CDDA - Prop turnaround board

So this is my finished turnaround board. I'm pretty happy with it though I plan to darken the hammer on the back image (middle) as it isn't distinguishable from the pick axe. Anyway I'm happy with how it turned out and think it would a be very useful piece of artwork for anyone trying to develop the idea from 2D to 3D.

Here's the updated version. Not much of a change but enough so that the the pick axe and hammer are noticeably different shades.

CDDA - Prop turnaround progress

So this morning I've been working on a turnaround board of my prop showing the side, back and front views of it. I'm doing this as I realized that I didn't have any neat turnaround board for the prop. Also it doesn't take too long so  have time to do it. I plan to add colour to at least the side view and then see how time is going. After I have finished this work I would like to redo a few of the faces on my facial expression board. 

CDDA - Environment beauty shot changes and reference/overlays

Just a few quick changes to my environment, them being the light from the door being dimmed a lot and the red glow from the ruby lettering being a bit smaller. I'm also uploading textures that I used for overlays on this piece of art. Apart from these I used textures also used on my prop, something I used for inspiration when it came to colours. 

CDDA - Environment beauty shot

I finished my environment beauty shot today. Considering the speed I did it in I'm very happy with it. The pillars looks great and I'm very glad I added the indents and extrusions into/out of them as it makes the scene much more interesting and breaks up the scene a bit. The door came out quite well, I think that I may lower the lighting on the sphere but am pretty happy with the majority of it. My least favourite point of the piece is the fire and that is because I don't have time to draw my own as that would undoubtedly take a long time. But overall I'm very pleased with it. 

CDDA - Environment no linework

What it says really, just removed the line work and filled in gaps and got everything neat and tidy for textures and shading. So far the environment looks quite good yet simple enough that I shouldn't struggle with it too much hopefully. 

CDDA - Environment base colours

This morning I have completed my base colours for my environment scene. It's pretty simple. I worked alongside my character and prop beauty shots as I want the colours to be similar in a sense as I feel that the Dwarfs would be a very united people and such use a similar colour palette. The pillars are made with a kind of iron/stone hybrid (my prop hammer and pickaxe material), the torch is silver (prop handle) but the shadow has made it look too dark, the gate is gold (prop decoration) and the lettering ruby (as is the writing on my prop). The floor is a kind of light stone, similar to a sand colour, whilst the main path is iron which I plan to have some kind of engraving on. The path has occasional red rugs and the gold diamonds will likely be a similar design to them. Below you can see in order, base colours with base shadow, base colours with both base light and shadow, a pattern I may apply to the iron path and then possible rug patterns. I will next get rid of my linework and then find textures for all the materials (though I may use the same as in my prop). Once that's done I will update on here again. It should be done today and then I plan to try and start neatening up the shadows in the scene first before adding the lit areas and highlights. 

CDDA - Environment lighting

Here is the base light/shadow on my line drawing of my environment. I quite like it as I get a large range of colours with a few contrasting areas which adds to the attraction of the image. I decided to give the door a glow as it looked very bland with just the torch. Tomorrow I move onto base colours, textures and a start on the shading. 

CDDA - Final environment linework

So this is my base line work for my environment. I kept it very similar to my mock up just changing and adding some details. The marks going into the pillars are mainly to break up the environment lighting a little, it could become very bland otherwise. My next step is to block out some shading. I think that I may have not put enough light sources in the scene (the torch will be lit in the final shot and there is one on the other side of the hall) so I may add torches towards the door too or maybe have the circles emanate a slight light source, it is a fantasy world after all. 

CDDA - Final environment mock

This is the mock up for my final environment. I went for a design similar to my very first but neatened up. I plan to add more torches on either side and have all the spacing done correctly but this is a very basic version of it. Whether I'll be happy with the final image I don't know but I feel that the geometry here is simple enough that I can finish it to a passable level at least. 

CDDA - Environment further development

Following my post earlier regarding my environment design I went away and created this. Whilst I like symmetrical theme kind of thing I don't think it looks very good. In order to have the idea work I would have to place the pillars out wider to make the tunnel wider but the I don't think that would work in this kind of setup. I'm going to go away and try to make some kind of idea that works from what I have. I may end up creating something more similar to my original design or may do something similar to this but more to my liking, I shall see.

CDDA - Envrionment development

Today I started work towards the completion of my final piece of work needed for my module, my environment beauty shot. Environments are something I have little experience in drawing and creating so I have struggled a bit. I decided to choose a reasonably simplistic idea that I originally had as I did not want to be too ambitious with my design, better to have a simple, well created piece of art than a great idea that is executed poorly. It is essentially a tunnel with a series of pillars on either side. To this original design I have added a back door to it. I also plan to add torches to line the halls. I'm planning to have my vanishing point more central to the image and slightly lower than on my digital version. I also plan to add some small decorations to the image too yet I don't really know what would fit at the moment, the only idea I have is some kind of weapon plaques showcasing the Dwarfs blacksmiths skills. Anyway the environment is developing albeit slowly. 

CDDA - Facial expression board

Today I finished my characters facial expression board. I did happy, suspicious, laughing, angry and neutral. I'm not hugely happy with the suspicious face or the neutral but I'm pretty pleased with the other 3. Considering that faces are my least confident area of human anatomy I think I did okay. If I finish my environment beauty shot early then I will most likely come back to this and redo those two faces as I feel they are the worst work I have done for my final hand in and I'm not completely happy with them. 

CDDA - Life drawing - Woman model

This week at life drawing we had a female model making it a much more interesting session with the different shapes and shadows to be drawn. We started with 5 minute poses which went okay, it was quite a lot different from drawing our normal male model. The main difference that I struggled with was the size of the model, a slim build, which was very different to our other model.

We then did a 25 minute drawing. This one went quite well, I like it from the hips up. The legs are too thin and bend slightly. I also decided to use orange for highlights and my charcoal for the shadow giving a nice effect. I was pretty happy with this.

Lastly we did a 45 minute drawing. I used the same medium again. It went pretty well, I was really happy with the shapes and I felt I got the general idea of the shadows and highlights on her. I drew her face which I was pretty happy with too though I didn't have time to add colour and shadow. 

CDDA - Character Beauty Shot

Today I finished my character beauty shot. I'm pretty happy with how it came out, especially the face. I've always found faces to be something very difficult to draw so drawing one with lighting from below was very difficult for me yet I managed well. One thing I would have liked to do better was push the contrast more, particularly the light areas. Whilst I tried this, I do not have long before my deadline so I don't have time to be doing 'perfect' pictures, yet I tried hard and took my time on this. 

CDDA - Character beauty shot update

Just an update on the character beauty shot. I've finalized and tweaked my pose and got the base colours down now. I plan to shade the character and then do the background after the foreground is finished. I'm going to start with the face as I find this to be the most difficult area to draw and would like to get it out of the way first. 

CDDA - Turnaround Colour

This week I finished off the colour on my front view for my turnaround board. I've been informed that this is the only view which I need to do on this piece of work. I would have like to have done the others but deadlines are looming and I still have more work to do for next week. Overall I'm happy with how he came out except for his nose, I would have liked to make this a little wider and fatter. Apart from that I'm very happy with it. 

Intro to 3D - Final Render

Today I finished the last part of my vending machine and rendered it in Marmoset. I'm very happy with how it turned out and felt that I learnt a lot from this project. 

CDDA - Hammerpick beauty shot

Today I finished my beauty shot of my prop, the hammer pick. It was quite fun to do and taught me a lit about metal textures, specifically gold, and photo overlays. I ended up making the gold quite dirty because I didn't really like how it looked when it was clean. 

CDDA - Life drawing no model

This week at life drawing our model was absent again so we drew pictures of poses that couldn't be done by a single man. We were given 5 minutes to draw structure and add some linework then 10 minutes to add to the picture. Whilst it was kind of interesting, I didn't really feel that it was useful to me or my skills. I also got quite bored by the end. It was an interesting yet mostly useless session.

CDDA - Prop final angle

Today I started work on my prop beauty shot. After struggling to get the spheres and head of the prop right on my line work I decided to restart and use a 3D model render to help me. Essentially I modeled my hammer pick and then chose an angle and rendered it. After this I took it into Photoshop and traced the edges making a few small changes here and there. Tomorrow I will colour the design.