Inspiration: Kris Kuksi

I have never seen this artist before and I am complete amazed by his work. I have always had a fancy for art which is considered startling and horrorific. I am not sure how this will directly inspire my current work but I am sure it will at some point, Specially for idea for creature design or a nest environment? I am not sure but the work is fantastic.

Going against my learning agreement

I have been doing alot of thinking about my work recently and how it is I am presenting it. Up to now I have just been continuing with my work, designing and developing ideas but not knowing how to present them. When looking back over my learning agreement, I can see that I will be going againest what I said. I planned to show off the introduction to the game, only, now reading it and looking at what I am supposed to be doing, I can see I am in the completely wrong place and need to get it sorted. As I want to show myself as a concept artist, I can afford to focus on story boards when it will be time consuming and I can show enironments which would be seen at the beginning of the game, but I dont need to explain it.

I will be sure to mention this in my conclusion and summery of this term and why I thought I had to change my way of progression. I believe it to be for the best and this way I will be able to show off my potentional without being held back by keeping inline with the story boards. I wouls much rather use the larger concepts I have done than show the lack of storyboards I have.

Horse Concept

One idea I have been playing around with is putting in something which symbolises Fox Hunting. As the player would be controlling the fox, it forces them the play and survive in an event which is reality.

What I find so appealing about this, purely in a game concept way, is the visual image of a larger statue like creature, just perfectly still. The polluted horse has a growth on its back which is the symbolise the rider. These creatures would be scattered around and jus watching. Watching for the player to come into sight where then the horse like creature would call out, summoning a larger pack of polluted creature. These would represent the hounds used in fox hunting.
I believe this would be a great creature enemy for the game which would make the player think before acting, how would I get by this guy? what would I do if I am seen?

Luckly I have study horse anatomy before when I was younger for A levels and I still remember the best ways the draw them.

Inspiration: Jacek Yerka

I feel so lucky to have found this artist as I absolutely adore his work. Having played Machinarium, the art style really got my attention and Yerka style of art has some similarities to it, specially in his environment images.

What I like about these images in particular is that I can relate them to my idea for the introduction to the game. Focusing dramtic unusal changes inside a place which we feel is comforting to us. I am really drawn to the images above and below of the bathrooms. The top image more so because of its connection with natural elements. I love the idea of plant life from a pond or lake growing inside the bathroom and because the house I am using also has nature growing inside it, it fits perfectly and a good source of inspiration.

Creature Designs: Peacock

I had an idea today for an unlikely animal creature design which I can think of any other game having it. Watching 'QI' on Dave, they had a question on the Peacock and I just had to design a creature around this animal. One of the most unlikely for a design as it is not usually associated with anything 'evil' or 'blood thirsty', so, I got pen to paper on had a few quick sketchs.

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After a few more designs I will create a high quality concept in photoshop to add to my portfolio.

Helpful Site

http://www.wonderhowto.com/
I have been using this site a few time to help with problems or questions about idnt programs like Zbrush and Maya.

Fox study

It is hard to find stuff about foxes which isnt seeing them as pests or sites on how to kill them. Even looking for the anatomy of the fox is difficult. What I have been reliant on is its close relationship to a dogs anatomy and how they move and their stance. I did manage to find this image of a foxes skeleton in frame by frame movement. Strange by highly help full with my fox drawings.

Art of Howl's Moving Castle

I have recently had my birthday and my friend got my The Art of Howl's Moving Castle which is one of my favourite movies. As I mentions before about collecting Concept books, this is something very special. It is so refreshing to see the idea looking so clean and naked on the pages and knowing that they will become such great film. I will be using this book for ideas on how to set out a concept sheet etc.

Fox and Creature Concepts

Even though I had choosen to concentrate on the environments of my game concept, I have done a few of the creature designs that would appear in the game. Also, I wanted to look more at the anatomy of the Fox and practice my drawing skills of this animal. So I will put up the images in another post that I have manage to do in my time away from environments. I will explain how the creature would act, move and why they look they way they do.

Inspiration: Dali

Dali is another Artist I wanted to research into alittle because of his extremely surreal environments. I have studied Dali alittle before for my foundation and found him to be very excentric and extreme views on art. Though his personality or views dont change my game concept in the slitest by his visions of environments melting under its own weight is very inspirational. As i have been thinking of how to show some areas of the polluted environments and Dali's images just came to mind.

Inspiration: Beksinski

Over the past few days I have been trying to come up with a visual style for the infected wildlife from the pollution. Obviously I have the mutated idea in mind as it is a natural response to a foreign body/ virus growing with living tissue. The problem with this idea is the animals/creatures would look too gruesome which is not effect I am trying to get. Showing too much would then fall into Resident Evil style of infections and mutation. These animals have to feel and look as though the pollution is apart of its own body and it isn't thirsting to kill etc, but just living as any other life form does.

One ideal style I have been using was inspired by an artist by the name of Zdzisław Beksinski, a renowned Polish painter, photographer, and sculptor. The images I came across are published in a book called 'The Fantastic Art of Beksinski' by James Cowan. His painting style expressing images in a fantasical surrealistic environments in a dream like state. I have always been a fan of surrealist artist such as H.R.Giger and Francis Bacon so to find Beksinski on a random search is extremely lucky and from his works I can say I am a fan.

In relation to my work, I can see certain aspects of certain paintings which I can relate back to my own. Even from his use to colour which the environments are chocked in a thick dirty mist of browns and dark oranges. This gives the idea of how the pollution should look in my concepts and is something to play around with. Not only that but the way he has depicted certain animal like forms, how they look to be woven into existence rather than birthed. It is fascinating to get such a creative idea from his images.





http://www.beksinski.pl/

My next blog will be my concept ideas for the wildlife/ creatures inspired by his work which I will compare the images above.

Interactive Wall Frames

When thinking about how to make my images interactive, I had this idea of a wall within the house which would have pieces of concept work in frames. The idea would be to click on the framed images to enlarge them, click to go back and click on another frame on the wall. The image below is the concept for this backdrop.

Okami Art Work book

Recently I have decided to try and find as many video game art books as possible to go with my animation art books. This because I want to understand better just how concept artist progress and show their work in a professional and coherent manner. Now there are a great many but I came across the art works for Okami which is one of my favourite games.

I can say with no hesitation just how amazing this book is. It is very in keeping with the came and from page to page it progresses just like a story. It was designed to read in the Japanese style of starting at the back and through to the front. It is all extremely well annotated and presented. Full of concept art, level design sketches, character reference models and even some mangas.
One touch I like about it in particular is the some amount of interactivity is has. Apart from turning the pages, reading and studying the images, there are little numbers on each page of the book. These number correspond to a disc number and track number which is for the OST for the game. I thought this was a fantastic touch to make the book seem more connected to the reader. Listening to the tracks that add emotions to the images on the page.

From going through the book a many of times, it give me food for thought on how to actually present and design my pages of concept art.

PDP

Today is PDP day. Decided to add my trip to Hong Kong so this should be fitting for PDP