Tattoo Design

I am super exited for my friend, who just had his tattoo done.. I have designed it for him a while ago, it was my first attempt in tattoo design too . I'm pleased how the tattoo artist executed it, so cool! ((:]

The Making of Monsters and Aliens

The last post for Character Design Unit, I upload the (soon to be) book pages of The Making of Monsters and Aliens Character Design

Character Design of Aliens and Monsters by Jolanta Jasiulionyte

Last Touch ups and Character Design Bible layout

Final Touch-ups - colour pallete for each character. This is adding up to the information sheets about each character to further inform production stage as well as to keep consistency if it was to be developed in a group of people.

Having added all the details and final touch-ups here is the layout and the cover of character design bible.

Villain's Props: Cape Design

This is the cape design I came up with. As previously intended, it is a stiff leather cape, barely moving on Villain's back, it is more like another layer of armour.Also the material it's made of is.. the creature, like his sidekick,  skin.  The decision was taken to both, interlink the two characters as well as further emphasize the overpowering of Villain's character.

Carefull attention was payed not to ruin the shapes allready created, contrary to that I honestly think it now further emphasizes them.

Character Design Tests and Environment Suggestions

I'm still thinking about that cape. It looks to be such a detail. Only. But it does change the perception of character. With the cape the Villain looks older, it adds lots more weight to him. Without it he looks more agile and menacing, capable of fighting the hero himself.  And I think that would make more sense, since I gave him four sharp legs, the veil would only get in the way and perhaps  contradict the logics of design.
On the other hand he could simply take it off  when fighting . But really.. the use of cape would be more convetional  I believe.
Anyone's opinion on that might help here, eventhough  it seems to be such a tiny detail..

But if he has only the sceptrum ( which has to be that  long,  when  he stands in his full hight to reach it ) it might suggest he is only a soldier. Or might not... It's now hard for me to see it objectively  :/

The Idea for the World.
It is a place of never ending canyons, that's way the hero (and supposedly the indigineus) has such a leg structure :  they need to stretch to full legth to jump over the canyon gaps. But after alien invasion the planet is seeded with otherwordly structures, mineral-like control points, walls and main castle.

Reference for the combination of both ideas :

And here is a sketch for the environment of Monster Land under invasion of Aliens. I imahine  a creamy soft landscape with edgy castle-wall  "grown" like a minerals  out of the canyons throughout the Monster world .

Since environment concept isn't what brief asks us to produce I believe I wont develope it to finsihed stage because of other commitments to the course and university.

Additional Expression and Pose Sheets for Aliens and Monsters

The project comming to its end I add the rest of expression sheets and poses for each character. As asked I drew only those expressions these characters would do.

 

Last touch ups for the Villain’s design, his props. Originally I was also planning to include the veil, but having spent time on it drawing, I came up with conclusion it just doesn't go along with the shapes I created already. Completely distracts from his  triangular and more communicative original  silhouette. Also he then looks a lot  older then I intended.

But here is the symbolic scepter.

 

Character Desing Lecture 9: Triumphant Sewer

This lesson we were given again, a random set of words, one which specifies environment another what mood it has to evoke.

I’ve got triumphant sewer.
To first familiarize with the environment I looked for some reference.

Secondly started thinking of which environments in our lives evoke a triumphant feel. To me its church with massive musical organs.

Further are the concepts I came up with during the class:

Fully Textured Characters, Resolved 4 View Turnarounds and Props

I believe the rendering of characters is pretty much finished. Here I post sidekick's and hero's concepts. Villain's finished concept was posted previously.

 I retouched sidekick's shapes to be  relatively clear rather than suggestive as before, also added textures for wings and eyes.

To paint hero took awfully long.. Definitely what I haven't expected.. It was because of his furry texture. I had to resolve  body hair as well as design props which were  intended for him ( I just forgot they were still  missing :/ ) 

That's the shield he carries with him on his back. It says.. . Well I don't know what, I don't speak in that language ( fictional that is). But I believe something epic.. :D

Last week I've posted the turnarounds, but mistakenly thought it's only necessary to do 2 views, so here is the added views for each one of them . 

What’s left is expression sheets, maybe some poses if there’s any brake in-between other two projects we have. I’d like to draw suggestive concepts for the two world environments. I know we have a lecture with Justin about it. But we’ll see...

Character Design Lectures 7 and 8

In the 7^th lecture we were taught of the principals and swirling  ideas for approach  when  creating creature designs. The importance of   animal references, application of appropriate humanistic features and use of symbols, textures ect. were discussed. All is used to construct a creature audience would react to consciously and subconsciously ( For instance, As Justin pointed  Giger’s Alien has all the elements serving to subconsciously invoke a fright of rape in audience’s mind ).

The latest lecture all of us experienced a simulation of a real life scenario, where a group of 3 people were briefed to create 6 designs for a rebooted show.  The following two designs are for

Dr Zantus Kromozone;

Evil Scientist

Who delights in experimenting on other creatures but at the same time is squeamish himself. Lacks of display of emotions. He experienced an injury, lost an eye, but with his own capabilities improved himself by introducing a new eye capable of many new features like controlling the henchman.

A note from Justin was the design is too subtle and there's a far greater potential to go "over the top" with Scientist. Indeed only after drawing it I realised I've created a rather realistic portrait and have not designed a character as much.

Grok

Hulking henchmen, genetic experiment

Armor plated saurekian, with  instincts of predator and augmented natural advantages.He is controlled by the evil scientist  

 

It was a fairly good approach for that character as noted. Suitably non-human looks, good direction of shapes.

These were created in just over an hour. I'd guess it summarizes and  shows how well we pick up the conventions of designing a character  from all the  previous lectures as well  as what   creative  desidions were made in such a brief period of time.

Character Sheets

Having figured out the basic construction of characters there is a next stage in designing them in full detail from side and front views at least.  General standarts include 3/4 view, front, side and back.

So here it is as follows:
( Character designer J.J. *Jolanta Jasiulionyte* )

Additional information sheet follows for the Villain to see the impressions he brings when fully stretched out. 

 

After the two views were finished it was only quick to do shape tests for each character.  

 

Again, had to tweak some of the hero's facal features. But to see the progression of design I upload a sequence of them.

Thanks for watching!

Character Design Refinement

Like two weeks ago, so as the last week's lecture, I’ve got advice and notes on all three characters.  No radical changes needed to be done, since the designs are pretty much in their refinement stage: tweaking proportions, adding details ext. 

So for the hero, again, I had to make some adjustments with his head's structure. Change nose and eye shape, add facial hair. Hopefully it’s working for the better now.

 

 

Sidekick pretty much worked as it is, just needed to add the jaw for more comunicative  facial expressions, and cleaned up the drawing for its clarity.

 

The Villain, as thorough out the whole character design unit, took the longest time to “figure out”. After changing  the head it became “more interesting” than body, also  seemed detached from it, so the advice from Justin was to add some “complexity” to the body.  

 

  

All of the changes were really necessary. Characters can be better understood when seen in relationship to one another.

 

I started working on the texturing. I had basic ideas about it  for each of the design:  hero will be furry, sidekick has a /dry/ thin bat-like skin, but the villain.. (There’s just something with villain’s design all this unit :D ) a great great idea came from Justin, and it was perfect, as soon as he mentioned it I saw fully finished design in my head ( Eurica! ) He said that villain’s design structure suggest he could be mineral-based creature, made of a see-through mineral.. Like.. He’s an evil alien, why not.  

  

I’ve gathered some Visual reference for each character’s texturing ect. Hopefully in next week I’ll be able to work on that more.

Oh, And I discovered I haven't uploaded show's synopsis , forgot :/  But here it is.

Character design lectures 5 and 6

Week 5 was all about getting the lines which construct and dominate in the pose. Depending what pose , what attitude it expresses , the lines vary. The main tip was, to look for balance: if there's a curve to the left ( say in the spine of character) then it means there has to be a curve to the right ( legs would support the figure and try to keep it stable) . So we acted out some scenarios between each other ( like "the doctor tells bad news to the patient and his wife" or  "the house is on fire and he is madly satisfied while she is horrified" and more simplistic poses like shy , confused and heroic)

In week 6 we were introduced with additional information usefull to include to character designs, like the use of hair, hairlines, costumes and uniforms.

Also techniques of how to test if the design is working , one of which include shape test