Assignment 3 Revisit

Very quick post here. For our Zodiac assignments, we had to do a final that was the characters coloured and I wasn't aware of that, so I didn't... But I went back and worked on it a bit in between my other projects and here's a coloured version of Ram and Mar:

Ram here is very simple, mainly due to him being a shadow, but I also made him a bit smokey-er here. Mar is also clothed in yellows because the Ram's colour is yellow.

The idea of using textures as base colours came from an anime called Gankutsuou (がんくつおう）: The Count of Monte Cristo. I haven't seen much of the anime (only and episode or two), but it's based very loosely off the novel of the same name.

In the show, they do something similar, as seen here:

Mine of course isn't as detailed, but being as Mar is a simple creature (and the entire idea I guess is supposed to be uhm... "simple") I didn't want it as detailed and flashy as in The Count.

But yeah, that's the coloured version - just needed to post it before I forgot.

Assignment 5

Okie dokie... Assignment 5 time. I don't think this post will be as long as my previous ones mainly to due to how fast I finished this assignment and how tired/out of it I am at the moment. I just have to get this thing posted before I forget, because... I'm out of it.

Anyway, for this assignment we had to take our favourite superhero/villian and make them either extremely old or extremely young and then do three outfit turnarounds for them as well as an action pose. Or later we also got the option of doing our own hero/villian and doing the same thing (I do believe) and at two different ages. I did the original assignment, because I was cool with that.

For my hero, I did Iron Man, because I really like Robert Downey Jr. I'll say it - I have no problem sitting around looking at photos of Robert Downey Jr. That is just soooooo fine and okay with me. Yup. Just fine, just fine.

Anyway, yea, like always, I went and found references of Iron Man/Robert Downey Jr and here's said reference sheet:

Some of those were found on Google and stuff, but most (along with many many more : ) ) I got from here: http://robert-downeyjr.net/gallery/index.php, a lovely RDJ photo gallery website that I enjoy very very much. Haha

Now, for this project, I decided to turn Iron Man/Tony Stark (lol, first time I typed Sark instead of Stark - that's funny because a character from the original TRON's name was Sark.... ANYWAY) into a little kid/baby/toddler. I did consider the other end of the spectrum, but I don't really like drawing older people. I don't really like drawing super little kids either, so you know... it was going to be a bit different for me either way that I sliced it.

I had found Old Man Iron Man pictures online too, though you could also argue that some chibi Iron Man photos look like little children and such, but... eh.... yeah. Now I'm getting off topic. Anywho, carrying on.

Here's the outfits I did up for him:

I of course did the Iron Man suit (this one being the Mark V) along with a few of Tony Starks outfits from the films (my main reference - remember: Robert Downey Jr). I did his leather jacket outfit thing from when he visits Rhodes at the Air Force Hanger after he returns from captivity (Iron Man), his business suit from his initial presentation of his Jericho missiles before he was captured by the terrorists and made the Mark I suit (Iron Man I), an outfit based off his general workshop attire (Iron Man I and Iron Man II) and then his racing suit from when he was in Monaco (Iron Man II).

I know I was only supposed to do three but you know: Robert Downey Jr. I could have easily gone on and done like... the other Iron Man suit designs (you know, like the Mark I and the Suitcase suit from Monaco) and like... Tony Starks 80 bazillion others suits and outfits he wears through the films. However, I didn't, because... I didn't have to and had other things to do, though I might go back to it later or something...

Now for the action pose, I did this:

This is similar to the promotion art of Iron Man for the first film, but you know, featuring Iron Baby. This pose also seems to be very popular in Iron Man images in my opinion (the landing, cracked ground, kickbutt look at the camera thing) besides the typical images of him flying or pointing his ready-to-fire repulsor glove at the camera, so you know, good representation of him.

I had issues creating that smokey look on the photo, but was glad I pulled it off.

But yeah, anyway... uhm... Baby Iron Man... Or Iron Baby, because that's a funnier name. Yeah... Iron Baby.  

Yeah...

Anyway, enjoy and find these two image as amusing as I did (these are NOT MINE)

Assignment 4

Assignment 4 time. This week, our assignment was expression sheets, though like always, we had parameters to fill besides just the expressions. The rundown was this: Using a character idea from the generators found on the website, Seventh Sanctum.com, we were to create a character that fit into the universe of the game/movie/cartoon show we were given. We then had to create a small expression sheet of 7-8 expressions for them.

I was given Samurai  Jack for my style and on Seventh Sanctum, I used the Fantasy Fusion generator. That generator basically gave out fusions of human and mythological (sometimes not really - like a human/hippocampus mix) creatures. However, we were allowed to use the other generators and if there was something we didn't think would fit in our description, we were allowed to change it. I did that for my generated creature and had picked the following:

"The fearsome, world-weary female half-Kitsune soldier. She has a feminine build. Her wardrobe is artistic. She appears far more non-human than human."

I took the human part of this description, because as far as I know, there aren't crossbreeds like that in Samurai Jack. However, I do know there's aliens and robots galore in that show, so knocking out the human part of this character idea allowed for her to be an alien, which is what I did. Besides, the description says she more non-human looking than human, so I suppose it works either way.

So, for research I naturally looked up images from Samurai Jack and looked up images of foxes and kitsunes - the Japanese word for "fox" as well as a type of demon/spirit found in Japanese folklore. I also watched a few episodes of Samurai Jack online to get a feel for it. That and it's hard to find decent screenshots from that show online, believe it or not, though there is a very good blog that has a post featuring some of SJs background art: http://madaboutcartoons.blogspot.com/2007/07/samurai-jack.html

Also included on the fox/kitsune sheets are cartoon/anime/game kitsunes I know of, such as Ninetails and Vulpix from Pokemon and Crazy Redd from Animal Crossing. Another notable kitsune is the Nine-Tailed Fox Demon, or Kyuubi, from Naruto.

I didn't do too many sketches for this character, as I do with the other ones. I just looked at Samauri Jack art and watched the episodes and started basically with a silhouette of a character. I went and built it up from there. Here's some process screenshots I took while working on it:

I know the description said the character was suppose to wear "artistic" clothing. Well, as a warrior/soldier, I tried to make her armour very decorative, but I tried to keep it simplistic, due to the style. Originally though I did have it drawn really decorative, but changed it because it was much too much for SJs style. I also gave the character three tails, due to kitsunes generally having multiple tails. The more tails a kitsune has, the older it is and in some legends. pulling on a kitsune's tail will curse the puller, usually 1000 years times the numbers of tails it has. The character here is still fairly young then, considering she only has about three tails.

After her initial design (the top two images) I also did a short action pose of her in an environment. I pictured her traveling a desolate, dark wasteland, so that's where I drew her. The story idea I have for her is that her crew and her had crash landed on Earth and have been stranded here and roam the area, looking to find a way back home. However, they spend their time also defending the small settlements that scatter the land from the robots of Aku.

After the environment shot, I went on to working on the actual bit that matters to the assignment - the expression sheet of course.

These started out as silhouettes too and the expression ideas were taken from the 25 Essential Expressions Challenge meme that is found on deviantArt or here if you'd like to try it yourself:  http://napalmnacey.deviantart.com/art/25-Essential-Expressions-55523083. With the silhouettes, I was trying to see if I could get the basic emotion done with just the shape. Some of them work better than with others, as some of them look alike.

After that, I just started adding details to those shapes

And then of course, I went ahead and finished it up

So here you have the Kitsune alien warrior, Akako.

The name is of Japanese origin and means "red child." I wanted her name to be something that had red in it, being as kitsunes are generally based off red foxes and that, along with orange and yellow, is one of the common colours when one thinks of a fox.

In general, she's a rather proud warrior who knows her strengths and skills, but she can somewhat be cocky because of this. She sometimes gets in over her head, but most of the time, she'd hate to admit it. She tries to come off as serious, too, but it's easy to tell there's a gentler side to her. She's an adept leader and manages to keep her small band of other kitsune soldiers together even considering their situation.

Also, because I got this done so fast (it only took a few hours really because the style's rather simple) I went ahead and did another image of her up, this one featuring both her and Jack and a short description of her. I figure it would be cool to pair her with Jack, because if she was in the series, they'd probably meet up and team up to battle Aku's robots at one point.

It also helped with size difference, to show her general height, though not all kitsunes, I would imagine, are as short as she is compared to Jack.

That was another couple hour quickie, so that also had Dave assign me to do up backgrounds. I was told to do three, but I only got about two done and I don't know if I did them... "correctly." I looked at that one SJ Background art blog for inspiration, but I still don't know. I feel as if I might have simplified them too much.

The first one is the background I keep relating to Akako and her story and I wanted to do a bigger, more "finished" version of it:

Like I said, it's a desolate wasteland, but 's also very rocky, where not much grows. Scattered about this area are small settlements that have found little patches of fertile earth, but they are constantly battling against Aku's robots, that threaten the tiny communities food source on a regular basis.

The second background I did (and looking at now, failed at) was supposed to be a shot of the Grid from Tron: Legacy, but it's like... super blotchy and stuff and looks more like an abstraction. but... there you go... Egh... Gross

Ick yea... Bad. The only good part about this might be the sky... but even that's... crap. Oooo.... Well, I'll have to try again or something... But yeah... I kinda suck at backgrounds. Though I think I can let the crappiness of this go, as this bit wasn't really part of the assignment, but more of an exercise I think to help spend some more of my time.


I hope so, but if not... I failed.

EDIT: AHAHAHA. Okay! Turns out all this is actually due Wednesday, so bye-bye to that crap background. I'm just going to do up another one or two that look better and post those in a few. Cool, man, cool.

EDIT 2: Okay! Here are two more backgrounds. One is similar to the first and the other is a forest background or something.

Uhm, but yeah. That's assignment 4 for you and I'm gonna take off now so I can work on other things and not watch the Grammys. Take care all.

Assignment 3

Assignment 3

Yes, assignment 3 up to bat now, it seems. And this time I'm going to TRY, and I really mean TRY, to not type out an eighty year long post, but... more than likely, I still will, because I guess I just really like to talk about process work even though I wonder if anyone even cares.... Oh well! Whatever, I'll shall just type away because it's fun!

Anyway! For this assignment, we were each given an animal from the Chinese Zodiac and we had to design the character based off its attributes and draw it using silhouettes, using shapes and posing to help portray the character's overall personality and stuff. We also had to play with a good/evil theme and also had to have one human that represented the Zodiac animal and then an... animal, of course, to represent the Zodiac animal.

I was pretty fine with most of this stuff, except I found I don't particulary care for working with silhouettes and I'm not too fond of working with animals. I mean, I can draw animals, I just don't do it much and suppose I don't really like doing it too much. I was excited to do the Ram though, considering that is my Zodiac sign as well as my high school mascot (not that, haha, it really matters much).

Anywho, research!

First, of course, I looked up images of rams. It was rather annoying when I Googled “ram” and got you know.. computer chip boards because that is SO totally what I meant. So I had to Google “animal ram' or “ram animal” to get those and got a few good pictures, though I felt they were all the same pose. I also looked at images of sheep too.

For clothing, for the human bit, I of course looked up traditional Chinese clothing. I of course got a collection of the fancy, silk stuff, but I eventually turned to looking at Japanese clothing too. Though it is the Chinese Zodiac, it's often used in Japanese things too I noticed, like in the anime Fruits Baskets or the video game Okami. Also, though I do like the decorative outfits found in Chinese culture, I also really like the rough, travel kimono look you see in like those samurai anime.

I was at one point considering going to a more modern period, but I thought the more oriental theme was nice and I could play with lighter colours like earth tones and such. I considered doing maybe an artist in the Victorian period, but eventually drifted back to an Asian base.

Here I have refs here for both Chinese and Japanese styled clothing:

Anyway, I did like we were supposed to and started doodling up some silhouettes. Here are the ones I did up for the human character, who I named Mar (yes, ram backwards, look who's oh-so clever):

I was originally going to have Mar be a girl, to be a gentler character, but the idea I had for her hair just wasn't working when she was a girl... I wanted her hair to be fluffy and light, like sheep wool, but whenever I doodled it out, it just looked funny. That and I kept thinking of like Moses from Prince of Egypt and how his hair was kind of like sheep wool too... So Mar was changed to a boy.

See, it looks... Sheep-y:

However, the more I worked on it, I noticed how he kind of looks... Egyptian or like an Isrealite like Moses and how that kind of throws Mar's character off from being from Asia. I stretched this by basically just saying, because he's a human manifestation of the Ram, he's going to look a tad different from other people (though I could always just say he was from that area and traveled over to the East Asian area and such, but yeah...) Another issue I ran into with the sheep wool hair thing was another character I was familiar with: Merry from One Piece

As seen here, he has the fluffy wool sheep hair thing, plus little horns, which I avoided with Mar, but instead, had two little tuffs kinda form horns/ears on top of his head. I think they're more like horns though, because his ears have a different shape to them than normal human ears and look more sheepish too. If I coloured Mar, he would probably have dark hair, to symbolize being somewhat of a “black sheep” due to his apperance.

For his outfit, I was sticking much more to the Japanese kimono look with like a travel cloak/coat over top, generally with a straw hat. I eventually drew him without his hat so you could see his hair, because with the hat, it's not apparent he has fluffy sheepy hair. In the finalized version of Mar, where I throw a rough outline over the silhouette, I made the kimono a short one, with pants that are then wrapped at the ankle. I also gave him a fluffly collar/cloaky thing that's made out of wool to help with his sheep-based appearance. He's also given a scool case in his drawings as he's a traveling artist and that's where he keeps his supplies.

I suppose I might have mixed the two styles a bit, but this can fit if he travels between the two counties. If I ever developed more and drew more of him, I would probably eventually do up an outfit sheet that had a few different outfits he could wear or would wear and I would probably draw ones up that fit each country specifically. However, as a traveller, I think the simple outfit he wears now is quite fine.


Here's the silhouettes I did up:

Anyway, I decided to use the silhouette that's him standing profile shot, holding his hat. I think it best shows his modest nature and the oddity of his hair, as well as shows his somewhat sheep-like face design. So, for Mar, here's his description sheet:

As it says on the sheet, Mar is a human manifestation of the positive attributes of his Zodiac animal. This also explains his appearance, such as the wooly sheep hair and his facial design and why his ears are rather strange. He supposed to look friendly and relatively harmless, which is rather is.


For Mar, I also did some outside sketches for ideas on face and hair design. There's some bad ram doodles on this page too (and my hand):

For the animal portion of the assigment, I of course did up silhouettes of rams. I really frankly didn't like this... I was okay with the human silhouettes, but like I said, I'm not fond of drawing animals and don't do it much, so silhouetting them was just as bad for me I suppose. I only did a few up for the ram:

I kept the design rather simple and chose the bottom left one, because it shows an insecurity I wanted this character to have. Description sheet for Ram:

Yes, he's Ram the Ram... Let me be. He didn't get as much detail as Mar, because Ram lives in Mar's shadow and therefore... is a shadow. Wow, rocket science... Anyway! Yes, Ram lives in Mar's shadow and can manifest into a more physical shadow animal. Ram represents the negative attributes of the Zodiac Ram, hence the insecurity I wanted, as Rams tend to be insecure and timid.


Here they are together:

Storywise, Mar would be a traveler who visits small towns and deals with small situations there, sort of like Ginko from Mushishi or Kino from Kino's Journey or Kuro from Shoulder-A-Coffin Kuro. However, he would be “accompanied” by Ram ( he doesn't really have a choie though...) and would have to handle those aforementioned situations along with Ram's negativity. Mar also only has a year on earth (whenever it's the Year of the Ram) to influence people, mainly those born within other similar Years and such principles would also apply to the other animals of the Zodiac.

Anyway, going to wrap this up now so I don't write 80 bazillion pages. Hope you pop back to check out my stuff for our next project.