Monday, September 24, 2012

D4M: Project Complete

So I finished my project for my Design for Media. This week, I created a whole bunch more concepts and sketches before ending with at those final pieces. Instead of doing one final piece, I decided to go with a series of three illustrations in order to tell a story. Below you'll see the final pieces as well as my process.

"Demon World Journey"
The three of these final pieces tell a progressing story together. In the first piece, Akuma, the demon boy, is approaching Sarah and Clove. He is welcoming the two of them to the Demon World. Akuma has been sent to become Sarah's Guardian Demon because she has recently become a DarkVao (which is basically a human who has been infused with demon cells). In the second piece, the three of them decide to travel together through the Demon World. And then in the final piece, they are depicted embarking on their adventure together through the Demon World. Akuma is the leader of the group, since he is native to this World.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 "Digital Composition Drafts"
These are a couple of tests that I did before putting together the actual final. I was experimenting with different compositions, and overall placing my characters within the landscapes.

"Traditional Composition Tests"
Here are some more sketches that I did of placing my characters into compositions. These ones are all traditional, very rough sketches.

 
 
"Rough Posed Gestures"
I made a bunch of attempts at creating poses for my characters to be in for the final piece. Basically these are a bunch of gestures I made from memory, trying to play with shapes and place my characters in poses relating to their personality. Akuma is the red, Clove is the green, and Sarah is the blue.

"Quick Experiment"
Just a quick sketch I did of Sarah this week. It was mostly a rough piece to get a sense of what mood I wanted my final to have, and to experiment with color mostly.

And if you would like to see the rest of the progress on this project, check out these links:
Post 1 | Post 2 | Post 3

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Animating and Shape Experiments

So this week I've mostly been working on concepts for my Design for Media project, which is located below this post. I've also been working on my animation a lot recently, as you can see here. And then the rest of my time has been dedicated to working on a lot of gestures and shape figures.

So this was my second assignment for my Animation I class. We had to create a three second animation by using tension, conflict, or anticipation. So I decided to use this idea of Scott punching Ralphie across the face. I mean it's obvious that Ralphie and Scott don't like each other at all, but they're still twin brothers so I intentionally made the punch a little softer.


"Shape Gestures"
So I've been practicing drawing figures out of shapes a lot as of recently. A great thanks to my friend Jinny for helping me understand this concept. I feel like it's got me on the right track back to improvement.




 

"Morphing Ideas"
A bunch of ideas for my current animation. I decided to go with the first one.

 
"Morphing Key frames"
I created a bunch of key frames for my current animation. My animation is not near being done, but these are some rough layouts.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Finalizing Concepts

So I've been working on finalizing my concepts for my Design for Media project. I am pretty certain at this point that I will stick with the first idea, but I have posted up my progress on both thus far.


Idea #1:

After going through and fleshing out my ideas, I've leaned more towards this idea. These characters fit together because of their relation to the Demon World. I'm definitely heading for more of a darker piece here.


Some more character concepts for these characters with their color palette beneath. Most of these are just rough sketches, but I digitialized a few. The first ones are just basic gestures and shapes of my characters; trying to figure out which poses to use.

I decided to do a bunch of concepts of different views and areas of the Demon World for this idea.


Idea #2:

I'm considering going for more of a dark and eerie feel for this idea. I have a large variety of backgrounds because I haven't finalized that yet. Besides the designs being similar, the main aspect that links them together is that they are a family.


These are just some more concepts I did of the characters with their respective color palettes.

Some ideas I had for different landscapes that would fit with these characters. There's a pretty wide variety because I was a bit uncertain at first on which way to go with this.

Inspirations:

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, my main inspirations come from Steve Rakar, Wes Talbott, and The-Ez. Some of their individual pieces inspired me directly for this project, though.

For my first idea, I got more inspiration from darker art. The-Ez did a great example of creating a darker piece, but still making the brighter colors contrast or pop out. Wes Talbott has done so many beautiful pieces that are dark, but use brighter colors to make the piece feel more alive. I definitely am planning on using a ton of contrast like he does in many of his pieces

Since Steve Rakar and I grew up together, we ultimately worked on the many of the same projects together. We've created many of our characters together originally, and then just re-designed or developed them on our own a bit. The characters from idea #2 were mostly made up beforehand by us both, but I re-designed and developed them more for this project. And overall, I got a whole lot of inspiration for the background from Steve's pieceI got the same kind of feel and inspiration from The-Ez's work. Since Syntax's family comes from a desert area, these pieces really inspired me.


So overall, I plan to create an illustration that has a dark feel to it, but has enough light in it to feel natural or alive.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Design For Media Update

I've been experimenting with different color palettes for my Design for Media project. I used the Color Scheme Designer site to help me choose out some palettes. I'm not sure completely which one to go with yet, but I'm leaning more towards the top designs.

"Celia, Jibu, and Syntax Concepts"
Although I might work on some of the character shapes, I feel like I'm more satisfied with these designs, and would be a lot more open to re-designs on these if necessary. Celia and Syntax are Jibu's parents, by the way.

"Clove, Sarah, and Akuma Concepts"
I didn't really update all that much with this piece. I basically just added the color palette, and edited the colors so that they would coordinate together better.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Starting Back Up

So this was my second week back at college and I've been working on a lot of stuff for classes. This week has had its ups and downs, but I've been able to get through it so far.

"Neo Obelisque Animatic"
This is my first finished animatic for my storyboarding class. It's about Pubby being initiated into the Dusty Dimes after confronting Lonny.

"Animating Concepts"
Some concepts for my next animation assignment. I was just planning out some punching poses.

"Ralphie Scott Concepts"
Just some concepts for my animation class. I tried to draw Ralphie and Scott more simplified.

"Bouncing Ball Animation"
My first project for Animation class. Just a simple bouncing ball animation.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Back at College

So I'm back in college now, starting up my sophomore year. I've got a bunch of pretty cool classes this semester, so I'm excited to start back up. My blog's going to be mostly dedicated to my Design for Media class this semester, but I'll still definitely include all of the other art I do in the meantime.


Inspiration
There have been many many artists that have greatly inspired my art throughout the years. Some of my favorite artists who have inspired my style most in particular, as of recently, would include Steve Rakar, Wes Talbott, and The-Ez. Although I have so many more inspirations, those are the three that have impacted me the most.

One of the artists who I am most inspired by is my brother, Steve Rakar. Since both of us started being serious about art around the same time and grew up improving together, I've always looked up to him as a great inspiration. He always helped me to improve and would critique my art and help me out whenever I needed it. My brother and I created "The Nays" together and that has made our bond even stronger. He's definitely the person that I look up to the most and is ultimately the best friend I've ever made as well.

Wes Talbott's art is another really great inspiration to me. After watching a tutorial he did at CCAD's Animation Collective, I learned so many more amazing things about digital painting and I improved a lot overall. I continually look up to him as an artist and draw inspiration from him all the time.

Another artist that greatly inspires my current style and taught me a lot about how to draw characters is The-Ez. I watched many of her great tutorials and studied her style and gallery. Her style is one that I really admire because of the fluidity and her style of drawing characters. She's really the main one that helped me to create my own style as of recently.


"Digital Character Concepts"
Some digital concepts of characters I'm planning on developing for my Design for Media class: Clove, Sarah, and Akuma.

"Character Concept Sketches"
Some more concept sketches for the characters I'm planning on developing for my Design for Media class: Celia, Jibu, and Syntax.

"First Storyboard Thumbnails"
This was one of my first times really doing storyboards.

"Rough Storyboard Sketches"
Just some really quick concepts for my storyboards that I was thinking up.



"First Sophomore Sketches"
Just a bunch of various sketches I did over the past week. Nothing too special, just doodles mostly.

"Gesture Sketches"
I've been working on some gesture drawings whenever I'm not in the art mood, so here's what I got this week.