MA Concept Art Practice 2015

Learning Outcomes Concept Art Practice

1 – Critical Understanding

Producing artwork for a client has always been fraught with problems, and even today the issues encountered can still cause problems for a freelance concept Artist. There are a number of things in place now that do make the process that make things a little easier, but on the whole it is still a bit of a nightmare to negotiate.

Copyright issues are most definitely central to a lot of problem’s encountered by Concept Artists, this is made slightly easier by the use of NDAS,(none disclosure agreements) but again these aren’t set in stone. I have been asked to produce work under NDA, and while it is great to be producing work for a professional company, quite often the artist hands are tied when it comes to what can and can’t be shown once the artwork has been produced. A good example of this was some licenced work for a large automotive company, the work was produced submitted and approved, but the actual ability of the work to be shown by the artist was that tightly controlled, the artwork has not been added to my portfolio.

Another area that is also problematic is that of payment, how much is a piece of artwork worth, and how to realistically price your work, so you don’t loose out on the commission. There are a number of ways of pricing for work is it a one of price for the artwork, or indeed an hourly rate, but again this needs to be clearly identified at the start of the brief. It is no use turning up and insisting I have spent hundreds of hours working on an a image, when the client has a tight budget that needs to be adhered to.Also when starting out in the business being relatively unknown, it is better to slightly lose out on the money bin order to gain the experience, a novice artist that charges top dollar for artwork from day one will generally no make an instant fortune, but similarly you have to assess the actual value of a piece of work and this can include more than the monetary reward.

Artists do have a character by which they are protected, the Visuals artists’ right was put together in to try and help protect the artist when it came to producing work for clients. While this is a useful thing to know exists, its use is limited if someone genuinely decides they aren’t going to pay you.

2 – Concept and Technique

I have used a number of different techniques to create the artwork for my hand ins, these have been suggested by a number of the visiting lecturers. One of the key things I have started to do is my own Photoshoots to help with my character work. This was suggested by Jack Couvela, and while I haven’t used photos quite as much as some of the work he showed at his talk, it has had an impact on how I put image’s together. 

The only real danger here is making sure that the images don’t become photo collage and start to have the reverse effect on the quality of the artwork. This also limits how you would approach a more intuitive brief, for example Shelley Pages brief, though she talked about realism; she actually meant believability which is a completely different issue.

I have also tried a number of techniques to develop characters in different ways, focusing on silhouette for example with Alfie Bloom, it was fundamentally important when creating Alfie that he  was recognisable when he was tiny on the screen but also even if you only saw his feet or his hair! 

 

This was done by making sure his silhouette was different enough visually to identify him. This was done regularly when designing key Disney characters, and has massive validity in how we create interesting, and engaging characters for game and animation.

3 – 0riginal Imagery

By breaking down the set task into a number of key parts, this really helped to develop my production pipeline, this is different to the work I normally produce as I have previously produced artwork for characters that are a lot more unfinished in their approach, this was in away so that the final sculpt didn’t become to overworked or to  boring for the 3d artist, by tying everything down in the design while this is good in one way, it does stifle the look of the final character, if you are to prescriptive early on. The artist making the characters needs to have their input as well; they aren’t just robots producing work on an assembly line.

So I would produce really rough drawings just to get a rough shape out onto paper, once this had been achieved I would then do a lot of research into the clothing to make sure I could get the costume to look as convincing as possible.

For me this is probably one of the most important parts of character design, making sure the character lives and breathes, anything that distracts from this really does break the immersion.

For me once the research has been done and the final piece is put together this is where I really do start to look for areas that are going to be difficult to model and texture and for me this is probably one of the things that slightly lets my work down, by have in the silhouette that works and the correct attire, the final piece in a way becomes less important.

4 - Novel Visual Solutions

The most important thing to me when creating the characters for Alfie Bloom was to make sure that they actually looked and behaved the correct age, it was felt a large number of my colleague’s made the characters far too old, as stated in the brief Alfie and Amy Sui were supposed to be twelve years old, so my main research came for trying to identify what twelve year olds were actually like. I spoke to my Father and was given a massive amount of family photos of me and my brother at 12, and this really did set the rough ball park as to what Alfie might be like. 

Mr Bloom I presume!

I also looked at the 1968 film Oliver, looking mainly at the Artful Dodger character, he had been written by Dickens as a 13 year old boy that dressed in adult clothes, and this seemed to work really well for the son of a Scientist.

 

 

From a production point of view I made sure I received feedback from a number of sources that weren’t artists or indeed knew the story, and this overwhelmingly proved that my characters looked the right age.

5 – Autonomous Action

 

For me the brief that I did feel I acted autonomously on was the Shelley Page Brief, and this was for a number of reasons. Probably the most important part of this was the brief that clearly stated “to produce something outside of your comfort zone”. In approaching this I would never have attempted the steam punk character as I find it very clichéd, and in a way overdone. 

To counteract this I actually started to look at what is was I disliked about Steam Punk, and make sure that didn’t work its way into my final piece. I tried to make sure in my moodboards I looked at all elements of the steam punk genre, and didn’t just stick to the most obvious predictable things. So I tired to find diving suits and mechanisms that looked believable from an engineering point of view, and then build this into my final piece. I was fascinated by the vehicle I chose and again this really did fuel the drive to create a character to fit.

The backstory helped to identify the characters world and how I was going to create a character that was believable, but then could operate within the realms of the vehicle.

 

Feedback from Shelley suggested I need to look at slightly older characters and this really did happen at the right time in the project to have an effect on my final output. I am happy with the character created and it was well received when I presented it to shelly at the final feedback session.

6 – Relevant and Original

Staying relevant was harder for certain briefs, for me the Assassins Creed brief was slightly easier stay relevant to because the IP is so well developed, so the artwork I produced did feel a little in the style off. Where I had no real relevant point of view for the DreamWorks brief.

Alfie was perhaps the most original in his approach, and this was down to the quality of the writing in the character design, this made it relatively easy to come up with an interesting and engaging character.

7 – Explore and Evaluate

It was hard to make sure I didn’t come up with the same response to each of the set briefs. For me one of the hardest was the Assassins creed brief, because he IP is so well developed it is really hard to come up with anything completely original. This coupled with the fact it needs to be somewhat historically accurate, I did find myself chasing my tail on a number of occasions.

The final solution came from a stroke of luck and finding a painting that had a character that was similar to that I had been drawing. Once I had this image, I was able to explore the uniform and follow this character though a particular timeline in history, this gave depth to the character and made him more believable from an Assassin’s creed point of view.

I am happy with the way the turnarounds have worked, but frustrated I couldn’t spend more time developing the final imagery for the brief, this came down to running out of time and the impact of a full time job.

8 - Strengths and weaknesses

Probably my biggest weakness or hindrance is not having the time to develop my work to a higher level, but also having worked in Games for a number of years, I think I actually design out problematic areas on my characters, so they are all achievable in a Game or a movie, but this is often a safe option, possibly the Alfie Bloom work is more cartoony in its initial design, and I think this is where I have found an interesting balance between reality and the cartoon world, but this also has its problems. Also the focus on detail and the process of drawing becomes more important than the initial concept, I need to look at this and find a way of not getting caught up in the detail of a piece.

Another area that does frustrate me is digital painting, it looks so flat and has no depth, or is over painted and looks like sculpted chocolate, I am yet to see a digital artist that can paint like Rembrandt or Caravaggio and this really makes me doubt the medium. For me it’s about the surface, the paint needs to float or have bold impasto marks in it, not be a series of pixels on a screen.

I think my strengths are originality, and being able to bring a character to life and make them believable in their world. Technical knowledge of 3d and rigging is also an area I feel helps to make my characters achievable. Moving forward I am excited to work on new techniques and hopefully break the spectre of digital painting, or find another way of using the medium to get a different look to my characters.

Learning Outcomes Resub

Learning Outcomes written Tasks

Tutorial Task 02

Line work of Arthur Rackham Gustave Dore and Arthur Rackham

Critical analysis

Gustave Dore

Perhaps one of the most successful illustrators of the 19^th century, Gustave Dore worked on a number of large commissions, working on the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, Paradise Lost it is clear to see he was confident in his approach, and used line beautifully in his illustrations.

Looking at one of the key illustrations from Don Quixote the man of La Mancha, it isn’t initially obvious that this is in fact a cross hatched drawing. We are confronted with Quixote saluting the moon in a night time scene, and this is beautifully rendered, tonally we are confronted with a full range Dore has controlled his line work and given the viewer an image that is full tonally from the whitest highlights on the moon, to the darkest shadows on some of the background buildings. He has built up the crosshatching to a level where as a viewer we look past the delicate line work and believe in the roundness of the scene.

The composition also adds to this, he skilfully leads the eye around the compostaionfrom the moon down onto Quixote’s face and then across his shield, Dore uses a beautiful arc to lead the viewer through the drawing. But this isn’t detail for details sake and he gives us resting points throughout the image,preveting the piece from being over busy. From looking at the piece initially and maybes thinking it is quite complex it is clear to see Dore has focused our view on the three key areas of the image, the moon Quixote and his armour in all its splendour on the wall.

Arthur Rackham

Rackham’s line work is equally expressive, but in a very different way to Dore`s, still tonally as strong as the work of Dore if we look at an illustration form Alice in wonderland in which Alice is confronted by a deck of cards mysteriously thrown into the air, the viewer again is given a tour of the composition using a strong curve to bring the eye around the composition.

Initially looking at the piece it is almost like a photograph form a slow motion sequence, the cards swirl around Alice in a playful way, but Alice seems intimidated by this, on closer investigation we can see the characters are coming of the cards and occupying the image plane, confusing the visual story shown to the viewer.

Rackham’s line work is more playful, his line dances around the composition in a more fluid motion, the dress feels alive as it billows out. Then the line is intensified when he describes the hair, he uses a consistent line to give volume to the hair, almost making it feel like it is suspended in water.

Both of these pieces of work use line in different ways successfully, they succeed in making what in essence is a number of equidistant lines turn into beautiful images that are both controlled and confident in their approach.

Working on the still life it became apparent certain technique’s worked a lot better when trying to achieve the cross hatching for example. Blue Biro gave a consistent line that was easily controllable ,felt comfortable to work with and produced nice mid tone shading however this was limiting as once the darkest hue of the ink had been achieved it was hard to push this any further. From a drawing point of view it was also hard to maintain the hatching, and make sure the work didn’t deteriorate into scribble. The line quality was consistent with no real flex in the nib of the pen, so any pressure sensitivity did just come down to the hatching of the lines.

The most successful piece was the Biro work, it had vitality and was a medium the artist had over looked in the past as being a serious drawing tool, more investigation into controlling the contrast of the drawings and a possible use of different shades of pen might help to push the development a lot further. Scale is also an issue as you are limited by the line width, making it labour intensive to produce large scale works.

The success of the Biro drawing came from the ability to build up subtle tones and overlap the crosshatching to give the drawing depth, the choice of paper also had an effect on the final outcome, to heavy a tooth and the drawing lost clarity, using a smoother super white paper did give a finer detail and more consistent tonal range.

Tutorial Task 04

Synectic Triggers – how can this influence Creature Creation?

How did you create your work?

A number of quick thumbnail sketches were created initially, where the main focus was body structure and key parts of the individual creature’s anatomy. It was massively important the creature had a good gait, and felt like it was believable from a structural point of view. This was a key factor in a number of the designs not making it past early thumbnail development stage.  

Three variations were developed, the quality of finish and anatomy was pushed further before a decision was made about which creature would be taken forward to final presentation.

The main issues that cause tow of the designs to be rejected were the confidence of the artist to create convincing wings in the time available on the project.

The final design was chosen because it used the key Synectic triggers, Metamorphose, Combine and Superimpose. These were key in the final design, and the main reason the final creature was chosen.

Where did you find your assets?

Using key Synectic triggers the artist wanted to blend three very different animals to create the creature. The dog part of the animal came from photographs of the family pet. Initial photography had been carried out when the dog was a pup but this didn’t make it across into the final drawing as it felt too cute and worked against the overall look for the creature. This needed to be a solid well rounded animal that could exist in a fantasy film or game. So more photographs were taken of a more mature dog.

The refecne for the bird came from a book of old engravings from the early 19^th century, and in a way this guided the whole final presentation, the idea that this creature could exist in a journal of extraordinary creature’s not seen before was one of the driving factors when it came to putting the final piece together.

The Aye Aye had been seen on a BBC nature programme, and there was no way the artist could get access to the actual animal, so the internet had to be used. It was key from a development point of view that the skeleton was looked at, because of the Aye Ayes extended index finger in order to make sure the anatomical structure was correct. These skeleton images were used to build the musculature on, and make the creature more believable.

How did you create your work?

Initial rough pencil sketches helped to get an overall idea of how the creature may look, by using a thumb nailing technique it was easy to go through a number of iterations before settling on a final design. The only real issue this raised was making sure the silhouette for the creature was consistent and felt believable.

It was important early on in the project the Creature didn’t end up looking like a piece of bad taxidermy, so underlying anatomy and an understanding of the creatures possible behaviour fed into this process.

This was a fine balance, key aspects were dropped because of believability issues, and making sure the artist could deliver a creature that could function in the real world. A lot of time was spent looking at the transient between the fur on the body and the feathers, and how this would then blend down onto the short fur of the torso.

Overall the creature does achieve the goals that were initially set however more development work would be required to really push the quality of the artwork, there are a few awkward transitions and certain areas in the anatomy that need revisiting, for example the weight of the lower arm is to constant with the front legs, there need to be more taper and focus on the silhouette of the legs and feet.

How did you apply the Synectic Triggers?

The main Synectic triggers that were used to formulate the design were, Combine bringing things together from very different creature’s and combining them into a coherent and functional piece of work. Superimpose was another key trigger that really described how the artist produced the work by superimposing the key characters traits from the three animals and bringing them all together in the final design.

The final trigger considered was Metamorphose, the idea that the creature could be a mutation or indeed a biochemical change was interesting, again this was just another level of believability in the creature’s design. Using these triggers and constantly referring back to them helped to stay focused with the project and guided some of the key design decisions, these techniques had a major impact on the quality of the project and will be an area that I developed more in the future.

Tutorial Task 05

1960s Character Design

Document how you created your work

Which life drawings did you base your poses on?

The life drawings that were picked for the final piece were standing poses, these had been quick five minute poses but managed to have a lot of attitude, and this really helped in the development of the female character. This strong pose exuded strength and willingness to not back down, this provided a perfect balance for the slightly comical almost pleading pose of the male character.

What made you choose your concept?

Interviewing the artists father it became apparent to get really close to the essence of the 60s in the North East you had to look past  classic films like Quadrophenia, as these were created in homage to the era, and though really well observed lacked a lot of the grit seen in personal photos of the period.

As a games artist it was important to avoid cliché and push the normal stereotypes of character creation. This was achieved in a number of ways, using a stronger female character that visually is very different to the norm from the era. The male character also needed to break the mould, so he needed to look almost pathetic next to his girlfriend, by doing this the whole stereotype was turned on its head. This did however cause a number of issues mainly relating to the size of the female character, so this did push the believability of the character in relation to historical concept but this was felt to be a risk worth taking.

How did you create your artwork?

A large number of refence photographs’ were looked through and a pricoees of filtering the images was fundamental at the start of the project. Once the overall look had been established for both of the characters moodboards were produced showing key items of costume, hair and facial features. A number of initial thumbnail sketches were produced to bring the designs together quickly and concisely.

Once the initial thumbnail sketches had been produced, turnaround sheets of the characters were created. This involved more photography, to get the shape and weight right on the parka, and to make sure the details on the fabrics were as accurate as possible. The drawings were produced with pencil on layout paper to help maintain the volumes in the front back and side drawings.

What do you think could be improved in your concept?

The male character achieves everything the artist set out to at the start of the project, with the only aspect needing modification possibly is the cut of the trousers and elongating the toes of the boot to tie in with photographs found after the drawings were completed.

The female character needs more work, form an anatomy point of view the shoulders fell to narrow and hunched, and there are also issues with some of measurements of the legs, the thighs feel slightly long, and the anatomy around the ankle feels odd, this isn’t to problematic as if the character were to be produced, it is expected more principle photography would be produced for the character.

A beach side scene was chosen to show of the characters in an environment, but this was possibly to obvious, again more time would have allowed greater  research into the culture in the North East and possibly a better environment could have been developed. On the whole it was felt the main objectives had been achieved, the next stage would have involved more research and a look at the feasibility of animating the parka in a games engine.

Tutorial Task 06

Emotional response to poem

On reading the poem it feels sombre in mood and on the whole feels grey 128,128,128.Poetry and the use of the “poem” to generate an emotional response requires the reader to be inspired by the visual imagery conjured up by the poets words. On reading the poem a number of times the main emotions experienced are rage, venom and disillusion, the poem if looked at literally is a series of snippets, small morsels of visual stimulation that rarely work together to create a coherent discussion.

If we break down some of the key visual images and try to work with them we encounter misery, depression and a disconnect when it comes to creating artwork based on the poem.

To avoid this key phrases were picked the artist thought he could work with, out of the whole poem this was limited to “sleep, old time, Grecian Grandeur and the sick eagle. Looking at the experimental work that had been produced it was clear in one painting that a landscape could be worked into the pain work that had been produced using wallpaper paste and coloured inks. Having to shoehorn characters into the drawing was problematic, however the artist found a pose form the marbles and use this to create the foreground character.

Visually to get the idea of “old time” across the artist focused on using numerals from an old watch to blend over the top of the drawing. The personal element investigated was related to sleep, and tying that together with time, so the drawing shows a family group all asleep, but all connected through sleep. The male character can be seen drifting comatose across the composition holding a young child, this works on a number of levels by being asleep everyone in the picture could be dreaming the image, but as a viewer the scene feels intimate, but there is a disconnect, as to be part of it the viewer would need to be asleep as well. The drawing was created on brown envelop with coloured inks and has a jewel like quality to it.

The most important thing learnt from the task is the importance of experimentation in order to come up with new and interesting compostions.The surrealists used frottage to create amazing textured pieces of work, and it is this looking for an image in seemingly random marks that really can be inspirational when creating new work.

The ability to bring together and used different media is another area that has helped to develop the work. Sadly one of the problems with creating work in such a readymade way is you need to have access to large scanners to do anything with the work created. This is problematic with the majority of the machines only scanning to A3. This caused problems joining the images together and maintaining continuity across two pieces.