today the phrase that I was asked to translate visually was “the essence of power”. For some reason I went sexual with this one, or at least that is what I think I did.
To be honest, it is very late and this androgynous character that I drew is confusing even to me. apparently the essence of power is a possibly female character biting a necklace made of gold… yeah, I don’t get it either
So today the inspiration I had to work from was the word holy kitty. I can’t say why, but that reminded me of the 16-bit games that I used to play as a kid.
One of the great thing about having grown up in the 90’s is that you can remember a time when what you see above was considered great graphics. I remember being floored by the original Prince of Persia, and, lacking the fine motors skills to do so myself, watching my big brother playing through it.
While I do love progress and I think the games that came out this year have been wonderful, part of me still pine for those old 16 bit games. something that you can probably see from my very limited library of demos here.
Today, on spit paint, the theme was, hellish landscape.
I was recently made aware of the facebook group spit paint, which is devoted to speed paints of 30 minutes or less.
Today, I decided that I would joint the group, for about a week.
The great thing about spit paint is that they give you topics to work from. Every day they will display 4 words that you can then choose to illustrate. Today one of those words were electric, which is where this plug came into play.
I actually wanted it to curve through the forest like a snake, but I ran out of time drawing, so this is how it ended up.
Still, for my first speed paint in about a month, it is far from the worst thing I have ever done.
Yesterday, I taught a class in the manga art style, which was horrible. Actually, it was not so much horrible as it was very quiet.
I was actually pretty excited for the lesson to start since I had 9 students which is 5 more than I had last year, which I thought would bode well for the class, how wrong I was.
I even thought the lesson I had planned out well, with the theme sailor moon, was pretty cool. To me sailor moon is a must see for any manga/anime lover, so the idea was for my students to make their own sailor moon character.
So I was excited to start, and so the girls started showing up. And that was pretty much all they did, show up. They were pretty much sheep for me to push around; if I said draw, they drew, if I said eat snacks, they ate snacks, the only thing that seemed to confuse these girls was when I told them to take a break, that just made them stare at me confused.
After two and half hours, I had drawn these and was thoroughly tired of being the only person to put two words together for that entire time. I dismissed the mute group of girls and started to rue next week, when I have to ho back and do it again.
I have got to be honest and say that I have had a very long day, so please forgive me if I am not up to my usual banter. What I can say, is that I managed to give you this insight into my process, which for better or for worse depicts my struggles with art. Please follow this link to see how this drawing was made.
I have to admit that I have fallen a little bit in love with this androgynous cyborg, if that is in fact what he/she/it is. So much so, that I made this 3D model of him/her/it.
Yeah, I am kind of making it up as I go along, which is new for me and it’s really unlike me, as I usually plan everything out weeks, sometimes months in advance.
This time though, I am pretty much leaving it all up to my own creative whims, which is actually a really fun way of working. Over-thinking is a thing of the past… well, at least, for this project.
This does not mean that Gwendolyn (that is his/her/it’s name for now) will become the main character in the game, but he/she/it might get a bit more screen time than I had initially intended. At the very least, he/she/it is the focus of my pitch video.
My game project versions is coming along quite nicely. I have to admit, the December deadline might be a bit optimistic, but I will try to stick to it, since it would be great to get something up and running is as little time as possible,
What you see above is part of the pitch video which I hope to have done as soon as possible. The character here is knows as the creepy announcer, since I haven’t given him/her a name yet.
He/she is a greeter at the Arena who Gives you the rundown of the place at the very start of the game. He/she is robotic and not very helpful, but she is designed by the creators of the arenas to be reassuring.
He/she will also appear in the pitch video and to hopefully give people a sense of the theme of the game and entice them to work on the project.
I think I will be modelling the character in 3D in the morning
for the last couple of days I have been focusing on uploads that pertain to the project that I am working on, which is all well and good, but I feel like it might be a good idea for a bit of a break.
that is not to say that I am taking a break form versions, that is still charging full steam ahead, I just needed to remind myself that I have to practice old school drawing as well.
This is what this is, simply a reminder to myself that while projects are nice, practice is what sees them top fruition.
A couple of days ago I explained that I am tentatively working on a new project that will take place in a world where you are able to meet older versions of yourself.
Since that post I have been struggling to figure out what the visual style for this project should be. I made this sketch to try and pinpoint the look of the project.
This design was heavily influenced by (on not copied from), Robin Davey. You can see Robins work here: http://robindavey.co.uk/
This drawing is not an example of the in-game graphics, but rather an idea for what the posters and screens that the player will meet in the game might look like.
I don’t quite know yet how the in-game graphics will look, but as soon as I know, I will share it on this blog.
Sylvester Hansen