Sprout Game - Another Environment Concept tonight

I got carried away tonight and did another concept tonight because I was really inspired by the artwork Tea found.
This time I painted a version of what the forest coming back to life would look like with the river running through it.

I painted everything on separate layers as well so it was easier to paint and navigate through.

Sprout Game - Environment Concept

I painted up some concepts in the last couple days for level design some painting for the environments to test out the art style and colours from a reference image Tea found.
We had a meeting today to talk about level design and discussed the idea of an old tree at the beginning of the game that the sprout encounters. I searched up old trees with faces and painted it into an environment concept for our game. :)

Production Interactive: Concepts for Game

Mass upload~

Here are the designs/concepts I did for the assets to our Team Sprout game. I was given the task to do concepts for the dragonfly, rocks with and without moss and hanging vines. I did a couple for each but I could do more variations. I need feedback from our team to decide which designs to polish and for deciding what kind of style to go with.

The other drawings below are some more environmental concepts, there are just a few quick sketches of some layouts, and one environment with three stages, from dead, to in between and then to life.

Sprout Game - Concepts

I drew up some concepts for my teams Sprout game, and redrew some of them digitally. 

I played around with different body shapes for the sprout and face types.

For the environment, I tried redrawing the same scene in a few variations, first from my book then another couple of versions digitally. I tried painting them like some of the examples in my previous blog post, but it will take a lot of practice to get that good...... I would like to be able to paint like that one day. *-*

Game Group Project

We have chosen our groups for our new game project. I am with Phoenix, Mikayla, Jo and Tea and we are going to make a cute, stylised artsy 2D game with underlying messages about inner growth and the environment. We had our first team meeting yesterday and discussed our project and the direction we want to take it in, we came up with a lot of ideas and Jo has complied them all into a document for us. We decided to each come up with some concepts each and to find some images for our own mood boards for the presentation on Tuesday next week.

I found some really nice artwork that I feel could work towards the art style of the game in terms of colour, composition, contrast and lighting.

I really like the colours and the composition of these images, they are really pretty and it would be nice if we could achieve something like this in our game.

Here's some images I gathered for reference on forest fires for environment design

I am still developing character concepts so that's still in development~

Horror Game Environment Concepts

These are the concepts I did for a horror game environment design using a sunflower and the baby rattle in the shape of a flower. I wanted to portray the sunflower  as something mysterious or fearsome with the use of lighting and object placement. I wanted to try the approach of keeping the scene more simple and not so cluttered as mentioned from the lecture, so the eye is drawn to the most important parts of the scene and it's not hard to read.

Game as Hypertext, Flavor text and Steampunk Item

 Developed some concepts for the weapon and Flavor text. Designed a cursed staff that drains the life force of the user and everything around it.
And my steampunk item is a babies crib made out of the shell of a bomb.

08/03/16 - Mood/Style Board

I have been looking for an overall mood/style for what to go for our groups animation. I made a mood/style board which is the second image on this blog.

The first two artworks in the mood/style board are some works I found that could be some possible reference for the colour and visual art style for the woman in the mirror. As a group we had already discussed that we think she shouldn't be in colour, she should be black and white/greyscale A, because she's dead, and B because it could link to the newspaper on the desk. She could look like a newspaper photo, with small dots as shading and out of focus?

Another idea mentioned was to have a faint otherworldly glow around her, showing that she is clearly a ghost.

I think that a mixture of the two styles I have suggested below, the shading of the one on the right, but the faintness of the one of the left with a slight glow around her could be a good way to go.

For the glow we could do a Gaussian blur overlay in post production. I found a few images as an example:

For the background I was thinking maybe a grungy style to reflect the disaster of the state of the house. Also the lighting for the background should centralize on the focus of the scene. So when the man is sitting at the table I found the bottom right example below to be very fitting, a warm but not too saturated light at the table that fades out into darkness.. it gives the room an eerie feel. Combine that with a grungy overlay and maybe that could work with what we are going with.

5/11/15 - Blog Update

Here is the progress since the last time I updated this blog, I forgot to post updates heh..

Here's the animation test for my rig after I completed it, testing out the limbs with a short animation.

This is the video for the blocking of my animation.

This is what my scene looks like so far, I haven't added that many details but will do so as my animation gets closer to the finished product..
I will add some details such as some textures to the blackboard for writing, some smaller details for around the classroom such as some more posters on the walls that will be visible in the shots for my animation.

02/08/15 - Storyboards

I finished my story boards for my animated sequence. Included are camera angles and movements I would like to use. If there is time at the end, I would like to add some 2D animation effects over the top for things such as the zoom in on the second panel, and the first panel of shot 3.

28/07/15 - Storyboard sketches

I drew some sketches to get a feel of how I would like my character framed/posed in my storyboard today. For the first panel i was thinking of two different angles, so i drew them both, which are the top two sketches. The third sketch will be the next shot where Mr Mann furrows his brow, and the third is where he raises the fail stamp and says his lines from lord of the rings.

26/07/15 - Prop Design

Here are the designs for Mr Manns prop (fail stamp) and other things that will be in the scene.

Mr Mann will be at a desk marking exam papers.

26/07/15 - Poses and Emotion

I drew up some sketches to help show Mr Manns emotions and personality.

Most of the time he has quite a neutral expressions, using his eyebrows and raising or lowering his mouth to show his emotions.

26/07/15 - Texture Swatches

Here are some texture swatches I gathered for a few of the things in my scene that I think need textures such as Mr Manns shirt and pants, and the desk he will be sitting at.

26/07/15 - Completed Turn Around + Colour Swatches

Today I finished drawing up my turn around today for Mr Mann. After checking it over and making sure it looked right I went ahead and drew the final outlines for the model sheet.

I also tested out some colour swatches for his design that I made up on Friday. I decided to go with the first option because it reflects his personality, the blue and the red match his temper. Most of the time Mr Mann is calm and collected, but once something happens that sets him off, he snaps hence the red tie to contrast the blue shirt.

23/07/15 - Model Sheet Feedback

I received some good feedback this morning for my model sheet. I will be making some changes to my character design, in particular the structure of his arms and the shape of his head in the front view. To help it flow better I need to change the arms so that they get smaller on the way down so it matches his legs and will hopefully create a more consistent design.
The teacher said that overall my model sheet looks really good, I just need to do some small changes and start thinking about the framing of my shots.

22/07/15 - Character Turn Around Test

Today I drew up a test model sheet of my character, Mr Mann. 

I ruled up lines to make sure everything lined up correctly with each view of him. I will need to ask for feedback from my peers tomorrow to see if they can see any faults, and I will also talk to me teacher for some feedback. I changed his design slightly, giving him more rounded lines. 

I designed him so he's an in-between mix of straight, pointy lines and rounded lines.

I got inspiration from the Disney Pixar movie, UP. Carl Fredricksen, the old man in the movie goes through a series of events throughout the movie, after the summary of what happened to him beforehand, he is quite the straight, hard edged looking character and by the end of the film he looks a lot softer and rounder thanks to his friend and companion Russel.

21/07/15 - More character design exploration

I sketched up a few more designs with reference to my visual research from earlier. 

I spoke to the teacher and decided to go with this character design for my teacher, but I need to make a few changes to it and the props, and I will be ready to start drawing up some turn arounds. 

21/07/15 - Comedy Genre Visual Research

21/07/15 - New Character Design, Profile, Summary of Story, & Description of Genre

I drew up some new character design/sketches of the teacher for my animation. 

For this design I gave him a large torso with a figure that grows smaller/narrower as it reaches down to his feet. His posture is very straight and strong to match his physique.

I want him to look like he is gentle but stern when he is normal, but when he is enforcing something or someone did something wrong, his look changes to look quite scary or dominating and strict. 

I want to show a big contrast between the normal side and the strict, side of him marking a student with a fail. To do this I want to try to use extreme perspective with the teacher in a pose ready to mark a student with a fail, if that doesn't work I will try my best to replicate it.

I will be supporting this perspective with a strong pose and good line of action, I will work on that pose more soon, I just sketched out my idea to get a feel for how I want my animation to work.

For the environment I will be using illustrated backdrops, and the props will be his desk and chair, the exams he is marking and the fail stamp.

New Summary of Sequence:

A teacher is sitting at his desk in a classroom, hunched over and marking his students exams. Suddenly the teacher furrows his brow and the scene is cut to a shot of the teacher with a 'FAIL' stamp in his hand as he yells "You shall not pass!"

Character Profile:

Teachers name: Mr. Mann

Mr Mann is a big, strong man with a gentle nature but a strict side to it. When it comes to enforcing his teaching or marking a student with a pass or fail, he takes his job very seriously. When he marks his students with a pass, he is overjoyed with glee and happy that his student passed. Mr Mann takes pride when he knows his students are listening to him and learning. If he finds out a student hasn't been paying attention to his classes, his strict side emerges and he gives no mercy. He puts his everything into teaching his students to set them up for success, so when someone chooses to not listen and learn in his classes he gets mad.

Since I will be changing the genre to comedy, and the art will be quite stylized compared to the original which is film with a more serious note.

Comedy can be portrayed in an abstract or goofy looking art style in animation to enhance the show. With characters that can be animated quite freely and with little restrictions to the laws of physics, comedic animation can be enhanced. Taking examples from Warner Brothers animation where the characters sometimes completely ignore the laws of physics until they realize it, or are injured in ways that shouldn't be possible and then are fine the next moment, this allows for many situations to animate things that aren't possible in reality.