BA3b - Final Evaluation

In BA3b, I wanted to push myself to do environment work, something I was not familiar with at all and found vastly intimidating. Especially, as someone who finds it difficult to not rush work and try to finish as quickly as I can, environments meant small details and fine lines and things that I just could never quite grasp. I however have always looked up to artists who can create these beautiful fantasy and sci-fi paintings of environments that aren't real, but they feel so alive and feel as if you could simply stroll into this futuristic world.

I had tried before to do environment design with the last project, but quickly felt too overwhelmed by having to learn entirely new ways to work in order to produce what I wanted, and was still very much in denial about having to use 3D in my work. For this project, after seeing others work on environments and their impressive improvement, I decided to bite the bullet. The main part of the project still remained as character design, something I am familiar with and know I want to continue with in the future as a specialism for jobs.

The characters were created first, and I made sure that I really put my own love and passion into them, instead of making them because I have to, something that I can often accidentally default to when thinking of project themes. Making sure that I was making the characters for myself really helped me enjoy creating them and designing personalities and rooms for them both, and I think that more love is shown in both my character and my environment designs because of that.

For this project, I wanted to make sure that I put a lot of research into each element of my designs, as often in the past I have overlooked a lot of the research I could do to help my art, and its impacted my work as a whole. Due to choosing a specific theme, French 18th Century Rococo style, I found it a lot easier to find reference images and information that would help me with my work. I am very pleased with the amount of research I did, as I think it shows in my work and I also learnt a great deal in the process.

For the environments, I knew that doing 3D and then drawing over the blocked shapes is a good idea to get a good grasp on elements such as the perspectives and sizes of objects, so I decided to experiment trying out Sketchup, a software I had heard is good for interior design. I found it difficult trying to learn an entirely new software, especially with the time I had to do it in, and it didn't feel right for me. I think I decided to try Sketchup because I was scared I had forgotten how to use Maya, but in the end I got the courage to pick it back up again and after a little while of vague confusion, I had remembered most of what I had been taught and quickly got up a simple blocked environment. It felt far more natural to use Maya to me, and I started to enjoy making the 3D environment. I'm glad in the end I picked up Maya again as its something that I will probably be using in the future for jobs, so its good to know that I hadn't forgotten much of how to use it. I also decided, as I had recently gotten an iPad Pro, that I would use it for most of my 2D work this term so that I could get more comfortable using it for the future. I would still be using Photoshop too, as well as other software, but I mostly used Procreate on my iPad for the concept pieces. I think it has helped me feel a lot happier working with it, and I look forward to continuing to draw with my tablet in the future.

BA3b - Week 13 Summary

This week is the final one before submission on Friday. I had no time to waste, so I continued to work on my cat princes room, and felt confident as I was nearing finishing it.

Below is the final concept piece lineart for the cats room. I added water lilies to the lake area, which I think helps the overall aesthetic of the room, and also helps with understanding that that area is water. I also gave the cat a large scratching post, as there was empty space and I thought having something cat related would be cute to add, and helps show that this is definitely a cats space. I had to adjust some sizes for furniture such as the seats in the left corner, as they were far too big before and made the room look smaller than it is. I found making all the furniture the correct sizes, and just the general perspective a challenge, but I have definitely learnt what and what not to do for the future, and will make more use of perspective grids and the sizing of my character.

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Below is the final piece for the cat princes room. Even though the decision was mostly due to lack of time, I think using greys helps with the mood of the scene, and allowed me to focus entirely on the lighting and not worry about colour composition and themes, as I found it hard to find a suitable one for his room. Overall I am very pleased with how it looks, although I wish I had given myself more time for the environments so that I could have spent more time on details. However as someone who had little to no experience with environments and interior design prior to this, I am immensely pleased with how far I have come and how much I have improved.

After feeling happy with how the cats environment looked, I set to work on the mouses room. I knew, as it was a small room, that it wouldn't take nearly as much time to make, so I wasn't too worried about the time constraints, though would have liked to have more. I made sure that my work was immediately neat, as I already had a very good base to work off of with the 3D model I had made.

The area I started with was the bed, as I had some ideas about how I wanted it to look. My first idea was to have a bed with bars, similar to a mouse cage, and have hay and blankets inside similar to the kind of bed a real mouse would have. 

I decided I didn't like the idea of having a barred bed, and it would look out of place with the wooden and homely aesthetic I wanted for the room. I also, after some research, found that often mice and rats beds are often something that they can get into, or cover themselves, or they have hammocks to lie in. Also with pet rodents etc, you would get soft shredded paper or other materials to sleep in, so I decided to have a wooden bed, with walled sides and overlapping soft blankets to burrow under, and also shredded paper in the bed. I also added bite marks on the bed posts, as she would probably need to chew things and keep her teeth sharp and short, as a mouse would. Below is the lineart over the 3D model of the room. 

Below is the final lineart for the room on its own. I wanted to make the room be easily seen as the opposite of the cats room, as it is small and windowless, but contains a lot more love and warmth. Rugs overlapping on the floor and a welcome mat were added as I thought they would help make the room feel homely and welcoming, and feel lived in. Also opposite to the cat, her room contains messy plants and instead of water and natural lighting, she only has light from her candles. Her furniture is far less extravagant than the cats, as she wouldn't have the sheer amount of money he has. Its functional furniture, it works. With her seat in front of the dresser, I wanted to make sure it was something she could use due to her big lower half, so made it rounded and have dips for her bottom. 

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As her room has no natural lighting, it was more of a challenge to figure where shadows and highlights would be. Below is the final result, also using only greys. I am pleased with the results, as it feels cute and warm, and due to the smaller size I found it more enjoyable than the cats room, as his room was a lot bigger and harder to add details too. Overall I wish I had given myself more time again to do this piece, mostly for little details, but I am very pleased with how far I have come and what I have achieved, especially with the short amount of time I allowed myself with this particular piece.

I am very pleased with myself, as I was starting to worry that I would have to drop the environment work due to time and how long the characters took, but I finished them both and even with the shorter time given for them, I am immensely pleased with how they look and feel like I have improved vastly in a short amount of time. Its unfortunate that I did have to leave the idea of having 'special items' for each character, but focusing on the larger elements of the project was something I needed to do. Environments and interior design have been something I wanted to try for a long time, and I'm glad I finally got the courage to do it. Hopefully it is something I will continue to do in the future too.

I also cleaned up my characters model sheets to prepare for submission.

I think all the pieces are complete, and I would say I am very proud of myself and with the work I have done in these 13 weeks. I feel like I've improved drastically in both my character designs and environments, and am pleased I managed to do almost everything I set out to. 

Ba3b - Week 12 Summary

This week I started working on the cat characters room, which has a big spacious layout with plants and furniture. I firstly sketched out the stain glassed window seen below, getting a feel for where and how the windows will be placed, and how they will look. For the design of the windows, my friend mentioned Saint Francis of Assisi, a saint often associated with animals and natural environments. I thought it would work well, as my cat character likes water and would look up to someone like him. I would however have him with cat ears etc, as he has to stay in the lore.

(Saint Francis of Assisi)

Below is the final rough sketch I had of the room. I decided, again, to not do a spiral staircase as it didn't quite work in the corner of the room, and went with a normal staircase that turned around the corner. I also added some curving to the stairs/balcony, as well as the bridge going towards the gazebo island, as I thought it would feel more flowing and water inspired. For the gazebo, I found one from Leif Erickson Park that had a nice shape and had wave-like patterns on the roof part that I found aesthetically pleasing, so I want to take the general shape and design as inspiration. I sketchily blocked out the shapes for where the furniture will be placed so that I could get a better feel for the interior design of the room. I feel like the balcony has a lot of empty space below it, and thus doesn't have a very strong purpose in the rooms design. 

(Leif Erickson Park Gazebo)

I moved on and cleaned it up more, making neater lines and putting more details into the designs. I decided, due to the large amount of space under the balcony, to close up the stairs area creating less space, and adding mirrors and/or paintings on the walls. I pushed the balcony railing further and made it more wave-like, with the right side flowing down into the actual water with a waterfall. For the furniture on the balcony area, I used the drawings I had made previously as a guide. With areas such as the plant pots, I found ones with details on the side of the design, so did something inspired by it but with cat faces. I also decided that I would only colour with greys, as otherwise due to the amount of time left and what I have to do, I won't be able to finish with work I am happy with and will rush. It also allows me to work on just thinking about the lighting, something that I find enjoyable. I wanted the light to come from one source, the big window, so that its definitely the first thing your eye is drawn to. Below is the rough mockup of how it would look greyed out.

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Below is the cleaning up process. It consists of a lot of redrawing lines and making things look neater. I decided to change the design of the bridge going over to the gazebo island, giving it a more intricate wave-like design that I feel is more readable and neater.

I cleaned up the window, and after doing some research realised that rococo interior design doesn't usually have stain glassed window and instead just has clear ones. For example, the Pilgrimage Church at Birnau has a very detailed interior, but the windows are clear and simple. I decided thus to leave it clear, but still keep the size and multiple frames. I changed the balcony handrail, giving it the same more delicate wave-like pattern across the top as the bridge. I think it helps keep the design neater, and doesn't distract from other elements such as the furniture. I also changed the stairs, making their design simple to compliment the balcony design.

(Pilgrimage Church at Birnau)

I cleaned up the furniture, and started working on the plants. For the gazebo, I decided to keep a simple design but have lots of ivy growing up and around the structure, which I want to be a contrast to the neatness of the rest of the rooms design. Due to the cat prince being rich and a royal family member, he can afford to keep everything neat and have gardeners to tend to his plants, and is also supposed to be prim and proper, so his room will feel neat and almost unlived in. I was thinking that the island is his own space where he can be himself and allow for his plants to grow more naturally. I also added other plants such as two weeping willows next to the window and two smaller plants near the door.

Below is its current lineart state. I added some plants on the balcony, two pots of neatly cut bamboo, and also a small table next to the bed with a lamp on it. I also gave the room some simple carpets, which I think helps bring the design together and makes it feel realistic.

BA3b - Week 11 Summary

This week I got feedback about my mouse character model sheet from Kaleigh, after I had worked on the legs. She gave me advice on the back view of the character, as I hadn't shaded it so it looked flat and didn't bring the same feeling of depth and fur, and the digitigrade legs were not apparent. I hadn't planned on colouring the other two drawings, as the first one has a lot of details, but I think Kaleigh had a point on the shading of the lower half so I decided to see how it would look. Below is the current model sheet. I also changed the shading slightly on the left drawing, as I preferred how I had done the texturing of the fur on the right model and the left one needed adjusting accordingly.

I am pleased with how it looks, it gives more of a sense of depth and you can see the way the legs bend. I will try to get more feedback about if I should add detail to the rest of the drawings, and adjust the fur on the middle one to fit with the others, but for now I am pleased.

I also worked on the environments. I decided that doing a 3D environment first, and drawing over it with more details would be the smartest decision as it would help with perspective and sizing of elements, and I would also already have a good idea of what the room will look like. I decided to pick up Maya again and try to relearn how to use the software, as its a software that I will more likely be using in the future. After a little while I had remembered most of what I had previously learnt and it was going quickly and far easier than Sketchup. I took screenshots of the process below to where I am now.

 

This is what I had at first, working closely with the drawings I had made previously with the bridge running over the small lake, a big pot for a tree in the left corner, large stain glassed window, and the balcony with a spiral staircase.

 

The bridge going over the lake felt flat to me, like there was no purpose to it, so I decided that maybe I could have a small island in the middle that the bridge crossed over to. I thought I could have a gazebo or something similar in the middle area.

 

Liking the new idea for the lake, I decided to add more elements such as simple blocked furniture and looking at where the door would be. I thought the door would make sense if it opened to look straight at the bridge.

 

The area with the tree felt not entirely logical to me, and I wanted to have him have a desk with a mirror attached somewhere but couldn't think of where it would be placed. I tried moving the desk to where the tree was to see how it would look, but it still felt empty.

 

 After talking to Kaleigh about the new ideas for the room, she told me that it would be logical to have the trees near the large window due to the light, and perhaps having smaller ones on each side would help the window still stand out. I also a moved the table and chairs to the area by the door, and moved some sofas to the area where the big tree was going to be.

Below are more shots of the room.

I'm pleased with how it looks so far, and the next step will be to draw over it.

I also did a quick 3D block out of the mouse room, seen below. It hasn't really changed from the original mouse room design I made at the beginning, as it didn't need much change.

The mouses room is the opposite of the cats room, its humble and small, more worn and may have more obvious signs of love. The room didn't take long to model, and will hopefully be useful to use as reference for the drawings.

BA3b - Week 10 Summary

This week I continued working on the mouse characters model sheet.

Above was the relatively nearly completed model sheet I had when getting feedback from Kaleigh, as well as my other finished model sheet for the cat prince, and environment work. The feedback was extremely helpful, and now looking back at this character she feels static, and very flat comparing to the current version of her. The advice I received started with Kaleigh drawing over my model sheet as seen below, showing how the anatomy and approximately where the bones would be, mostly looking at her legs, and removing the excess fluff to show their form. This basically helped show off the digitigrade legs better instead of simply having two giant poofs.

She then used the liquify tool in Photoshop to exaggerate shapes further, keeping some of that fluffyness that I wanted whilst retaining the shape of the legs. The back view wasn't altered because of time issues.

With this feedback fresh in my mind, I set back to work on my character sheet and adjust her legs. I was happy with the top part of my character, so I focused on redesigning her legs with Kaleighs adjustments.

Here are some process shots.

Above the apron was causing me issues, so I sent it to a friend who helped me with seeing the faults with the thickness of the apron. Below is the current final model sheet for her, and also how her legs look without the apron.

I'm a lot more pleased with how she looks now, her digitigrade legs are more obvious and she seems more mouse-like and realistic, and fits more with my other character. I think there are some elements like cleaning up and adjusting the characters positions as they seem to be leaning. I'm pleased with her design, and how far she has come. I was also very happy with how her fur texturing came out, and might try to replicate it with my cat prince character too. 

Readjusting the characters legs took up the week, so not much more was achieved, however I am glad I was able to pick this up early and change her legs because they look much better now.

BA3b - Week 9 Summary

This week I continued working on the furniture designs for my cat characters room. The bed was still looking very much incomplete, so I continued working on it. As it would be potentially considered the 'center piece' of the room, I wanted the details on the bed to be more extravagant. There are mice running up and down the banisters, and a cat head on the top of the bed with a crown. There are also cats sleeping and that are 'holding up' the cloths, inspired by the babies in the bed I have previously referenced. I have also made the ears on top of the bed larger than other furniture. 

I still think the bed needs work, such as for example the cats at the bottom holding the cloth could potentially have very large tails flowing down, because at the moment there are wave inspired forms that hold the cats up but I think that big fluffy tails would work well. I also changed the bedding of the design, and made it similar to a plush cat bed like the one below.

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I decided to try out this design because he is a cat, and would enjoy a cat bed or a bed that surrounds him, as a cat would. I think he would sleep curled up too, so something like this would work better. 

I also have the bed as it was originally (left drawing) as well as the current one compared with some older ideas, with mostly the headboards and the ears showing change. 

The bed is something that is difficult to design as I didn't start with a very strong idea in my head of what it would look like, but I am slowly creating a design I am pleased with. It still needs work however, especially areas like the bottom and the headboard as those have caused my some issues as I have struggled to think of designs or patterns to put there.

I also continued working on the character sheets. The cat character was my main priority, as he was very close to being finished. 

I had some issues with him that I couldn't quite put my finger on, and some of his proportions felt off, so I brought the sheet into Photoshop and drew more lines to figure out if its all proportional. This brought to light some important issues such as the length of the sleeves, which in turn made the hands look even more disproportionate. After sorting out those issues, I managed to work well with the hands and finished that area. I also got some feedback from Merlin about the back of the coat, and how it could be split like a tailcoat instead of just simply having a hole to let the tail out. I thus adjusted it so that it still kept with the curves of the design, but had a split in the middle. I think it looks much better now, and flows better down the character. 

Below is the character sheet in its almost final state. I need to get feedback from tutors first however, but I am very pleased with how he looks. Elements such as rendering of materials/fur etc I struggle with, so I may have to work on that more.

I also worked more on the mouse characters sheet. I have added shading and more details to the first drawing, as well as more detailed lineart work on the side view. Below is the current sheet.

I wanted to make sure her fur feel like mouse fur, and tried to shade accordingly. Her ears caused some issues as from the front they appeared to be simply rabbit ears, but due to the way they would be tied I couldn't think of how else to make them obviously mouse ears. It will clear however from the sideview how her ears are tied up. Her lower body is also proving difficult in the side view, as I don't want the issue of her looking like she would fall over or tip, and I want it to immediately feel like a mouses lower half. The feet especially are proving hard as I cant get them to be positioned correctly.

The colours and details on her so far however I am pleased with, especially how the face turned out. She feels mouselike, with the freckles and the colour of the blush. I am taking these model sheets very slowly, which is going to make the environments harder as I will have less time, but I feel more confident in this area and want to showcase my talents as its what I would want to do in the future.

BA3b - Easter

Over easter, I wanted to take a break but still continue working as I felt a bit pressured by my workload in the time left, so I continued with my characters. After getting some feedback a while ago about the colour of his hair, and how it seemed to stand out a lot due to being a different colour to the legs/ears/tail, so I experimented with the colours as seen below. The first is keeping the original blond hair, and fading into the greys, the second is the hair being the same colour as the legs etc, and the third is trying the fur at a different colour entirely. Overall I like the feel of the first one, as I still wanted him to be blond but for it to work better with the overall colour scheme. 

I also started working on the model sheet for the cat prince. I thought that front, side and back views would work well to show different elements of the design. 

Sketches

Lineart with view of straight legs, plus clothes

I was having some trouble showing the legs from the front and having that translate properly to the side view, and after sketching it I thought to try simply having the character with their legs straight as seen above. I felt that this however would not make sense as it wouldn't be the characters natural standing position. There were also some issues with the feet length, as they felt too long comparing to the legs. Below are linearts with the problems above worked on.

Lineart

Lineart plus clothes

After feeling more comfortable with how the linearts looked, I started working on the colours.

Current state of model sheet

The first drawing took a while to feel polished as I had many little details and issues to work on, so I decided to simplify the second and third view to just base colours as it felt unnecessary to put the amount of details needed on all three designs. I am pleased with how it looks so far, but I have been spending a lot of time looking at it so I may need to take a break from it to be able to see potential faults. I didn't start with lines in the background to help with proportions etc, which was a mistake, but after using them I could make sure that elements were the same over all the drawings and changed areas such as the feet or ear height. 

The tail I had trouble with, as I wanted to depict the flowing nature of the tail without making it appear squirrel like. I am pleased with the how it looks so far however, and I got some reference images from my own cat too.

 Images of my cat Suki's tail

The model sheet is not yet complete, there are elements such as the hands in the third drawing and the embroideries on the coats that I want to change, as well as complete colouring and get feedback from others.

I also started working on the mouse characters model sheet.

Sketches

Lineart of front view

Front view lineart with ears and clothes sketch

I found the ears on the front view to be difficult to get right, as they would be tied up so you would only see the sides of them. I was attempting to make them feel less bunny-like, though I may have to push it further.

Finalised front view lineart

Colours on front view

The original design of this character didn't need any huge changes, so its mostly the same as the final idea I had a while ago. I am pleased so far with how she looks, although may need to work with the ears to help them appear more mousey, and I may have made the legs larger than the original design. However currently I am pleased with how she looks. 

I wanted to have her ears tied up by a peg, similarly to how in the character Arrietty in Studio Ghiblis film by the same name uses a large peg in her hair.

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Or how a character called Gijin from a game called Wonder Project J2 ties up her hair with two peg-like items.

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However due to the way the ears would be pinned back, it may just end up taking attention away from them. I will experiment further with this idea however as its an aesthetic that I think may work well if done right.

With the environment work, I decided that Easter would be a good time for me to break away from it a bit and take a break as I was feeling drained and not inspired. I did keep doing research however, and went to Berrington Hall, a local National Trust area that has 18th century furniture and decor. Below some of the images I took that will hopefully help me with the environment work.

Images inside the hall

Images taken outside in the gardens

Also went to the local antique dealership and saw some furniture there that may be useful in my research.

Much of the furniture I saw wasn't specifically from 18th century or france, however I think taking inspiration from various elements is a good way to make my furniture and work feel more realistic.

Whilst playing Monster Hunter World, I unlocked the private suite room, a big lavish room that felt akin to what a king, or prince, would have. It immediately reminded me of my character and his room, as the suite has magnificent interior decor with an outside balcony with water and plants, which was easy to relate to my own designs. Below are screenshots I took in the game.

Every part of this room felt similar to the ideas I wanted for my own design, from the large, extravagant bed area, to the big, stain glassed window, and the large amount of natural lighting, water and plants. I will definitely want to take inspiration from this room for my own work, as its beautiful and feels very well thought out.