Christmas Update

Just keeping you updated on a small Christmas venture. I wanted to work a little bit on my environmental concepting, however I realized I was having trouble with idea generation, this was probably because I didn't have any specific idea in mind of what I wanted aside from 'fantasy landscape'. Almost miraculously a few days later FZD released the absolute perfect video on idea generation. It basically was using photo bashing as a technique to generate loads of completely different landscapes. I gave it a try and they came out really cool, but I think I may have relied on the photo bashing too much and painting over them not enough, so there's still work to be done here. I still thought it was a really interesting tutorial though, and when we inevitably have to do some sort of landscape design in the future, a technique like this might come in useful. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-l9kNXAeGQ

Lessons Learned

“It’s failure that gives you the proper perspective on success.” - Ellen DeGeneres

This last four weeks have not been my best, but there's allot to be learned here as well. This project certainly didn't leave me on the high note that my sentry turret or film room did, but the best thing to do at this point is salvage everything there is to be learned from it and  then try not to dwell. 

So let's see now; my finished model ended up something like this: 

Lesson1: The absolute most important lesson here is the importance of orthographies. I tried to model a stylized character from a real person. I believed that I'd be able to adjust it on the go and I was wildly wrong. If I had more time, maybe I could have pulled it off, but I didn't and I should have known this at the time I started modelling. If I had followed my design more closely, I would have been able to pull of a much more unique and stylized character like the ones from my designs. The hunch for example- I always told myself throughout the process that I would achieve posture through rigging, but being left with no time for such a glamorous stretch goals, my character lost instant personality though not being hunched over, with dangling, ungainly arms. 

Also the shapes! My design hinged fundamentally around being sharp, jagged and harsh. Where as this came out being rounded and friendly- again I put this down to not having proper orphographies that I could model too. The hood in particular stands out as a big thing that should have been very different.

 I mean, look at the difference in silhouette that should have been.

I really find it strange in retro respect some of the decisions I made, there are very simple design mistakes that could have vastly improved my character. I mean- fundamentally, I don't think the model was bad, it just not what I had designed. In fact, technically I feel it was quite adequate.


Lesson 2: Time management. I don't want to make excuses for myself, but it does have to be mentioned that I lost a huge amount of time designing and re designing in the early stages of the project because of how vast it was, and my own uncertainly on what I wanted or what was expected of me. But despite this, there are some weird things I got caught up doing while modelling. The hands for example, are laughably detailed compared to the rest of the model. Ironically I do really like them, it just wasn't an appropriate use of time. I also was left with tragically little time for texturing- which kind of ties into the next lesson.

Lesson 3: I needed way more texture planning.

After doing some colour studies and colour themes, there was a lot of colour work done premodelling- thing is, I knew I didn't like any of them in advance. I was just hoping as I textured something good would happen. But while the colour scheme was far from ideal, the bigger problem came with texture style. My original style plan left colours in a painterly, simplistic fashion.. The problem with that was, that wasn't my model anymore. Instead of the model I was supposed to have- I had a semi realistic that looked outright unfinished with the simple textures I had planned. So I kind of made it 'half realistic' texturing in an attempt to adapt to my new model but also stay loyal to my original plans. I didn't get the best of both, not my a long shot, I think I got the benefits of neither and it ended up looking like it really didn't know what it wanted to be. Which it didn't.

Lesson 4: Making sure you understand the brief. I can't stress enough how much simpler things would have been this project if I'd have just got the project more. Especially the dichotomy parts of it. I'm not happy with the design I went with and now that it's too late I can think of a million other awesome ideas for dichotomous characters, I have one particularly specific one about a sports bike rider- tall, edgy and fast in a full leather race suit, compared to short, round, half helmet cruiser or Harley rider- two stereotypical enemies in the motorbiking world. It would have been fun to play on those sterotypes.
In a strange way, now that I've written this post, it's like I've made peace this project and can just embrace the lessons learned and move on. It's almost pleasant.

Queue Panic

My characters aren't dichotomous. It took me drawing out my 'final' designs to realize it, but I have. 

Queue panic.

I immediately tried to adapt my designs to be more contrasting, I experimented with cute/creepy, smart/dumb, and other opposites that could be applied to by already existing designs. I tried rolling with cute/creepy but by the time I was finished I was sick with dread on even justifying it as a design. It felt like it lost all it's character and charm. I didn't like the robot as a scary character and likewise the girl who was representative of darker and more unsettling characteristics herself. 

I backtracked and tried to just work with what characteristics they already had and just reemphasize them more. I think I settled on a sweet spot- cynical and tired verses young and wide eyed. I think this comes across despite one being a robot... I also tried to make better use of shapes; sharp and hard edges and smooth round curves to create more dichotomy. For a quick fix I think there is some significant dichotomy, I only wish there was more time for me to draw the pair out nicely, but even without our (very much appreciated) weeks extension- there's still no time. I'm already way to far into the project to still be concepting but the redesigns took out a huge chunk of this week that should have bee spent modelling.  I'm still trying to claw out of this deep self loathing 'I missed the point of the project' pit... again! This is clearly not my project. 

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In between choosing which ideas I hate the least, I also managed to put together some colour themes. I thought it would be a nice step to have before colour schemes, basically just gathering a load of images that had a nice palette, so I can get an idea of what colour scheme I want to use. I asked people around which ones they like so I could work in on a few of the popular ones.
A particular design choice I made to help enhance the dichotomy was to have the two at contrasting ends of the colour wheel, only to be connected by the girls arm which would be made of the same material and colour as the robot- to bring the design together as one unit. I like to think that they do look like they belong together in the same universe because of some shared features like the eyes and strong use of triangles.

In the meantime I finally started modelling, and with no proper orthographies to speak of, I'm using an actual person for proportional values so I can get them correct and then edit them to match my designs. I'm finding modelling clothes particularly difficult and am having some troubles keeping it low poly, I'm also at a stage where I have no idea how I'm going to do the fur or hair. On one hand I think using alphas wouldn't look as effective or adhere to the design as much, however it is a more standard and budget conscious method I think I need to be wary of this as the tri count is looking quite high already.
It was also incredibly irritating to do the trousers which are supposed to be incredibly baggy and add allot to  the shape, but I ended up having to neuter them down significantly because it kept clipping between the legs, ruining any future rigging potential. Also when I tried to make them larger on the outside, it looked ridiculous.



I had more luck with the head, which I am cautious to say I'm quite pleased with, but I'm apprehensive because maybe my standards have been lowered so viciously that any small victory seems like an enormous relief. I liked that I managed to get the stylistic nose tilt that makes the character look younger, it also makes the big round eye sockets even larger by comparison, which is good since the eyes are meant to unsettle you, in contrast to the almost 'cute' face.

Next week will be a huge push to finish the whole thing, it's disastrous that I'm even this far behind in the first place, but |I don't feel it's impossible just yet, as long as I keep up the pace and finish modelling within the next day or so. There'll be some late nights, I can tell.

See you next week!

Stay away from da Voodoo

Ok, feeling the pressure now, got to get some usable designs now. I went and completely revisited my style, but perhaps mistakenly (in the sole interest of time) kept to the same themes. Thanks to a really interesting lesson from Mike Kelly, I was much ore away of shape this time around. I decided I wanted a contrast in shape between the two characters- which I decided would be a robot for the engineer character, or a elemental or totem summon for the Shaman. I tried to bare in mind what Emma warned against with Shamans in the initial feedback session- beware of shamans because they are generally adorned with garments far too detailed and eloquent to design and model in the remaining time. Bearing this in mind, any designs of the shamanistic nature I designed from then on were heavily stylized to the extent where detail was inconsequential to the silhouette and characterization of the design. I felt I was in a good place with the shamans, but in the end, decided they were too simple. 

So I went with the robot and engineer. I settled on a design style I wanted for this quite early, and even decided to keep the cartoon 'white eyes' that were initially just for the purpose of silhouetting, I thought they added allot of character and also gave a direct link back to the robot, who shared the same blank white eye design. It just gave them the same 'in-universe' feel and I liked it. I tried to avoid assigning her characteristics during this stage of the game, but she grew on me, and the more she grew on me the more I found myself leaning and creating more creepy and unsettling types of designs for her. The reason I was so locked in on having a robotic arm was because I wanted it to be very clear she was an engineer, so I used the silhouette to try and communicate that, she isn't a soldier or a medic- no, her purpose is directly linked with her companion and is relevant to him. To get that feel, I used actual machine parts to reference that, while making sure that whatever her arm was, I'd know how to rig it and have it function as a regular arm if it came to that. 

The problem I was finding thought is that she was becoming to robotic herself, and I wanted her to contrast with the robot, so I narrowed it down to more humanesque designs. The robot designs came much more quickly and I found I didn't need to produce nearly as many before I found one that just felt fantastically right. I was immediately enamored with him and only felt the need to do a few more iterations before I settled. It's actually a shame, I would have been happy to spend the next week devoted exclusively to drawing robots, but time is key, and I need to move on. 

I'd actually come to a decision at this point, that I would model the human first- even though I vastly prefer the robot, because frankly, I just outright need practice modelling people, and the robot could be broken down into prop type things I've done before. So despite what might be a wiser, safer choice, I'm modelling the girl. For the good of the future and aw man I really wanted to model the robot.