3D Modelling and Wood Work

Below is pictures of the art that I did through my last year of college. In my last year I decided to branch out and express myself in different types of art instead of art that I have already explored. When it comes to games design I don't just want to be able to draw and make the game, I feel like I want explore more ideas on how to make a game come to life, adapting different styles of art to give a game that I  might design in the future a new way to think about how the industry can evolve. 

The first project was to create a model that is connected with the term Metamorphosis. The idea I had was taken from a video game. one of the main characters bases himself off of what properties a scorpion has for example the scorpion tail and attacking style, the story would be that the character dies and reincarnates as a larger than normal scorpion. This is brainstorming ideas for the upcoming project in my sketchbook.

Now with the ideas in place I started to draw some ideas of what I want each stage to look like when it came to the creating process of the project, 

 From the start I wanted to adapt some link to games design into the project so I drew out a story board to help the viewer whoever it may be understand the story behind the three stages of the model.

The snapshot of the story that I wanted to create for the model was the three stages of the character morphing into its new form, starting from just bones that are buried under sand.

Then slowly gaining the flesh that will shape the scorpion for his final form, he starts gaining extra additions to the body like the pincers on the front and also the stinger that seems to start magnetically pulling together, below you can see this stage in a picture. 

This is where the final form takes place, all the parts of the scorpion come together. The stance that I choose for the scorpion to have is an aggressive pose, almost like he is about to pounce onto his prey. using the sand to my advantage, I wanted to make it more realistic and give it the feel that he blends in with his surrounds, this gives off the impression that this is one of his offence techniques so I gave the scorpion sand on his back to make it look like he has just risen out of the ground stealthily. 

Where I started with the metamorphosis story is quite a weird one because I almost worked in a reversed structure of story planning, to start off I wanted to continue with a theme that I have been working a lot with over this past year and that is “Natural History” taking things from the world which may be decayed or primeval and creating fine art pieces. 

Now with the word metamorphosis this means a complete opposite to decay but when coming up with the final idea, I thought of the process as “death in reverse” and that is the reason why I did this project in a reversed structure starting from the model of the fully formed scorpion and working its way down the models to the core routes of what the scorpion will be.

Linking the project to games design was at first quite daunting but after brainstorming those first initial Ideas I was sure on my way to producing a more than satisfactory project story and final piece, the story was quite a unique one for me because I took a character that is already well known in the gaming world and added a new spin to it, at moments I thought that story didn't seem like it was going to be successful but after fine tuning and “filing off the edges” I started to see my passion for games design shine through along with the story. 

 Going onto my Final Major Project now, this project was based on war and different kinds of war there are, The project beginning was fuelled by the Leeds Royal Armouries trip that we were taken on to get visual research through pictures, this was done before we started writing our statement of intent. When at the museum I was able to come up with many ideas by seeing other pieces of art that had to do with war, from olden times and Vikings to modern wars that are happening today, there was many themes and ideas that I had but in the end I was able to sieve ideas to one final idea.
This is the final piece below, also the design stages of what swords I was thinking of using are down below as well taken from my sketchbook.

My idea basically consisted of a memorial piece that showed off the different factions that can be involved in war, I went with an older themed timeline for my idea because I liked the possibility of creating swords in 3D modelling, the older timeline seemed to fit the style of art that I was trying to create through wood.

 The several sword types fitted different factions, these factions were linked to a certain class of living through the design and atheistic features of the swords, for example the broad sword that is at the centre of the design is best suited to wealthy soldiers whereas the daggers seem to take on a more poor/peasant role. The story telling aesthetics varied from colour of the design to the aspects of used and damaged parts of the swords. All swords were varied in materials, colour and design but still came together by sharing similar techniques and the effect of a dark oaky finish.

For both of the projects above I do have Sketchbooks that show the design, research and making process for the early stages of the projects, these are available if I have any interviews for university places, I will be bringing these sketchbooks for the interviewers to get a more in depth look into my passion for art.

Life Drawing

Life drawing is a new kind of art for me as I have only started studying the subject in my recent year at college, starting out in this subject was fairly difficult as I needed to started taking measurements and proportions into account when drawing the models face and body features, in doing so it has taught me to draw in a more realistic ways and also different techniques I can use to really progress my drawing skills a lot further. Above is one of my favourite drawings that I have produced using Chalk pastels over a pencil drawn outline  

This piece was an attempt at abstract art in Life Drawing using charcoal and chalk, the model that I was using as a reference was sat down on a chair which had a blanket draped over the back and the model was facing away from me, with this certain piece I wanted to create a look of sadness/depression on the model which fitted well with the charcoal style.

This was the same drawing session as the last piece and I still wanted to attempt the abstract style that I was trying to do before, I changed a couples of things with this piece, this time round I just wanted to use a chalk style so I switched the paper to black and used the chalk to outline the model figure. The wall of chalk coming in from the side is my interpretation of a time travel vortex and someone fading through the white. With this piece I was attempting to bring reality of drawing with my own imagination and wacky ideas together.  

During the whole course of Life Drawing I have taken a fondness to Charcoal and Chalk mediums, I find that working in black and white has more impact when showcasing emotions and feelings, even though I understand how colour can play a big part in things like advertising and graphics design, I think that it is a whole different story with Life Drawing. I feel that Life Drawing is a true representation of how you as an artist perceives the world around, story telling in some aspects plays a big part and Charcoal and Chalk helps me push that story telling aspect out there through my work.

Final Major Project 2013



Right here is my FMP from my second year of my college course, the image above is a design that I created for the ending of my animation and also as a poster advertisement for my animation which was exhibited around college. We were given the chance to choose our own project and the subject of the piece, I went for Animation as I really enjoyed the computer modelling aspect of designing my room and I wanted to produce a bigger model for a scene in the animation that I later wanted to achieve.


The design process was quite challenging, at first I was designing the main street that you see above, whilst creating realistic features that you would find in a downtown street. Creating a story just through modelling seemed quite hard at first, but I started to get used to the different style and techniques that I can use to emphasise the story which in this case was a zombie outbreak.


One of the highlights of the animation was designing a fully functioning sliding door, which you were able to see from a distance opening and closing, the design stage of this sliding door was fairly simple process just making pillars and also the glass windows, Making the animation for the doors so that they can open and close was quite difficult because of timing and the distance that were separating the doors.
All Animation and modelling were designed and created on Maxon Cinema 4D with some edits of materials taking place on Adobe Photoshop.


Animation



 

These shots of a room is actually a redesigned model of my own room in real life but taken into Cinema 4D. For a task I was told to take down different measurements of my bedroom and noted what kind of stuff that was in my room. We then took to Cinema 4D using the measurements to make a life like scale set which could be used for a scene in an animation or maybe even a game.


 

One of the designs to this room that I had fun making was my reconstruction of an Xbox 360 that I have in my room, going into the design process of the model I wanted the box to have a shiny reflective layer on the surface of the model just like how the real life version depicts, I found this simple to re-enact with the reflection tool located in the materials menus.


 

This project was a great incite into what hurdles you can come up against when modelling a scene in Cinema 4D, but has also gave me some techniques that I can take away from the project in later ventures and tasks. Modelling a scene or set for a later project has also made me want to be a games designer a lot more as well, just down to the fact that I can be creative with the work that I do and I can be more imaginative.

Photography

Abstract Photography is definitely a area that intrigues me in photography, creating many shots that make a person think about what they are looking at for that extra second longer is big part in my photography style. With abstract photography you can hone in on small details that people overlook in their day to day lives and make them stand out in ways that are creative and mysterious at the same time. 

This is another shot giving more examples to abstract photography, this shot was also edited slightly to bring colours out using different Photoshop techniques such as vignette, levels and also curves

The image above is a task that we were given where we had to reconstruct the famous photography style of David Hockney. This is where we would have to take multiple shots of a subject at different points and later on with the help of computer editing we would build the subject back up with various images creating a photo montage style, which was made famous through Hockney's work. With my ending product I felt that the overall set of pictures were too bland and I wanted to enhance the colours and make them show more clearer, so I brought more colour in through the Photoshop tool "Curves".



Photography I feel is a great area that I excel in from taking shots that capture composition in the world around us to advertisement photography where I find I am extremely intrigued, we were giving the task to again create a brand that uses photography in its advertisements. Starting off we researched into studio photography and how lighting effects shots and then started to take an interest in other famous advertising techniques that introduced photography


After many hours in the studio and hundreds of test shots later, I came to the final design of my product trying to capture the originality style of the Bulmer's brand that they consistently brought into their advertising campaigns. Taking test shots and putting them into Photoshop and watching my design take form was a great process for me, but when designing the product came into play I really felt in my element and loved being creative.


Illustration

This is a design for a task that we were given where we were told to create a brand that takes on a new kind of character for advertisement purposes, selling to a target audience that we set for our selves. To make this design I used a combination of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator making designs and layouts for the final product. This design was then taken and was made into a cardboard cereal box.

Right here was a design that I did with the task to create a South Park character by using a person in my class as a reference. Taking simple characteristics of a original South Park character I was able to rebuild a body and face that I can then start designing to complete the task, all designing was completed by using Adobe Illustrator.