Summer's Ending

So I am finally wrapping up my game character I made for the summer.  I can't wait to see it in the game and how it interacts with the environment.  It was a lot of fun to work on a self motivated project.  I think from my senior project I've gotten pretty good at making my own schedule and sticking to it. 

All together the character texture map was 1024x1024 I was pretty proud of how the hand painting textures came out, I especially like the cape.  Here's a bonus picture I painted when I was testing out gimp before using it for texturing.

What I've been up to

Recently I have finished up my final project for my my Senior show.  It went really well and I am so happy to be done and to be focusing more on my own work.  Now I have been working with a bunch of school mates on a independent game.  I haven't uploaded the work I've been doing but I started with concept of the main character.

I tried out a lot of different aesthetics but my group helped me pick out the guy above from the others I had created.   I also made a quick concept painting of how he would look in the game.

After I got the 'OK' on the character I made some turn arounds of him looking slightly darker since he is a villainous character, and then started my research on low poly modeling.  I have always made things just for the aesthetic so it was different learning how to create a model for optimization.  It was so much fun to learn how things are made low poly, I had a little practice with low poly modeling with my Senior project animation but it was a little different with an actual character. This was before I finished the arm and hand so please ignore those two areas.

I finished up the modeling then added a simple rig to the character.  I don't think the movements are going to be too complex so I didn't go to in depth with his rig but I'm excited to start to make him move.  Here is a picture of his rig and my very rough layout of what his colors will look like.  I'm excited for this weekend I'm going to the Midwest Game Convention so hopefully I can show him off and get some valuable feedback on what kind of colors I should add.

Busy Busy Busy

I have been really busy trying to get things done for my Senior Show.  It is a short animation in maya and has been consuming my life.  Unfortunately that means I probably wont upload anything for a while after today till its done(May 9th).  So here are a couple more color studies.  I'm still trying to understand how to make things less muddy.  As soon as it's summer I'm going to need to do some more color studies and start on getting some more dynamic compositions. I've realized lately that I need to start getting more mid-tones in my paintings.  I started to incorporate that in the third picture (lady and the car) seen on top.

Studies

I've really been trying to get my colors down so I have been copying a couple paintings online.    Unfortunately I can't seem to find the original painting that I referenced, if I find it I will give them credit and put a link up, but for now just know that this is not really my painting it is just a reference I painted.

After this painting I talked to one of my professors that told me I don't  have enough contrast in my paintings so I then tried to add a little contrast as well.  Here is my work in progress of this painting.

I'm still working on getting the right contrast at the right parts and understanding how color works, but I feel like I've made some progress since I have started to do 30 min speed paintings every day

Colors

I have recently realized that I really want to get better at my use of colors.  I tend to saturate all the colors, so I am trying to limit my color pallet.  Here are a few studies I have done, I also included a couple of hand drawings and paintings.  Although I am nowhere near where I'd like to be for the colors, It is so much fun to experiment the learning process is so amazing.  It really challenges the way you think, such as the perception of color changing depending on what is next to it.  Hopefully in the next few weeks I can start getting less muddy colors and color schemes that work together.

Working On Concept Art

I've been doing some concept paintings for the preproduction of a game I am collaborating on.  It has given me a chance to work on my mountains and clouds.  It is really fun learning to draw different things.  I have been working on clouds for the last few days, when I get some that I am proud of I'll post them on here and show my progress.  I am really excited to continue my journey of learning how to paint in photoshop, I haven't quite mastered how to put color on top of a black and white drawing but am excited to learn.

Study's

I've been trying to master value in photoshop as of recent.  Here are some heads that I drew today.  I am really enjoying painting from pictures.  It's been a while but I'm excited to really delve into anatomy this semester.  I hope to self study every day, and hopefully I'll understand anatomy a little better by the end of this semester