Portfolio and Evaluation

Evaluation:

I think I lost the essence of the project in the middle a little, I got stuck on wanting to do the realistic to fantasy pipeline, and so 3 of my drawings are in regular clothing. Although I do like the final illustrations and I'm happy with my project, I do still think my main goal got slightly derailed. I would like to take these characters and try to draw them again without utility being a factor, and see what comes of that. This whole project showed me I need and want to do a lot more studies into how clothes sit on the body and layering, etc. The focus was on the outfits, but I ended up loving the faces that were coming out of these designs. I draw a lot of portraiture, so that makes sense, but maybe this means I just need to do as many studies of clothes to get that up to the same level.

The main thing I got from this project was that I just need to do more studies. Artwork I create from reference, like the dress in the research stage, comes out so much better than other pieces of clothing I try to make up the folds and bends, etc.. This all comes down to more studies needing to be done, so I have a better grasp overall, and that can feed into my work.

All that being said, I do like the final illustrations and presentations of my project. I am happy to add them to my portfolio and show them off, and I am excited to give these characters another go after I have gained more knowledge and skill. Balancing multiple projects is still a skill I am learning, as I did not give myself enough dedicated time to this project, even though I did complete it. With extra time, I would have done more iterations for each character on their outfits, making them more complex and detailed. I also would have done studies from my benchmark artists to get more of a feel for how they work with line and colour, etc. My biggest flaw is time keeping, and it was obvious when I had to keep creating new plans for myself when time got away because of other modules. The only advantage from this is a I do become a fairly good problem solver as I am constantly having to rewrite plans and make up for lost time in some way.

This project has taught me a lot, and I am happy to have something I am proud of to show for it.

NOTE: My Artbible and production logs are all under the capstone label; you may need to click older posts a couple of times at the bottom to get to all of the posts under the label.

Portfolio link:

https://www.artstation.com/halfpint/albums/14403546

PDF in case the ArtStation link messes up :)

Meredith Evolved

Starting off like usual, with some loose sketches. For Meredith's evolution, I wanted her to go kind of off the rails, from uptight to more flowy and witch-like.

After getting the grasp of her posing, I adjusted to her body type, also playing with limbs like lengthening the arms and legs.

I then gave her the extra arms I knew I wanted from the beginner; she is meant to now show power and sorcery, extra arms are a clear sign of this. Even though she changes personality, she still remains on the mean side and the power only strengthens this.

Also adding in some blood magic elements and playing with hair patterns. I also realised I accidentally kept with the same angle in the original illustration but kept it as I liked her strong side profile that would be slightly lost by facing forward.

Something I really wanted to do was do a lace pattern on her face, it was on my moldboard and I loved the look of it, unfortunately it wasn't coming out how I wanted it to, so I had to ditch it. Bearing in mind I also ended up removing things in the final illustration because it was too busy, I'm glad I didn't include it.

I thought the lying down a bit too much of a change from her original concepts, and also were too seductive looking, so I stood her up but messed with her posture, I wanted to give off a naturally posed vibe, and I think this is just weird enough to be slightly off-putting. Perfect.

The colour palette was up for debate on this one, a couple of different versions were gone through, keeping her tights and top of her doctor's coat the same as they were integral.

For the vote, I gave 3 options from top left down.

It came out as 2, but a lot of people came in afterwards with very differing opinions, which made it a hard decision, but along with verbal feedback, it came close between 1 and 3, 3 slightly taking it.

After the colours were decided, I played around a tiny bit with the figuration of the magic.

On the final render, I tried out these wraps on the end of her hair; they were nice, but with the magic and pearls at the top of the hair was too much. As well as the gradient on the end. I wanted the pearls to be the main attraction of her hair, so they stood alone.

Finally, the last character and illustration. The clothing rendering came out alright on this. I like the patterning on the red materials, but the skirt is very bland. The face is also a bit stiff, although she is void of colour, I still think I could have done more contouring to make her more gaunt. I enjoy the hair shape, but the pose is still quite stiff. Maybe if I angled her better or made it more dynamic, I'm not quite sure. Or I managed to get the off-putting feeling just right, and that's why it's strange, either way, I do like this, but it is not my favourite piece.

My final render and just in time for my new schedule, put together when I got quite behind, I managed to get these pieces out relatively quickly and to a fair standard, but I was definitely very burnt out by the end, and I think it shows slightly in this piece as it was non-stop. 

Meredith

Staple features:

• doctor
• stuck up
• very slim
• almost giving sickly, ironic for being a doctor
• Greek features
• nose with a strong bridge for a strong silhouette
• Although Greek features, very pale skin, still with an olive pigmentation though.

Meredith is a woman with a strong temperament, she is a leader and a mean one. I wanted her design to have her personality shoot through, this involved her first outfit was very put together and neat with not a lot going on, I think that speaks for itself, even though not complex it tells you everything you need to know about her.

Starting off with loose sketches again to get my bearing, I made her very stationary to begin with but she is a busy bee so they were too static.

I liked the face for this sketch, so I took that onto the subsequent renditions.

I liked this pose in the beginning to tried to continue with it. The first outfit seemed too secretary, I wanted her career to be obvious as it plays into her future skill set of blood magic.

After finding her simple outfit, I tried some hair, I took inspiration from Greek hair pieces, but they seemed a bit too relaxed for her, especially not appropriate while working.

The pose started to look wrong and wasn't dynamic enough for this character. 

After finding the right pose, it became much simpler to colour pick and render. I made her much paler in the render to be in line with the initial character concepts.

The render was an exact of the rough sketch just with more detail and a blood bag added.

This illustration was the quickest of them and gained me some time back, which I greatly appreciated. I am in love with the way I rendered her clothes for this one, the tights are exactly how I wanted, and her coat is rendered just enough to have detail while being a very boring white coat. Her face is also perfect for her demeanour; this is my favourite in terms of rendering. I really tried to take on what had been said about not overdoing it by a lecturer, and I am very happy I did.

Marlow Evolved

For Marlow's 'evolved' version, I was going to do some beginning sketches, but I did this first loosely with no reference, and it was actually exactly what I wanted. I did other sketches quickly afterwards and looked for other poses, but none of them beat this.

What I imagine Marlow's character progression would be like it her relaxed, calm demeanour is not allowed because she has to fight, she is frustrated that she can't just go back to her garden, also making her a lot more grumpy and begrudged by others. Her aesthetic goes from sunny to night, the owl hair being a reference to it from the beginning, she also acquires elements of moth patterning, too.

I wanted her hair to still be a staple in this version so I messed around with a lot of hairstyling, knowing I wanted stubby braids in the original to be longer and fuller.

She also acquired a lamp that originally was going to be a staff, I wanted the strawberry aesthetic to carry through trying to tie as much to her first design. The floretted strawberry gave a more complete look in my opinion.

Also experimenting with lighting, I really like how this turned out, but it didn't make sense that her hair, out of it, was still light, and it was a bit too harsh in the end. If I had more time, I would have tried to make this work for the final render.

I tried out a couple different outfits, in this first rendition she had armour pieces. I did enjoy this version but I realised it didn't match the mood I went for on my initla vision mood board, neither her personality.

I then tried out with some pieces I knew I wanted in there, which were the moss/flower/grass boots. I think the shape they make is very interesting and new, though not making a ton of sense, they are aesthetically very appealing.

Another big item is the backpack she carries. I wanted her silhouette to be big and bulky, carrying a lot, trinkets and plants, etc. If I were to redo her, I would spend a lot more time adding tons of trinkets and hanging items to her backpack to clutter it up. If it is not super clear, the backpack is an old cabinet with stained glass on the front containing more plants. Her whole gig is making seed bombs, healing pastes and being all over helpful on the battlefield with what she can make with her plants. I love the idea of this backpack, but I think it should have more layers to it, maybe going well above her head and stacking precariously, more like a wardrobe.

Her outfit is essentially her old overalls with the addition of a huge owl wing that acts as a shield over her shoulder. Also having an eye, a mixture of the dots on a moth wing and being the eye of the owl, her hair colour comes from. Simple but adds a lot to her outfit, also her makeup now represents the eye of the owl too, mimicking war paint in a way, I would think she just took the opportunity to do something fun on her face.

In her final render, I did try adding the belt, but it felt too cluttered with the detail on the wing and the hair flowing past, so I removed it.

An attempt at the light, but it didn't feel the same as on the sketch, and again was a bit too harsh with super hard lines compared to the rest of the illustration.

The final render, I was super happy with how this one came out. I think it is my favourite, there are some things I would change, like the hair over the owl wing is a little confusing, and she has no arms on display. The lamp and plant at the top are my favourite, yet it is the bit I rendered the least, so I will do some illustrations in that style and see if that is a path I want to take.

Overall, I am happy with this, and I made myself stop at a point to keep on the schedule I had set, which is an improvement on my time management skills.