-Online profile

This ‘character’ was chosen due to the fact that this was one of the first times I'd heard of you using face mapping on an online character to create this was in the game  Rainbow Six Vegas 2  i.e. you coud use the camera add on for the Xbox 360 and it would take a photo of your face and then map it to the blank character screen. This wasn't perfect and could result in some funny images.

Pixel Robot (2012) Face Map [Internet] Available from:http://www.pixelrobot.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/vegas2_ash2.jpg [Accessed October 2015]

2013-Joel

I chose Joel from the Last of Us as my last character to show the graphical quality that video games have made in there short life time. For this character you can see in game how motion tracking has been done and how it has improved the overall quality of the characters overall quality of animation. 

Wikipedia (2001) Joel [Internet] Available from:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_Us#/media/File:Video_Game_Cover_-_The_Last_of_Us.jpg [Accessed October 2015] 

Contextual Studies Task one

Caillios's Classification of games

	Agon	Alea	Ilinx	Mimicry
Last of Us	X	X		X
Destiny	X	X		X
Skyrim				X
Red Dead Redemption	X	X		X
Uncharted; Drakes deception	X	X		X

Why?

Last of Us- I put an X in the Agon box due to the fact that this game has a competitive online aspect. I choose Alea for this game too due to the fact that there is a set narrative that cant be changed, a ‘destiny’. I also ticked Mimicry due to the fact that you role-play in the game as Joel and Ellie seeing this fictional post apocalyptic world through their eyes.

Destiny- This game also has an online competitive multiplayer scene like the others but is more heavily emphasised than the rest. This like the others also has a predetermined narrative that can’t be changed but it also has a chance system when it comes to loot. You collect loot in the game, unlike the others it is by chance if you get good gear over bad. Also like the others this game puts you in a fictional world but unlike the others you play as a character of your choosing not a predetermined avatar like that of Joel and Ellie.

Skyrim- For this game i could only put it into the Mimicry box due to the fact that you can make decisions for yourself that alters the future narrative. This game however does put a massive emphasis on the Mimicry due to the fact that the developers Bethesda Softworks wants to immerse the gamer into a fictional reality focusing heavily on the details. 

Red Dead Redemption- This game also supports an online multiplayer. I put this game also into the Alea section due to the fact that this too does have a set narrative but it does support decision making but on small scale. I.e. if you were to kill someone this would trigger a bounty but there would be no long time affect in the story. This game is set in a fictional cowboy time period and emphasis heavily on the small details to immerse the gamer i.e. playing poker.

Uncharted; Drakes Deception- Like the previous NaughtyDog title this game has a multiplayer attached putting it in the Agon box. This game is known for its narrative set pieces and is why its been put into the Alea box due to the fact that there is no decision making done by the player. Like all my games this game has been put into Mimicry due to the fact that you play as Nathan Drake the protagonist in the story and you follow him and see the world through his eyes. 

Sunday 4th

After finishing my shift, i began the character sheet, i found this to be easier after doing the final piece as it allowed me too really think about its environment what it eats, how it eats and got an idea of how to make it move and how id want it animated.

Final Concept of Insect

Friday 2nd

I spent today creating the main piece to the final render of the picture, the insect. I spent the entire day working the character into the piece making sure that it sat nicely in the image, and that it looked correct in proportion referring to the large colour piece id already done. I then added some prey flies and added some shadows etc.

Thursday 1st

After having finished colouring and bringing some life to the silhouette last night i thought about where it would live its features and how it’d hunt its prey. I decided that my insect would hunt in a cave and hang from the stag mites using its rear claw to anchor itself in place and hunt bats using a green venomous tongue like a frog but longer and then once it'd hit a piece of prey the venom immobilises the prey and then my insect would collect the prey up off the floor. so today i have set my self the task on drawing up the environment and colourising and concentrating on the composition using divine rights. 

Wednesday 30th

I began the day with some more sketches of the ‘spider ant’, when doing this i ended up iterating at the same time as i didn't like the look of the sketch all that much. I began by cutting off two legs to see what that looked like, i decided to scrap that idea due to the fact that it looked way to human for an insect. Then i took it one more step further by getting rid of all the legs and giving the image massive arms that it dragged its body along. This gave the image a scarier look but it looked very much like the aliens/infected humans from dead space, with that i scrapped the entire idea due to the fact i wanted my insect to be original looking and less humanoid. Unfortunately i was doing this iterating on the fly and didn't record any of it apart from the last iteration which is below. I then had a lecture at NUA lecture theatre which the lecturer, didn't attend. When i got home i returned to an iteration of the alien looking silhouette i had done, i then brought this into colour and did three variations of the bug before the night was up. 

Tuesday 29th

This morning started with a workshop from Nigel, In this workshop i did two more pages of iterations on the bug that has a head very similar of that off ‘Alien’ from ‘AvP’ and the other of one of the flying bugs i liked. I then began a sketch up of one of the iterations i liked of the silhouette that i dubbed the ‘spider ant’.

Task One Lighting, Colour and Composition

Image One Composition

This image quiet clearly ‘The Cross Composition’. This type of composition is used to show to cohesion and relationships the most obvious relation ship in this image is the way the light and darks sit on top of each other on either side of the stopper line. Above the stopper line the light colours of the faces are light than the dark background. Then below the stopper line its the other way round i.e. the body is dark on the light background.

Brett Parson “Tank Girl” ImagineFX Nov. 2015: 84-85.

 Image Two Composition

In this composition the artist is using the divine proportions guidelines either by drawing them out or just previous knowledge but the artist certainly knows where the focal points are. As i’ve highlighted where they are the artist has positions this unique amphibious species very closely and bang on where the focal points are. The top being is positioned very well inside all the focal points and bringing the focus to this one in particular. the head is also very close to one of the focal points but not directly sat on the focal point. The amphibious being below however his head is dead centre to the piece. he also used the an odd number of elements to help the piece i.e. three beings. This image’s composition  has been thought about long and hard even if its not obvious at first.

Ilya Golitsyn “A Unique Species”  ImagineFX Nov. 2015 80-81.

Image Three Colour 

This image uses colour to it’s advantage and takes advantage of the eyes reflexes too. In this image the artist use’s complimentary colours to bring the focus of the image to the foreground, the giant character, the blue of in the giants clothes is complimentary of the orange hue in the background dragging him forward and pushing back the background.

Matt Gaser “Limited Colour Palette” ImagineFX Nov. 2015 74-75.

Image Four Lighting

In this image there are many light sources and light affects. In the back of this image there is some use of the Fresnel affect where you can see the mountains in the distance have been reflected in the water. The sources of the light in the image are everywhere the windows for example are giving out sources of light but the framing of the window is stopping some light rays being passed through hence all the feathering back shadow lines on the flooring outside the focal point housing. The dynamic occlusion in the background on the second part of the image gives the image some depth, there is also a blue hue to the background part of the village due to the blue light rays being bounced back from the water. 

Feng Zhu Image gallery [online] from http://fengzhudesign.com/gallery_page_03.htm accessed 28/09/15.

Monday 28th

The morning i spent doing some iterations of one of my favourite silhouettes the one i have dubbed “SpiderAnt”. In this experiment i did three altering just the upper torso/arms. Then i did three more iterations just focusing on the legs. I then had an lecture at the forum so i caught the bus i then began reading about a workshop in ‘ImagineFX’ about colour palette this then linked into our lecture on lighting, colour and composition (most importantly focal points). At the end of the lecture we received a task which was to find four photo’s and in each photo describe one of the three things we had talk about colour, lighting and composition, i found some of this hard to get my head round. So i spent the rest of my day doing this task.

Sunday 27th

Today i had work again except i got in at four - five o’clock, by this point id already worked out what it was i wanted to do, Alchemy. I did another page of silhouettes using this program, nine silhouettes ranging all in sizes and abilities. This has given my entire portfolio another look and feel and has helped to make the page stand out from the other pages i have already completed.

Friday 25th

Today i had a life drawing class that took up the morning, we did mainly short sketches of the models this clearly showed how rusty i was at drawing figures. We also did some longer sketches that didn't look quiet so ridiculous. After the life drawing i returned home and did some more silhouettes but this time focusing on flying insects.

Thursday 24th

After finding out that i’d missed the mark with my work yesterday, today i wanted to make a good start. I first started by finishing the work i’d started yesterday the generic bugs. After finishing this work i arranged it in set’s of three to help draw the eye in. I then began to do some silhouettes of bugs that didn’t exists the theme’s i ended up with was a Si-Fi affect and a mechanical affect on some of them. This took a long time for me, to create as i tried many method’s to make these silhouettes as i struggled at first to make them look correct to the eye. After i finished my silhouettes and set them in the sets of three, i decided to do some humanoid face’s as a humanoid featured bug had crossed my mind. This also helped as a palette cleanser from all the black silhouettes i struggled with all day. These faces consisted of a spider inspired image, a snake inspired image and a bearded dragon inspired image.