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.