Project Planning - Breakdown of 'Jingo'

List of locations, characters, props and shots to help create list of designs in order of priority

Shorthand key:
AM = Ankh Morpork, initial location of story, based on Western Europe
K = Klatch, foreign nation at war with Ankh Morpork, based on what culture(s)?

Characters

• The Watch - Vimes, Carrot, Angua, Nobby, Colon, Detritus, Reg, Cheery, Downspout
• Vimes' House - Lady Sybil, Willikins 
• Ankh Morpork Higher Ups - Vetinari, Rust, Ridcully, assorted Guild leaders
• Ankh Morpork citizens - Ossie, Snowy Slopes, Gorriff Family
• Klatchians - 71 Hour Ahmed, Prince 
• Leonard Da Quirm
• Disorganiser
• Scats and Mohocks
• Death

Locations

• Ankh Morpork streets (general cultural aesthetic)
• Al Khali streets (general cultural aesthetic)
• Leshp sunken island (exteriors)
• Solid Jackson's boat 
• Ankh Morpork Docks (neighbourhood)
• Ankh Morpork Shades (neighbourhood)
• Opera House (int, ext, roof)
• Procession route (neighbourhood)
• Pseudopolis Yard Watchhouse  (exterior, Vimes' office, main room, cells)
• Patrician's Palace (exterior, Oblong Office, hallway)
• Unseen University General [expand]
• Mundane Meals, Gorrif's Shop (exterior, interior)
• Klatchian Embassy (exterior, interior, very on fire)
• Leonard's Room for Making Things In (outer hall, interior)
• The Barbican Building (ext, int)
• Ossie's Room at Mrs Spent's Boarding House (a?) (ext, int)
• Snowy Slope's Room on Money Trap Lane above (?) the sweetshop (ext, int, neighbourhood)
• Sator Square for Soapboxes (ext)
• The Boat (ext, int)
• Vimes' Ship (ext, int)
• Ahmed's Ship (ext, Ahmed's room, Prince's room)
• Al Khali [expand]
• Prince Cadram's Palace (ext, int)

 Props/Devices

• Detritus's Big-ass Crossbow
• Detritus's Fan-Cooled Helmet (clockwork)
• Flying carpets
• Messenger Pigeons and cage/box
• Camels
• Donkey
• Sand tables (AM and Klatchian)
• Watch armours
• Military colours/armours 
• Vetinari's peace-treaty tube that is misleadingly suggested to be a bomb or weapon
• Vimes' ceremonial baton
• Leonard's Rocket Launcher
• Leonard's version of Scrabble
• Klatchian Telescope
• Agatean Iconograph

Scenes

• The Opera House Thing
• St Ungulants Fire
• 
  

Research - Open Link Collection

Trying out a new way of collecting links for later use in research. Unsure of whether or not this will continue throughout the semester - will it be useful?

Colour:

• CA.org The Dimensions of Color
•  Understanding the Use of Color in Design

Traditional Paintings

• http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=174792
• http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=177729 

Style

• http://www.fzdschool.com/images_gallery/gallery_student_digital_painting_pg1_36.jpg 

Design Process

• http://www.promo-design.co.uk/design-process.html
• http://www.adamnichols.net/tutorials/concept-art-process-101.php?id=8  

• http://www.malleckdesign.com/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi 

Character Design

• http://uwe-cdad.weebly.com/blogs.html 

Collections of Information (design, painting, theory)

•  40+ Digital Painting Tutorials 
•  Gnomon Workshop interviews with artists

Project Planning - Research Proposal

Iterations

1. 30/7/2013

Project Planning - Semester 2's Study

Semester 2 Project - Fantasy to Science Fiction - Source Material: Terry Pratchett's Jingo


Aim is to practice as many skills as possible that are relevant to the concept artist. The problem now is to get a sense of exactly what these skills are so that I can compile a list.

My initial list of things I think I should tackle:

• Characters
• anatomy
• expression
• clothing/costume
• Locations
• organic environments
• architectural/urban design
• room plans
• Inanimates
• Weapons
• Vehicles
• Furniture
• etc
• Shot Design
• Storytelling and storyboarding
• lighting, colour, mood, etc
• camera angles
• matching specific lenses (research link)
• Various skills
• Design processes
• Design theory - colour, composition, form, etc
• Design language/style matching and development
• Production painting

Researching around this problem:

Posted the above list on the Conceptart.org forums (as well as the community Facebook page) for feedback. No useful replies just yet.


Started looking at the timeline for the Feng Zhu Design School's one year Advanced Diploma program.
A 3-term year with 15 weeks in each term (45 weeks total compared to our 24 weeks).
Modules that they complete during this diploma are as follows:

Term1

Design Sketching 1 - design basics, thumbnails, research, shape regocnition, proportions, balance, audience focus.
Visual Communications 1
Perspective
Digital Painting 1

Term2

Design Intro
Visual Communications 2
Design Sketching 2
Digital Painting 2

Term3

3D Visualisation
Digital Painting 3
Entertainment Design

A more visual version of the above (with examples) is here.


From this article on Creativeskillset.org:

"They must also be conversant with film imagery and have a good understanding of what Directors, Directors of Photography and Editors require from a scene." 

From an article that featured an interview of four practicing concept artists:

Per Haagensen: You need a good foundation of traditional art skills and an understanding of different styles. You should always be open to exploring new designs and ideas through proper research and experimentation.

Devon Cady-Lee: Draftsmanship, the ability to understand forms in space and being able to illustrate them for others. A keen sense of design and problem-solving skills help in making believable artwork.

Discussion:


Weekly:

1. One topic for visual library studies - landscapes, materials/surfaces, colour studies (theory of colour on objects, colour palettes, etc), camera lenses and cinematography, weather conditions, skies
2. Perspective practice
3. Anatomy practice
4. Design theory study
5. Project research and development

Making sure to work the list of skills I want to look at far above into this system.

An open list of design theory stuff to look at

• 'mood boards'
• 
  

when is it appropriate to use different methods - superclean line drawings, painterly drawings, etc

Research (drawing skills, design skills) - Perspective Theory and Thumbnail Generation Techniques

Watched Intro to Perspective for Entertainment Design Class with Polina Hristova

It's a basic explanation of simple perspective principles, dealing primarily with one point perspective (further lessons cost a bunch of money).

Mostly stuff I already knew, but had an alternate way of looking at the picture plane. Started to talk about station point, a picture plane and how far the viewer is from this plane, block-ins and measuring, and the viewing cone, things I've not come across before.

Her quick and fractured explanations aren't useful enough, so I'll have to look these up elsewhere.


----------------------------------

Watched Thumbnail Tutorial PT1 and PT2 by Lennart Verhoeff

The video discusses the use of Alchemy, a really unique and free drawing software, to create brushes for Photoshop and then using these brushes to create a bunch of thumbnails that we can then look at and push further to find good compositions.

He draws every rectangle at once with sweeping strokes and custom brushes to create a consistent shape language. If doing a sci fi or tech environment, he'll create custom brushes that fit the theme shape-wise (hard edges, straight lines, etc) in Alchemy.

Then it's a case of going through, picking out some parts, lightening/darkening some thumbnails, finding shapes and compositions, etc.

Project Planning - Semester 2, Initial Thoughts

Composition practice done over the break

Thoughts on last Semester:

• Was often initially unsure of the purpose of an design step until a little way into it. Perhaps better to know the goal of a particular exercise before beginning.
• Sometimes an iteration exercise designed to produce several variations would just be a series of developments to a final design. Keep an eye on this if the aim is to produce several outcomes.
• Is it important to know how other designers use references in their actual daily process?
• How much do I need to adhere to a specific way of working? 
• How important is it to be designing 'the right way'? And how much time and thought should I dedicate to this?

Thoughts on this Semester:

• Perhaps good to plan my weeks with a solid structure - this day is for one thing, this evening is for another thing, etc.
• I want to study a broad range of topics in terms of sketching and world research - buildings, trees, anatomy, animals, rocks, cultures, costume, weapons, vehicles, etc. This needs to be worked in to my week.
• I want to get regular artist research done as well - this needs to be worked into my week as well.
• I want to get regular developmental work done on the project.
• I want to research specific design techniques and processes.
• I want to research artistic technique - line weight, composition, colour, light, etc.
• Picked a single Discworld novel to be the focus of my project - this will give priority and a sense of hierarchy of effort to each location.

Thoughts on the Break and Yukfoo Internship:

I've been doing a full-time and somewhat informal work experience at Yukfoo Animation for the past two weeks. It's been interesting, and it's put a couple of things in perspective for me.

It's important for me to pick a Discworld novel and design for that novel specifically rather than designing for the fictional world without any direction. I need to know which locations, characters, vehicles, etc, are seen most often in the story so that these can be top priority. Then work on other locations (etc) based on their importance to the story.

Research [to-do] (artist research) - Benoid Godde

Artist: Benoid Godde

Paris, France

A list of links to images and information about Benoid Godde to discuss later:

• http://cghub.com/images/view/408042/
• http://cghub.com/images/view/556281/
• http://cghub.com/images/view/427325/
• http://cghub.com/images/view/567165/
• http://cghub.com/images/view/570957/
• http://cghub.com/images/view/566437/
• http://cghub.com/images/view/430565/
• http://cghub.com/images/view/550285/
• http://www.porte-voix.com/
• 
  
• http://forums.adobe.com/thread/897737?tstart=30
• http://forums.adobe.com/message/3901662

Research (drawing skills) - Gesture Drawing

'Quicksketch Examples - 2 Minutes Poses' video by ProkoTV on Youtube

Trying to bring some figure drawing practice back into my regular study. I stumbled upon this video as well as the following video that expresses the importance of approaching figure drawing from a gesture basis rather than a contour-copying basis

Tells us to practice finding the gesture of the gesture of a figure so many times that it becomes second nature. Do lots of quicksketch lessons. 2-3 hours, poses 30 sec to 10 mins per pose. Gesture is primary concern. Then design details to compliment gesture instead of copying details randomly.

Gesture is an attribute everything has - waves, trees, mountains. So implied information and character of objects based on gesture.
Body language is important idea with gesture drawing - conveys information, emotion, tell a story.
Exaggerating pose - can help to tell a better story. Skill in exaggerating enables us to capture subtleties

Key Concepts:

1. Longest Axis - look at the longest axis of a form to find gesture - length of torso/leg/arm is where the fluid motion is
2. C.S.I. - try to limit gesture drawing to C or S curves or straight lines. Eliminate unnecessary information.
3. Line of Action - start the drawing by finding the longest action line of the body - a single C curve
4. Bendiness - Smooth vs zig zags. Zig zag for tension, smooth for calm eg water. Tight curves more tension than loose.
5. Asymmetry of Body - Side view of body shows alternating C curves. 

Research [to finish] - Pokemon Concept Art

The above Did You Know Gaming video discusses the early concepts for the successful Pokemon franchise.
The earliest concept was 'Capsule Monsters', inspired by Japanese 'gashapon machines' which would output a toy in a capsule if a customer inserted money.

Satoshi Tanjiri's early designs are very interesting. I believe Matt Kohr from CtrlPaint mentioned that the Pokemon monsters are very well designed, given the small amount of space available on the tiny Gameboy screen (160x144 pixels) in which to visually express the nature of each monster.

This image in particular is what interested me

It shows a much grittier environment that feels a lot more intricate and visually interesting than the often very vanilla environment design of the games and television series.

While there's obviously not a lot of room on the screen to show any grit or detail, the overall art direction does feel very bland

The idea of Pokemon in bottles and cages is interesting too, as well as more emphasis on the actual physical nature of the pokeballs - all sitting on a stand ready to be bought.

http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Capsule_Monsters

Research (drawing skills, skill development strategies) - 'What Should I Draw Today' on Ctrlpaint.com

Matt Kohr talks about strategies for directing your own studies.

If the goal is Fantasy Illustration, then we know there are some key skills you need. Characters, perspective, creature design, etc. So now you can break it down into the skills required for each of these:

Characters

• Life drawing/anatomy

• Costume

• Acting/Expressions

Perspective

• Landscape

• 3-point perspective

Creature Design

• Animal Anatomy

• Domestication Studies

If you only have an hour to work, you can pick a small part of each to work on. Spend an hour drawing necks or hands if you're looking at anatomy.

Having a physical list of different tasks you could do to fill your study time will be invaluable.

This would be useful for me. I began a wider version of this with breaking my study up last semester into separate blocks (theory research, project research, project development, etc). Perhaps adopt a more micro system such as this over the next couple of days and see how it goes.

Semester 1 - Discworld Sci Fi Redesign: The Great A'Tuin

Research (design skills, image composition theory) - Shot Design on Feng Zhu Design Cinema

FZD Video - Shot Setup

Composition:

Feng took an initially quite stiff and badly composed shot and developed it into a much more dramatic and well composed (in terms of leading the eye) way.

Feng's paintover to show compositional flow:

Feng's notes:

• Large masses added to either side of the image to stop the eye from wandering out
• Slopes, gun angles, etc, draw the eye down into the lower center of the image
• Figures in lower image are looking up towards the mech, so they lead the eye up into this focal point
• Figure standing at far left is looking at the camera, which stops the eye. Sounds like if the eye is moving UP the left hand slope, this figure will stop the eye and then the form of his weapon will point us back down into the image.
• bottom middle guy looking up is a key part in drawing the eye up to the mech.

Note: what is to stop the eye from going up and out the top of the image on the right side?

Answer:

Added some light to background in the path of the mech to imply 'activity' in that area and to show motion and intent of the mech in going there. Created a right-heavy comp, implied speed, etc. So the left side became 'not as strong'. Added some light op left corner to balance.

Storytelling:

Used some iconic building shapes to help push a story. The capitol building (similar in form to the building in Washington as well as St Pauls in London) gives a sense that they're fighting not in just a boring ruined city filled with skyscrapers but somewhere with an aesthetic. A level of class and valuable cultural structures. Also shows importance of location - proximity to the hub of leadership.

Feng referenced WWII images and footage.

Small independent storytelling moments and opportunities for the viewer to make their own imaginative leaps

Final Details:

Adding highlights to really push some select areas into near-white,

Adding debris in the air, etc, just to bring an appropriate amount of life to the battlefield

Final Image Critique:

• Mech is a bit flat in terms of shading - underside/rear pretty much same tone as front.
• Highlights on front of mech a bit too soft and undefined
• Perspective on underside of mech and position of left/far leg incorrect

Personal Rework:

Research [to-do] (general theory, colour theory, learning art) - Ctrlpaint.com links, Gurney on being a student after formal education, Gurney on colour

CtrlPaint website, over 100 video tutorials and theory videos by Matt Kohr, professional concept artist

http://ctrlpaint.com/videos/why-and-how-to-paint-over
http://ctrlpaint.com/videos/basic-color-schemes
http://ctrlpaint.com/videos/basic-color-schemes-pt-2
unified colour 
http://vimeo.com/29779029


http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.co.nz/
In 1892, Edwin Austin Abbey received a letter from a young artist traveling through England on his way across to Paris. He wanted advice from the famous illustrator. Here was Abbey's response:

"The great trouble," he wrote, "with the vast majority of our artists at home is that they cease to be students too soon. They spend a couple of years—even three or four years— in Paris, or some other place where students congregate, and, bored by the drudgery of the serious atelier and seeing certain easy-going pictures attracting a certain amount of attention and having also a certain amount of merit, they throw over the opportunity (which, mind you,never comes again) to make themselves as perfect as they may be with the aid of all the facilities a far-seeing body of eminent artists have, during many years, accumulated for their benefit, and dash into paint with a confidence bred entirely of ignorance and intolerance of the training that they, at that ill-informed and blind period of their lives, do not see the need of."

Abbey continued: "Go to the Louvre constantly (on Sunday mornings you will have the place to yourself, or nearly so). Look at the designs and drawings by the great masters and reflect that they thought it necessary to take all that pains before they began their painting, and that they did not rely upon genius or talent to carry them through. Remember that you are pretty blind at present. I don't remember ever before having seen an art student of your age absolutely without a sketch-book. You should be sketching always, always. Draw anything. Draw the dishes on the table while you are waiting for your breakfast. Draw the people in the station while you are waiting for your train. Look at everything. It is all part of your world. You are going to be one of a profession to which everything on this earth means something. Keep every faculty you have been blessed with wide awake. The older you get the more full your life will be getting." 

object in field underside warm, up facing cool
'

To read:
http://www.linesandcolors.com/2011/09/19/james-gurney-on-gamut-masking/