Personal Sketchbook

Following our guest lecture with Mike McCarthy where he gave the advice of buying a small,really cheap sketchbook to bring around with you and draw whenever you can, I started drawing almost every day. As he had mentioned, when you spend lots of money on a really nice new sketchbook, you become too scared to draw because you don't want to ruin the paper.

This is the progress of almost three months of doodling whenever I can. This is the only place I have been doing personal art but I think it has really helped me draw quicker and refine my style, despite this book being a mix of styles.

Week 25 - Spaceship Assignment

Our break assignment was to create a spaceship design for the near future.

During the lesson we practiced designing spaceship shapes using the curved or straight lined rule. Keeping with one sort of line movement makes the designs look more realistic and make more sense. Personally I found drawing curved lines easier as that is what I'm used to and I feel there is more that can be done that way.

I wanted to keep the design for the assignment as similar and accurate to the current spaceships as possible so I compiled a mindmap of just real spaceships and more official designs.

Using a fine liner as it was easier to sketch roughly with, I created some shapes for a spaceship. I wanted to stick with the more airplane looking design so that it looks more reasonable and feasible.

 Next I made a model of my favourite design in Maya. I wanted this spaceship to look like the shuttles that exist right now but with a bit extra. I added an extra sort of greenhouse part to add a bit of life to it.

The render I made in maya was very bad quality and didn't have the right sort of look so I downloaded RenderMan for some better quality renders.

Week 21 - Tree With Character

For this week's assignment we have been asked to create a tree with character. This is different than making a character as adding character without a face is more complicated and requires a lot more thought.

I looked at some interesting tree concepts to give me an idea on how to make a scene more intriguing as the character would be easier to portray through the rest of the image and it's composition instead of just the tree.

I sketched out a very rough scene so that I could get down the rough composition I wanted.

I really liked the more twisty trees from the mindmap so started working on top of the sketch and built up more of the form of the tree.

Week 21 - Insectoid Character Assignment

Similar to the frog character, this time we were asked to draw an insectoid character.

I wasn't entirely sure with what sort of insect to go with as there is such a large variety which all look massively different. I made a mind-map of some of the most interesting looking insects I found.

I tried doing what I had done with the crustacean as I really liked the style they came out in but the silhouette technique didn't work very well for this, maybe because I needed some more human features which was a bit harder this way.

I went back to my mind-map and noticed many of the insects look quite long and especially liked the proportions on the stick insect. I wrote down some words, such as "tall" and "adviser" to give the character more of a personality and a story.

Week 21 - Composition Speedpaint

In today's lesson we looked at how to make a piece of art more interesting by improving composition.

This was the original image we were given. We were asked to repaint it in a different composition using the rule of thirds.

I spent a while adjusting the image until I was happy with the placements though as we didn't have long, I didn't get round to fully painting it.

I really enjoyed this lesson and as I have difficulty with backgrounds, I found this very helpful.

Week 20 - Colour Theory

This week we watched a video on colour theory. I feel more comfortable working in black and white so this was important for me.

The image on the left used highly saturated colours, close to each other on the colour wheel while the right one has complementary colours, opposites on the colour wheel. I like the one on the right more but I like the mixture of the yellow and the green cloth on the left.

Week 18 - Three-Point Persperctive

Week 17 - Steampunk Design Assignment

I have always been a large fan of the steampunk genre despite how cliche it is so I was excited for this assignment.

I already knew I wanted to design a female character as I love the style and clothes. I looked up some typical accessories and fashions to give me something to go off, though I already have a lot in my mind as well as lots of my own steampunk style corsets and clothes to inspire me.

In a small sketchbook I drew a stereotypical character with a large dress, similar to the sketch on the left. I decided I wanted to try something a little different so designed another two in a more battle/rugged style.

I really like the design in the middle so bought it into Photoshop to colour it in. Using layers on the multiply setting, I added some base colours. I tried to minimize the saturation and variety of colours as steampunk designs usually use similar shades.

I built up slowly and added texture to the materials and skin. I'm still getting used to Photoshop so this all took a very long time.

Eventually I adjusted the eye as it looked wonky and changed up some inaccurate parts. I ran out of time at the end so some parts are very rough but overall I am happy with the design. I think I added the steampunk style without having to rely on cogs and gears and large dresses.

Week 16 - Rendering Curved Surfaces

In previous lessons we had looked and the correct way of rendering but only on flat surfaces, so this time we looked at curved surfaces.

We were given a sketch from 3D artist Jordu Schell to practice on as it a very round creature.

The painting lasted about 1-1.5 hours so we didn't go into too much detail but it was a good practice of what we were taught.

Week 14 - Anatomy Study - Muscles

After the skeleton assignment, we did a similar thing with muscles.

I made a sketch page of zoomed in sections of the body. This was very useful for me as I struggle with the correct build when drawing.

I drew back and front of the full body. I couldn't add as much detail as I would have liked but this was good practice and a good way to help me remember where each muscle is.

Week 14 - Paintover Technique

This lesson we began looking at the paintover technique used by many artists as it is a quick way to get ideas down.

 We were given a render of a simple 3D model to practice this technique on.

We were also given this plating image to use on the picture.

Using the overlay layer style I duplicated the plating image on each side of the object. I used the skew and warp transform tools to help move and edit the image to fit correctly as the angle differs on each. Lastly I added a logo on a screen layer and adjusted the levels to match the lighting and created a background by editing a few pictures of stars I found online.

Week 13 - Speedpaint

We started this terms visual design lessons with another speedpaint.

We looked at Sam Nielson's "Stealing Apples".

We didn't have very long and were told to work in layers, starting with the background and blocking in the colours. As last time I had trouble drawing quickly and so roughly as I usually spend my time adding detail. This is what I ended up with by the end of the lesson and although it is not finished, it was very good painting and colour practice (though the colours look different as I was looking at a printed copy instead).

Week 12 - Anatomy Study - Bones

Over the break our assignment was to research human bone anatomy. I draw humans often but almost never use any reference so this activity was very useful for me.

I looked at lots of different images as each one was slightly different. I found pictures of real bones more useful as I could see every indent. I also found an app which allowed me to move around the bone and get a better image of it. I tried sketching the more important and detailed parts.

Drawing the full skeleton was difficult as there are many very small bones and everything has very specific measurements.

After this assignment I found sketching people easier as I now have a basic understanding of proportions and structure.

Week 12 - Speed Painting

We looked at a speed paint portrait in this lesson. We were told to work very small and get down the main shape with a large brush to get us used to drawing quickly.

It was very odd painting so roughly. I was so zoomed out I couldn't actually see all these brushstrokes very clearly. I had trouble doing this an began sketching it out before getting told off for doing lines. So I went back into rough painting and by the end I was relatively happy with the accuracy.

I then zoomed in a little and started blending the strokes together with the mixer brush tool. As I was having problems with my computer I ended up having less time than the others but I am happy with the way it looks now, even if it isn't finished.

Week 10 - Anthropomorphic Character/Creature Design

This week's assignment was to design an anthropomorphic character. We have done some character designs before but anthropomorphic designs are different as the way you incorporate an animals features must be more realistic but subtle.

I kind of already had an idea of the sort of character I wanted to design. I wanted to make some sort of  seller/trader amphibian character so I sketched some looks on paper to start off with.

I then went and made a quick mindmap of frogs, there colours and features to help make my character more realistic.

In the lesson I began sketching the face and basic body shape, skinny with long legs. I added some block colour. I saw how most frogs have patches and wanted to add vitiligo to the skin as a more human version of the dark skin.

I tried to fully paint the concept but couldn't get the right textures on the skin.

I couldn't quite get the right depth in the painted version so I put the sketch layer on top. I much prefer how this looks. It has all the details that just the paint doesn't have.

I am happy with how the character looks, I think it has a good balance of both human and frog features while still having enough character to hold up. I would like to add more details to the clothes or more wares attached to the backpack which is more like the character I first imagined as well as I would like a slimier texture to the skin.