Riot Art Contest 2014|PPP3

 In October The Riot Games in parternship with polycount.com launched a art contest aimed at ilustrators, animators, texturesrs, modellers and VFX artists. 5 different categories brought great opportunity for many creatives to enter. I've picked a character category in which your task was to pick a champion and design a splash screen illustration.
Challenge, oh challenge. I've to come up with a dynamic pose. And there has to be background.
I've pick Elise, since I really like her outfit and drawing spider den sounded like a good idea. It should be noted, that skins created for champions where welcomed (skins are designs created by community not by Riot artists). I tried to capture her looking powerful and frightening. Suggestion I got on my forum thread was to add more spiders on the left.
Unfortunately I haven't manage to finish this piece on time, but hopefully one day I'll get back to it.

Rationale|Extended Practice

First task we were asked to complete for the Extended Practice module was to fill a pro-forma for Rationale. As the work done for this module will be displayed for a week as a part of Final Year Show I wanted to create something that will be easy to digest and in the same time interesting (and good enough to include in portfolio).

Since I'm very interested in concept art and illustration I wanted to somehow incorporate it with the knowledge of AfterEffects I got already from previous modules. My aim is to create a up to 2 minutes long video with the illustrations created specificaly for this brief. I'll use AE (3D layers, puppet tool) to create a parallax effect and a sense of 2.5D space.

Examples of what I want to achive:

• https://www.behance.net/gallery/1498997/Adventure-Concept-Art
• https://www.behance.net/gallery/5885617/Aliens
• https://www.behance.net/gallery/10633661/Might-and-Magic-X-Legacy-Intro
• https://www.behance.net/gallery/2651627/Kosmostumostow

Since I want to have a some sort of storyline that will tie up all the illustrations together, I'l be looking into different myths and folktales as a source of inspiration, however at this stage I'm not sure if the final piece will be more fantasy or sci-fi orientated.

In terms of art style I'm still debating wherever final piece should be semi-realistic or more cartoon-y, will do some tests one have a general story idea and decide on the one that works best. Personally, at this point, I lean towards more cartoon-y approach, mostly because I've been doing a lot semi-realistic character concepts lately. It also would be more challenging and a great opportunity to learn something new.

Sound - free sound libraries that are available online, but considering possible collaboration with the composer or having a voice-over.

In terms of resources I'll be looking at ImagineFX magazine (art related tips and inspiration), Framed Ink (composition and framing shots), various websites and livestreams, such as LevelUp!, FZDCinema, Sycra's YT channel, ctr+paint (great tips from Matt Kohr).

Visiting Speaker - James Wall|PPP3

Today I've attended a talk by James Wall - filmmaker and past gradute of Leeds College of Art. He talked mostly about the process of making The Truth About Romance, his first feature film that has almost milion views on YouTube. Film was made with almost zero budget and home made equipment (like track and dolly), shot in two weeks by extremly small crew and it took a year for James to do post production. His story was very inspirational and interesting. He also talked about the life as a freelancer and daily commutes to Manchester (as Leeds doesn't have many work opportunities). Similarly to many other people, he said that networking is very important and helpful with getting jobs, which is something I'm going to work a lot more in upcoming months.

Academic Poster - Crit|COP3

Today we had a crit day for the Academic Poster task. Work (printed A3 size) was put on the wall along with the blank sheets of paper for people to write feedback on.

 On the left is the initial first draft of the poster. I wasn't quite happy with the spacing but couldn't really figure out how to improve it at this point. Feedback I got was mostly about the layout, text placement and font. I went back to the Photoshop (really I need to learn InDesign) and tweaked few things. First thing I did was to change the font type for the body text and made sure it's spaced evenly. I moved it a little bit around and tried to make all the sections equal, but also left a bit more room for the results. Previously I felt like outcomes were a bit squashed and was glad to get extra space for the artwork.
Looking at this version after few hours I feel like adding a logo to fill the blank square space on right hand side as well as aligning text a bit better (middle column seem to be a bit lower). 

Female Warrior Analysis|COP3

I've used my female warrior concept as a perfect excuse to ask people around me for valuable feedback. Following advice (and critique) was given to me by Sanda Duchiewicz. She's not only very interested in fantasy, but also worked on titles such Rome: Total War, which require strong understanding amour that is historically accurate.

After I shown her my female warrior concept, this is the feedback I got:

• work a bit more one the face, since nose is shaded but eyes seems to be left out;
• shoulder pad is only on one side, which gives protection only from one side; since she doesn't have shield, but two swords, it makes her right side a very easy target;
• spikes on the shoulder pad are very big, which probably adds extra, unnecessary weight to the pad and makes arm movements more difficult and tiring;
• shoes are drawn in a way that indicates heels, so I've added chunky heels to the drawing;
• really good reference for shoulder pad and spikes (can see the relation of the size between pads and spikes).

Some of those things are pretty obvious, but as a person unexperience with creation of fantasy concept art, most of it didn't really crossed my mind. Therefore chatting with someone from the industry was very valuable for me.

On the left is a piece of concept I did after the chat we had. I've gave her two shoulder pads for better protection and some more fabric that will separate skin from the steel. I've also changed her outfit a little bit. With the outer layer of clothing I tried to imitate leather, which is more durable than soft fabrics (such as cotton). I also changed belts to better match her outfit and added heels to the shoes.
It is still a pretty unpractical and historically inaccurate armour, but a bit closer to something that would make sense on the battlefield. As said before, I'm not trying to make armour that could be used in a real battle, I'm deeply inspired by fantasy games, however, it's good to know and understand how the things works. I feel like my understanding of this topic is improving with every piece.

Academic Poster|COP3

One of this module requirements is to create an academic poster. After presentation I did a quite google search to find a template for the poster and gain more understanding of why and how to make one.
This website came very handy, as it got templates shown to us during presentation.
Academic poster (also known as a conference poster or chart) is a large-format piece of paper (or a wall-mounted monitor) that presents all the research to the vast number of peers. Text should be somewhere between 500 to 800 words, clearly arrange and possible to read in 5 minutes.
There are few categories that should be included. Obvious one is the title header, that will inform the audience of what your research is about and will use biggest font. Title shouldn't be longer than two lines. There are 7 other categories that should be included:

• Introduction - a brief introduction to the topic of the research, which will inform the audience about what you are doing;
• Materials and Methods - brief explanation of tools and approches used;
• Results - visual and written explanation of the research outcomes, can show development stages (in case of my poster it presented a stages in designing a character concept);
• Conclusions - a summary of the results and goals achieved, can also include the mention of the future direction;
• Bibliography - a small list of books that were used, especialy important if some content within the poster was cited;
• Acknowledgements - any special mentions to the people that help during the research;
• Further information - can be in a form of QR code or a link to the website that will direct audience to the additional research/information.

Other thing that should be kept in mind when creating poster is the use of correct font - it should be easy to read ( Helvetica for header, Palatino, or other serif font, for body text; don't use anything like Comic Sans or Curlz) and spacing (it makes poster easier to read and understand).

Mage character concept|COP3

Finished character concept of Mage. When compared to the initial thumbnails, his look changed slightly. I've tried to made his robes a bit shorter, but still keep them long enough to project this stereotypical look of fantasy magicians.
The part I'm realy unhappy with is face - strangely long and a bit alien-like. He doesn't carry any props, which I should add, like a spell book or wand.
I tried to consider colour symbolism, which explains a bit why his robes are blue and purple. Blue is considered with spirituality (color of Virgin Mary), youth, communication abilities, while purple is seen as a colour assosiated with meditation, magic, mystery and royalty. Since purple is a mixture of red and blue, it can convey a very powerful message. The fabric that goes around his waist is somewhere between gold and yellow. Both of those colors symbolise wisdom, wealth and intellectual energy. Moreover, all of these colours been heavily used throughtout the ages in art across Europe and have a deep religious connotations.

Male Warrior Concept-changes|COP3

During my conversation with Sandra I got few things pointed out that should be changed/improved.

Warrior concept feedback:

• shield and sword - belt across the chest indicates that there should be a shield attached (especially since I haven't specify what kind of weapon he is using). Ref pics:

• more visible fabric that goes under the metal shoulder guards, mostly to indicate that metal isn't directly on the skin;
• forearm metal gauntlets should be more oval and follow the shape of the arm. Ref pic:

• similarly to gauntles, greaves should follow the shape of legs. Ref pic:

 I've applied mentioned changes to the concept and can see how much it improved the concept.

Feedback to my concepts|COP3

As I kept on drawing my character concepts I asked various people for feedback. Sandra Duchiewicz (concept artist at Creative Assembly) and Weronika Daniel (freelance artist) were my main source for quality comments and suggestions, but I also took it a bit further and posted some of my initial work onto LevelUp facebook group. Unfortunately I didn't get as much valuable feedback as I expected, ''likes'' are nice, but unhelpful. However posting my finished warrior concept brought more good advice.

When painting this concept I flipped canvas countless times as I felt there was something off with it. However, I was unable to figure out what was wrong. And this is where feedback from other people came in handy. Things others pointed out were:

• spikes on his armour aren't in perspective;
• metal thing on his knee isn't following leg;
• right arm is too long;

I'm going to try and fix those mistakes later, for now I prefer to work on other pieces and get a break from this work - it'll be easier for me to see mistakes with the fresh eye.

I've started working on mage concept and based on Sandra's advice I've decided to cut his robes a bit shorter and avoid drawing tons of floating fabric behind him, as it would be really hard to put into game (extra rig and animations). I've also showed WIP stages to avoid really obvious mistakes. Even though I'm doing characters, they're outside of my comfort zone, not only in terms of style (painterly, no lineart) but also an unusual for me subject matter (first of all I rarely draw fantasy or if I do it's more stylized; men.. I don't really draw men that often; or more realistic faces that don't have silly expressions).

ShowcaseSpectacular|PPP3

Showcase Spectacular took place at the Corn Exchange between 22-23 of November. I took part together with students from other courses (illustration, graphic design, fine art). Thanks to the awesome guys from JuJu and James from Student Union we got a really neat gallery space and a selling table. Our task was to put exhibition together, come up with a name, promotion and posters. Our group went with the LCA Collective name, which works realy good, since we are all Leeds Colege of Art students, with the range of work (watercolours pieces, massive oil painting, funky marker drawings, embroidery).

 On Friday before the event we went down to Corn Exchange to mount our work. Since the exhibitions I did last year, it was fairly easy for me, as I already got all my work framed. Also this year I had my business cards which I placed right next to my work (and on the table).  I tried to have a good variety of pieces on the wall, some of them Christmas themed. I've also made bunch of cards and prints to sell.

Corn Exchange was quite busy during the weekend and it was a really good opportunity for me to talk to other people, give business cards out (in hope for future commisions), chat with fellow creatives that had stalls next to us. I definately made some new connections, had tons of fun and would love it to do it again in the future. The only thing that was a bit upsetting was the placement of our stall - most of the people seemed to stick only with the upper floor or, if they went downstairs, to the inner ring of stalls, mostly consisting jewelry. We felt a bit out of the way and when in the end we gathered a good crowd fire alarm went on and scared poeple off. Oh well, that was just very unlucky. Still, compare to the last year (I did Showcase as a part of RAG event to support Yorkshire Air Ambulance) it was much more better and gave me extra confidence.

Change of direction with the Practical Element|COP3

I've explained the world settings in my previous posts and wrote a little bit about each class from each fraction. So far I've been concentrating pretty much on the Human race and decided to leave Nixes out for now. I only did some initial concepts for that race and, personally, I don't want it to be rushed and not well thought through. I'll use concepts for Human warriors as a source of important feedback and critiques and try to change them as I go. That way I'll be able to analise couple of concepts deeper and gain more knowladge from it, rather than just creating a lot of concepts without meaning.
With this in mind, there is still nothing stopping me from developing this project futher in my spare time, outside the Context of Practice module.

Primary research - asking questions|COP3

Maybe I'll never understand how twitter works, but sometimes I find it very helpful in approaching people. I came across the article on gamasutra website which led me to those two amazing chaps specilizing in gamefication.
Rich Wallace  and Andrzej Marczewski were kind enough to answer few questions I've prepared.

1.  When playing games, what elements would you describe as the most fun? R.W. : Collaboration with friends is always key for me.  I'm currently playing Portal 2 with a friend and solving puzzles together is great fun! A.M. : I like to explore a world, I love seeing where the edges are of the world.
2.  Is character gender important for you? R.W. : None.  I don't mind what I play as. A.M. : No
3. When creating avatar with character editor, what do you try to achive? R.W. : Depends on the game.  Sometimes it is nice to try to create yourself (ideal self) but in others inspiration comes from everyone.  I once had a character in City of Heroes call Samurai Jeff (based on Samurai Jack on Cartoon Network). A.M. : When I create a characters look, I usually try to make it as much like me as is possible.
4. Do you identify with your character? R.W. : Depends on the story/background and their progression. A.M. : I try to, especially if I can make them look like me!
5. What would you describe as a ''cool'' character design? R.W. : Difficult.  Any ability to customise your avatar is cool! A.M. : Cool character design is anything that allows me freedom to create what I want. I like to be able to add things like tattoos and get into the fine detail of what is worn.

For both character gender is unimportant, it's interesting gameplay, possible collaboration with friends, ability to explore the game space that keeps them playing. Personally, I find Rich Wallace answer to the second question especially good, since, instead of saying male or female he uses 'what' which could also indicate any other races/genders (e.g. Abe from Oddworld). However, character customization is important, just the use of it can be different. In Rich Wallace case it's all down to the type of game he is playing, while Andrzej Marczewski likes to make character similar to himself. It also impacts his identification with the avatar during the play. Moreover, both of them likes to change and add things to the character, freedom when customizing is an important factor.

Alien Isolation: From Film to Game|PPP3

On Friday 14th the talk with writers of Alien: Isolation took place in college. Organised by Game Republic and led by Jamie Sefton, event was a great opportunity to listen to 3 creatives from Creative Assembly.

Alistair Hope (creative lead), Dion Lay (writer) and Will Porter (writer) chatted about their challenges while working on such big franchise as Alien and creating immersive world. They're all big movie fans and with this project they tried to keep that 70's vibe, give game same feeling as the first film. In order to achive that, they had to create a gritty sci-fi future, with it's own propaganda and technology. We had a little insight into the concept art that was created for this game, character designs and enviroments of the space station (drawn with markers). Writing dialogues for the robots sounded like a lot of fun. It was clear that all three guys were really passionate about this title and it's visible in a game.
Alien: Isolation is a survival horror, game about human instincts. Player spends a lot of time hiding and avoiding Alien, ammunition is limited and every move has to carefully planned and is never save. I haven't played the game yet, but after this talk, I became even more interested in it.

Matt Forsythe, Cameron Steward and Babs Tarr|PPP3

On a 13th of November I've attended a brilliant event organised by Creative Networks and Thought Bubble Festival. Guest speakers were Matt Forsythe, Babs Tarr and Cameron Stewart (instead of Adam Hughes).

Matt Forsythe is a comic artist, who worked on Adventure Time series for 2 years. He didn't went to art school and have a degree in political science. However he was motivated and determined enough to improve his drawing skills and used art forum to get feedback and crits. Ojingogo was the first graphic novel from him that got published, followed by Jinchalo. Made during his stay in Korea, Ojingogo is an abstract, wordless comic with a very cute character. What's really interesting is the fact that this little character was drawn on a pitch for AT. Speaking of which, Adventure Time is a storyboard driven show (like Sponge Bob Square Pants). It takes around 5 weeks to complete storyboard which is then made into an animatic by storyboard revision team (which basically works out which bits needs to be animated, record voices, test pacing of the episode). Completed storyboard, animatic and additional notes (like character/color charts) are then sent to Korea, where the show is animated.
Matt's tumblr contains a lot of material from his work on Adventure Time and this talk gave me a lot of insight into how animated shows are produced. Shame I wasn't able to chat with him (swarm of other people got before me). Well, at least I tweeted a little pencil sketch I did during the event to him. ;)

Cameron Stewart is a Canadian comic book artist who worked for DC, Marvel and Dark Horse Comics, currently working on Batgirl (together with Babs) and Fight Club 2. He also didn't went to art school, but practiced a lot. Worked as a storyboarder on Men in Black animated series and was asked to draw comics. His signature 'thing' are action sequences and fighting scenes, a lot of time is devoted into getting a right flow of the panels (sometimes even 15 sqeezed onto one page). Sin Titulo is his personal, award-winning comic, on which he worked during his spare time. Published online between 2007-2012, it was also released in a book form by Dark Horse Comics in several languages. Sin Titulo is a proof of how important it's to work on personal, side projects, even if it's only few hours a week.

Babs Tarr is a illustrator and co-artist on Batgirl. For a change, she went to the artschool in Baltimore and graduated with degree in illustration. She enjoyes working in different media and did painting, concept art, toy design, editorial illustrations (fashion ilusts). Her advice was to give employers more than they expect, have online presents in some shape and form (portfolio, blog, twitter, etc.) and.. do fanart!
She was actualy ther only person I've managed to chat with and even got a little Batgirl scribble from her.

Style Inspiration|COP3

Before processing any futher with my practical element, I had to ask myself one very important question - what style am I going to draw my concepts? Previously mentioned, that eastern MMORPGs were big inspiration for me and they still are. However, since I also want to include at least couple of concepts in my portfolio, I'll be better off painting them in a style thats so typical for western games, such as World of Warcraft. Blizzard's artists do the amazing job at rendering characters, same goes to the Riot Games and their insane splash art for League of Legends. Should I mention begging sequence of the Overwatch trailer? As much as I love jRPGs (and MMOs), artwork for these titles is, to put it simply, manga. Big eyes, small nose, cell or soft-shaded. And, if we look at Tetsuya Nomura for example, designs can be insane and amazing, but in the same time anatomy is very twisted. Unreal. Unhuman. It appears mostly to eastern audience and thats were people with those kind of skills get jobs. In terms of companies, Applibot and their card games are breaking this rule, but, in the end, manga is not the style I'm after.

So, painterly style, rimlight, crazy colors. In terms of design I'll still go back to the titles such as Final Fantasy or Ragnarok, but when it comes down to the technical aspect of drawing it's going to be more like WoW or LoL. That's the goal.

After Effects Workshop|PPP3

After Effects Workshop notes.

Since the change in the college network this year, first thing that needs to be done is to set a disk cache to scratch, which allows After Effects runs smoothly and stops it from sending massive files across the network (which slows it down).
Another thing worth remembering is a good housekeeping when comes to creating assets in Photoshop - make sure the painting is much more larger than the HD setting (4-5 times bigger), which allows plenty of movement for the digital camera (panning, zooming), also NAME your layers correctly while working in Photoshop.


First part of workshop was just a refresher of the After Effects basics, like 3D layers, camera movements, use of depth of field and motion blur. I've played with all those tool last year and, surprisingly, remembered everything (but it's always good to get another reminder).



Puppet tool and using pins was the second part of the workshop.
Puppet starch tool - makes mesh around the pin inflexible, not as bendy as with just using pins, keeps object straight.
Overlap tool - similar to starch tool, allows to mark the areas of the asset to overlap (go in front of each other or behind). Change of extend and in front values impacts the area effected by tool. Overlap tool is key frame-able in terms of position (so one thing can go in front of the other and then go behind).

Another useful tip I've learned today was that by holding down command (alt for pc) button and pin that you want to control, the little stop watch symbol will appear and record movement of the pin, which saves time when key framing (no need to do it manually). Good for little object within the composition, gives a really funky, cartoon-y look.

Pose references|COP3

Since establishing overall look of the human characters I've moved onto more refined concepts. For this stage I've searched bunch of my favourite stocks on Deviantart for the pose reference.

Senshi-Stock has enourmous pose library and I use it from time to time. I've picked couple of differrent photos for the warrior and dancer (1 , 2 , 3 ).

While I tried to keep dancer's pose feel feminine and delicate, I went completly opposite direction with the warrior - strong stance that shows power and energy.

Mjranum's classical nudes section provides a lot of really good pose references for Nix race - very eerie, mysterious, unnatural. Most of his stock models are dressed in costumes or at least in cloth, which will also help me with drawing drapery. Again, I was able to find useful poses for warrior and dancer ( 1 , 2 , 3 ).

Random-Acts-Stock not only have a great pose library but also tons of amazing shots of ruins and Medieval architecture. Those might not come as handy as other ones, but will definately influence my work, since I'm already being heavily inspired by Medieval towns and castles (as mentioned before, mostly Germany). There were few good shots, like 1 , 2 , 3 portraying strong character.

I'll go back to MariaAmanda stock when working on Nix race as it has a large library of dreamy dancing poses.

Testing Cintiq 24HD|PPP3

This year we got two Wacom Cintiqs 24HD and I've so much fun testing and using one of them. I've to admit, first encounter was rather strange as I've never used Cintiq before - had to watch couple of YT tutorials on setting it up. Quickly, I've became familiar with it and it made my work flow a bit faster.

Setting up express keys in itself is a fairly easy task, however deciding on which keys are the most important is a bit harder. After years of using Graphire 4 along with the keyboard (and still doing that at home) I've got a little bit of trouble getting used to buttons lined next to the display. Even after setting up keys I still find some other useful shortcuts and keep on reaching for keyboard. Toggle display is extremly useful for zooming in/out, changing brush/eraser size and rotating canves.

Drawing on Cintiq feels a bit.. weird. It's like putting a thick glass over your paper and then trying to draw. Yet, the disconnection between hand movements and screen is much smaller than when using traditional tablet like Graphire. And thats for the pros of the Cintiq.
On the down side screen heats up pretty quickly, after hour and half of using bottom part gets a bit warm. Other annoying thing is the reflection from the lights. Maybe it's due to the fact I wear glasses, but working indark seems like a perfect option for me. No glare. In one of the rooms I had to figure out which lights I can have switched on in order to see what's happening on the screen.
Another thing worth mentioning is the lack of dual monitor setting, mostly due to the space issues. It'd be extremly useful to have another screen hooked up and used just for reference images or checking brief. But then, I'd probably end up with a wrist injury in no time (since it feels like I can work longer on it without breaks than on normal tablet).
I'm still unsure whetever I'd buy a Cintiq in a future or not. It's probably a good investment, although I'm still vary of some issues, like the glare issue. Moreover, I've heard from some artists that used previous models, that the screen was prone to scratches from the pen. So, just let's hope my Graphire will last me for another couple of years (at least).

Initial Nix face exploration|COP3

Nixe is a race of water creatures that lives in ponds and rivers. As described in my previous post, some of them can shapeshift into water wyrms. In terms of anatomy, they're not that much different to humans, have a same number of limbs, walk on two legs, etc. However, due to the fact that water is a huge part of their habitat, some changes in their facial features occured along the evolution. And this important part of their physique I've decided to explore and establish first.
I've started by gathering bunch of reference images, photos of various sea creatures (like jelly fish and sea dragon), mostly looking for interesting shapes, colours and textures. I'm not after a specific animal or look and wasn't limiting myself just to the water creatures, but also looked at some bugs and beetles (since they're symmetrical and have interesting patterns).

To create a perfect (or almost perfect) symmetry I've drawn only half of the design and mirrored it. In case of some I used a different approach that was recently shown by Feng Zhu in a Level Up session 50. With lasso tool I've quickly marked a random area of from a reference photo, copied it, turned saturation down and played with tool such as 'perspective', 'scale' and 'warp'. This way I was able to create even more bizzare and uncanny designs and concentrate more on overall shape and form, rather than on single brush stroke.
I believe this approach worked very well for designing a water creature.

I've created 8 different options for each male and female Nix. From that I've narrowed it down to 6 designs that I'll explore a bit futher and use in final concept. I'm still unsure whetever they should have hair or not, maybe leaving them bold with just tentacle like bits would work great. Probably, I'd try both options just to see what works best.

Hairstyles|COP3

Creating a rough thumbnails for the character haircuts was another step. I've started with very basic shapes first and then, with second batch, I tried to make them a bit more refine.
I used different face shapes and played a bit with the idea of ridiculous hairstyles, that doesn't follow rules of gravity. With the second sey of 12 I used the same, generic face. I' ve marked couple of different options, which I'll use in the later stage (when painting finished concept).

Female warrior thumbnails|COP3

Since establishing a clear idea of the world and characters I'm going to design for the practical element, I had moved to thecreating female warrior and dancer concepts. First step was to draw 3 different body types: athletic (warrior), skinny (dancer) and chubby/fluffy (warrior or a housewife NPC type of character). Then I proceed with creating costumes. I copied the figure layer 4 times and did 6 different ideas for warrior (4 on athletic figure and 2 for chubby gal) and 4 for dancer.

I've kept going back to the moodboards created at the beginning for inspiration and ideas. All above sketches are very loose and quick, roughly spent hour on all of them. I tried to avoid overdetailing and concentrate on big forms that will make my characters stand out. I've marked couple of different options in red and these are the designs I'm going to develop futher - so in case of the warrior I'll take a little bit from all 4 designs and for dancer I'll try to incorporate long, spiky horns within a loose dress design. I've decided to abandon half-naked warrior design since it seem to be too cliche and totally impractical (although I do like her boots).
Later stages will involve working more on the designs, refining them, adding colours and finally producing a finished, portfolio worth, pieces.

Balancing out classes|COP3

After posting more info about 2 races I've decided to map out exactly how they will work within game space. Since player would be able to choose character from both races, they need to be balanced and give equal chances of winning.

Human classes:

• warrior - male/female; equipped with either sword or axe, can also carry shield (better defense but agility and speed goes down);
• mage - male; holds powerful spells, pretty much useless in close combat in human form; after reaching specific level can use a shapeshifting spell and change into a wyrm and hold this form for limited amount of time;
• dancer - female; offensive attacks, status effects and healing spells;

Nixe classes:

• warrior - male; equipped with spear; high speed and agility, however when this abilities are overused stamina goes down;
• shapeshifters - male/female; can shapeshift into a water-wyrm for limited amount of time;
• bard - female; use of songs to cast various spells, including hipnosis.

I think the above settings would give the equal chances for win, as well as give a bit of choice in terms of different classes and their roles on battlefield. Additionally, I want to avoid marking one of the races as 'bad guys'. Story can be experience from both sides, Nixes are just trying to protect their habitat and Humans are trying to improve their knowladge of the world and use the technology. Initially both races lived in peace, however some unfortunate events destroyed that.

Material Studies|COP3

Before starting any color work on the character concepts I decided to do some material studies. In order to make different textures recognizable I felt like painting few of them in form of spheres. Why spheres and not the exact copy of the studied object? First of all with this method I'm able to concentrate on painting and understanding how light and shadow works. Second reason is that I'm just interested in texture, not the shape of the object.

As a starting point I did a shiny metal sphere, a bit rusty and the furry one. They were really challenging for me but I also did learnt a lot during the process. I've also did few other one, like leather, and might upload them on the other occassion.

More info on races|COP3

After a quick chat with Annabeth I've decided to change Orcs to some sort of water creature race, mostly because Orcs been done many times before. However I'd like to include them in the futher development of this project (extended practice perhaps).
I've looked into various water creatures, like mermaids and syrens. The following 3 got me really interested:

• Nixe - water spirit that can shapeshift into different creatures; German, Norwegian, Swedish mythology; play songs to drown people in lakes; usually harmless, but they can be malicious; both male and female can shapeshift and lure humans with their beautiful songs, can take human form but there will still be some clues indicating their origins (like ears or wet clothing);
• Rusalka - water nymph, female spirit in Slavic mythology (''red-haired girl'' is the direct traslation of the word русалка ); originally seen as a friendly creatures linked with fertility, however, after XIXth century they started to be assosiated with unclear spirits, somehow dangerous; rusalkas are women who commited suicide by drowning or who were violently killed by drowning; during Rusalnaya (Rusalka Week) they're the most dangerous and drag swimmers into the depths of lakes and rivers; Rusalkas hair are usually red or golden, very long and wet, eyes are blue or turquoise;
• Hulder - seductive forest creature; Scandinavian folklore; male and female, both can shapeshift; females have long gold hair and wear flower crowns, however they also have cow tails; usually friendly creatures, keepers, like to be treated with respect;

I've decided to go with Nixe race, although I really like the story of two other creatures.
Since Nixes are water creatures living in lakes and rivers, the whole conflict between two races is very tense. Most of the technological artefacts are located near lakes and rivers, which makes human attacks often (afterall they're the ones who posses enough knowladge to use it). Nixes aren't a warrior race, but use their shapeshifting ability very well, by changing into other creatures, like water-wyrms, to attack boats. Moreover, with their enchanted song, they kidnap young kids from human settlements.
Nixes live as a small tribe, Lorelei being their queen/ruler, even tho she doesn't like to be addressed this way.

Human race, as mentioned before, in this region, is far more advanced, but due to the limited access to technology, still locked in what could be described as mix of medievil Germany with cruelty of Vikings. Outfits heavily inspired by both eastern MMORPGs (Final Fantasy-esque) and western fashion from that time. Military orientated, tyranny from the king, both males and females are trained to fight and become warriors. Some of well educated men can become mages (need to come from high clans and be able to use magic) and their daughters, who also posses magical powers, can become dancers.

As for now, my design task is to come up with characters for both fractions - warriors, mages and dancers for human race and male/female versions of Nixes plus their ruler Lorelei.

World settings|COP3

During the second tutorial, which we did in small groups, I presented the work I done so far for the practical element. The feedback I got was mostly about what the world settings/history are and how it informs design decisions. I've a idea of what my world will look like in my head, but after the session I decided to write it all down.
The aim of my practical element is to create a set of characters that will be appealing to the mainstream audience, people who are either in their teens or older and play a lot MMO games (wherever they are player vs player arena based or more traditional role-play games). I'll look at the eastern MMO games, like Final Fantasy XIV or Ragnarok, to inform the style of the concepts.
World settings: fantasy, inspired by Final Fantasy series, magic and technology blends together. There are races that are less advanced than the others and don't use the advanced technology that is scattered around the lands. For the purpose of this brief and time constraint I got, I'm going to concentrate only on two different races that are in a state of war and fights for the land and better resources (the futher development of the conflict history could be done as a part of the extended practice, where also more sides could be introduced).
Since I was asked to scale the number of races I'm looking at down, I've decided to work only on two different fractions that will compete in this world. Humans, first race, are going to be the technologically more advanced than the other fraction. They'll still use traditional to the genre things, like swords, horse carriages, leave castles or houses build from bricks. However, the remains of advanced technology they have access to, like medical inventions or more complex methods of creating swords/access to the better materials (resources), have impact on the way they dress and act. At this point I want to make it clear, that I'm not after creating a fantasy mix with steampunk, I really want to stick with the only one genre and only indicate via the designs the availability to the higher technology. As mentioned, I'll be looking at the eastern RPGs, however, designs will be influenced by medievil armours, town structures and way they build they houses will be based on the German and western-south Poland architecture.
Second race I'm going to introduce are Orcs, which are going to be still in the prehistoric era. They built their houses on the remains of the past, most advanced technologies, which are unable to use it. They have a very spiritual orientated tribe, with shamans and warriors. Weapons they have are really primitive and made from basic materials (also basic set of tools and skills). African tribes are going to be main influence when it comes to clothing, color pallete, marking on faces.
With this setting I'll be able to work with two opposite color themes, gold-white-blue for Human fraction and red-orange theme for Orcs (long list of ethnic groups in Africa on wikipedia, but mostly I'd mostly look at the Maasai tribe, since red is their favored colour; red also connects with warriors and bravery; and at the Ndembu - red is a symbol of life and health).
Type of game: MMORPG game, where player can choose to play either side of the conflict. As mentioned before, I'm only going to outline the basic reasons of the conflict in this module, but there is potential for the further development during the extended practice. Player will have to choose a character from one fraction and join a guild to battle enemy.
Next step is to make another list of the character classes I'm going to work on and look closer into the meaning of colors in various cultures.

Knight Thumbnails|COP3

This time I followed the usual workflow, started with simple, blobby thumbs to create few different silhouettes, from which I chose 3. I drew them bigger, trying to have variety of body types for my knight - usual, well build guy; chap with small shoulders but massive arms and round belly, short-ish; and a guy with wide-shoulders, massive chest and total blank stare (not like two others have blank stares now ;) ).

Next step was to duplicate the layer with figures and create a new one for the armour designs. I tried to stick to black and grey and rather bold strokes, avoiding over working some areas. Main aim at this stage was to create a range of different armour designs, each to be easy to recognize and unique. I feel like incorporating a little bit of fur or cloth into the design will help in making it more interesting (also it'll be a contrasting texture to shiny metal of armour). Cloth can be also used as a way of displaying which guild character belongs to (like a small emblem). At this point I'm still unsure which design or body type I'll use. I kinda like the middle guy for his big arms and hands. However, it's not your usual, safe, typical fantasy knight. In the end I might end up doing both versions or just stick with this funky fellow to make my bunch of characters more interesting.

Initial knight design ideas|COP3

Below are 6 rough knight concepts I did recently to test out massive Cintiq we got in college. It took me a little bit over an hour to do all of them and there was no planning involved - I just went for it. Therefore, I'm not really going to use them in later stages, going back to the starting point and testing out shapes and silhouette.

So, why I've done this batch and why am I showing it here? First of all, I think it was a good warm up exercise for me, person who's normally not drawing fantasy (which doesn't mean I don't like it). A little bit outside of my usual, monster-alien creature, comfort zone. Second reason behind posting this image is, that even though I haven't done much planning with it, I still applied some of the armour knowledge I gained recently from compiling moodboards. This experimentation will be benefitial in later stages, as I had a chance to design some crazy looking armour parts (still not as insane as some knight designs seen in fantasy art). Still, I need to get a bit bolder with my designs if I want to portrait a typical fantasy concept art usually seen in RPG games.

Business of Design|COP3

I've mentioned Feng Zhu videos few times before, this time I wanted to take a deeper look at this two part episode of Design Cinema. Business of Design, as title suggests, look closly at the production pipeline and the use of concept art.

In the first part Feng talks about the process of creating, in case of this demo, a dragon design for a game. He looks at the things like references, context, mythology, target audience, budget, wherever it's an indie developer or AAA title, client point of view and difficulties that certain designs can encounter during production (e.g. rigging and animating). It's important to figure out your target audience before drawing, look up and collected references that will influence design. When designing, keep in mind how the actual thing could work - even basic knowladge of 3D software comes in handy. Client point of view is also important - everyone would love to spend months on designing crazy looking, unique things, but at the end of a day, you have to listen to what client is saying and expecting from you.
Second part looks at actual process of thumbnailing and designing a dragon, that suits either a safe playing developer or adventerous indie taste. Feng discusses his thumbnailing process and how he arranges designs and prepare them to the presentable level. Even though I'm familiar with this workflow (I've been watching Feng's videos for years now), everytime I find something new and useful.

In case of my practical element, I've already started collecting reference images in form of moodboards, but I'm going to do some futher life studies of armour and weapons in Royal Armouries next week. I'm also going to spent a little bit more time thinking about audience for my concepts and take it into account when drawing.

Moodboards|Practical Element|COP3

Before starting on character concepts I've decided to create few moodboards, which will influence my drawings.
Fashion shows were one of my main inspirations, mostly Alexander McQueen (fall 2011 is full of medievil inspired dresses and accessories). I've also google searched for medieval armour and renaissance clothes. There was no trouble in finding a knight armour referance for men, but complete lack of female armour somehow suprised me. Purposedly I've avoided 'chest plate' (or 'boob plate') skimpy and impractical armour, that shows more skin than it covers (whats the point of fighting in it?). The only decent armours I was able to find came from LARP communities, but it's not historically correct. As suggested by Annabeth, I'm going to contact someone from Royal Armouries and see if they have any records of female medieval armour in archive.
Also, I avoided putting any fantasy art in my moodboards, as I feel that will limit my creativity. By using photographs I'm leaving more room for interpretation and not just coping already existing designs.