Hard to find a starting point for my Discworld redesign. What process should I use? Etc.
Doing some research to get a clearer image regarding how I can approach the initial stage of this project as well as to reestablish my motivation and general sense of stability.
Looking at a range of Matt Kohr's video tutorials.
Talks about the three steps of drawing something.
- Reference images/reference sheet from photos and also other artists' sketches and paintings
- Contextual/real world understanding of where the object exists
- Practice which forces us to look closely at the real forms and details sans our mental symbols
Sometimes it's not absolute realism but just believability created through use of relevant real-world shapes and details.
Using 3D rendering to simulate light and set up photorealistic light/colour experiments. Also looking at other people's renders.
Material/surface studies - VRAY material samples that have been rendered out to realistically simulate different surfaces, from copper to alligator skin.
Using reference in character designs. Doing a real-world profession (scuba diver) using real world reference imagery. "These sort of exercises or jobs help you build your visual library for costuming and improve your ability to generate sci-fi and fantasy characters"
Taking fashion references from The Sartorialist fashion website and drawing them using gesture, angular block in and contour drawing.
Taking real-world visual information into our visual library for use in our fantasy or sci-fi drawings and designs.
Focusing studies on what we're not good at.
Lots of time wasted searching for references! So the 'Drawing Script' at lovecastle.org/draw is a great resource for giving you images and even setting time limits on how long the image is displayed for.
Note: lovecastle.org seems to no longer exist. This website offers a similar service: artists.pixelovely.com
Visual tangents or the intersection of edges with other edges. When an edge just touches another edge, the depth becomes confused. Tower of Pisa, etc.
We also don't want to draw attention to the presence of the picture plane (that is, to the fact that it's a picture). Keep away from objects intersecting with the corners of the composition.
Obviously use subjectively - if we want to draw attention to the point where two edges or a line and a corner are touching (either physically or despite depth) for symbolic or narrative purposes then we are allowed to do this.
A very design-focused video. Matt talks about how he revisited a painting and realised that the design could use some work. The rear overhang as seen in the above thumbnail, as well as the somewhat complicated face (in terms of general form) needed some work.
The back: He wasn't sure what the overhang at the back was accomplishing. He wanted a more continuous silhouette and wanted to de-emphasise the back of the vehicle.
The front: A bunch of different plates at different angles - it was noisy. A lot going on. Removed a lot of plates, simplified. More angular, sharper. Seems to be a way of making the face fit more conherently with the rest of the form to create a more coherent character. We see the front of vehicles as faces. Headlights, windows, whole front area is where we get a large sense of the vehicle's character from. Character intended here: angular and tough. So angular shapes.
Usefulness of fresh eyes later on - last couple of percent of work made it a really strong design, made possible by fresh eyes.
"You can know about technique and be a great renderer but still make bad design choices - and the end result is that it doesn't look as strong as it could".
Some more general notes on design processes and iterations:
From the Conceptart.org thread called 'Game Art - Advice from Someone in The Industry'
A member called Hiddnfox who had at the time of posting (in 2007) been in the video game industry as a UI artist for 3 months as an intern posted the following:
I have a couple spaceship thumbnails in my portfolio linked in my sig down below so you can get an idea. After that I pick between 3-6 of them I like the best and 'flesh them out' a bit. Meaning throw up some shadow/highlights and put some bulk into it. I show this to the designers and they converse about it a bit and then I work on 1-2 ideas based on their feedback.So essentially he
- did 20-25 thumbnails
- selected between 3-6 of them to flesh out a bit with some shadows, highlights and 'bulk' (detail?)
- showed the results to the designers
- worked on 1-2 ideas based on feedback
In the same thread, the thread-starter, a member called 'Seedling', discusses the idea of getting into other jobs within a company if getting a CA job is difficult. (2006)
He talks about jobs within the game industry such as low-poly modeller/texturer, tech artist, UI artist, effect/sprite artist, etc. There must be analogues within film as well - storyboarding, matte painting, etc.
From the Denver Comicon 2013 panel - 'So You Wanna Be A Concept Artist'
Defining:
Concept art - setting a tone
Production art - moving towards the product
However it seems from FZD videos and other resources that concept artists often do both.
Re: portfolios:
"Frantz added that artists shouldn't show anything you wouldn't want to be working on the rest of your life. He offered the anecdote of an artist who had a stylized illustration of a dog in his portfolio and ended up working on commercial art for pet food the rest of his life.This of course doesn't mean artists should limit what they share in portfolios. The works should strike a balance that shows diversity, but won't limit prospects. If you're best work is an illustration of a duck, diversify and improve your style in other areas, unless you want to be creating ads for hunting magazines the rest of your life. It's a highly competitive market, so it's easy to get pigeonholed."
A LOT of importance placed on fundamentals of illustration. Does this include design?
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