Visit to the Ottobar

 For my semester project, I'd decided do design merchandise to accompany the release of a new EP by the band, Tides of Man. This would consist of album packaging, a t-shirt, and a tour poster. With the album cover fully designed, I needed ideas for the tour poster. I decided to go down to the Ottobar, a small club in Baltimore. There, the walls are covered in hundreds of different posters from various bands, including The White Stripes and Protest the Hero. After taking pictures, I was able to study them for various layout ideas, including band name positioning and where to list the dates and venues. It helped me decide, too, that I needed to leave some space on the poster for other supporting bands to be listed. Plus being in a space with live music helped re-inspire my work on the project.

wednesday trip to kinko's (fedex)

On Wednesday I took the light rail to downtown to talk to someone about recreating a calendar, and how much all that was going to cost. First of all I think this is the cutest building I've seen in Baltimore yet, and it seemed unfortunate that it had to house a Kinkos. Anyway, my project is to create a calendar and I chose a bubble tea theme since that is one of the foods I crave most. Also bubble tea seems to be getting more and more popular, and I think it would be neat to create some collateral for a make-believe up-and-coming tea shop. I have a calendar, and I love the petiteness of it, as well as its style. It has a retro/old fashioned feel, and although bubble tea is generally associated with hip/modern Asian-ness, I feel that an American retro theme might be a refreshing change of pace. Below are images of the Kinkos, calendar, and an image I found online of the style I want to strive for. During my search I also found an existing bubble tea poster which I really liked. The quote that I received seemed a bit high -- at first she said $37, but that includes some things I didn't need: double sided color copies, and paper cutting. It's annoying that they would charge me for cutting paper. I think I will go to the MICA print shop; maybe their prices will be more competitive. Also I think I can get the cost down to about $20, which isn't bad for a one-off project.

Inspiration Day

Saturday (rather than Wednesday) I took a trip to Atomic Books for my inspiration day. I checked out the gross comics, even bought one by R. Crumb (and a magazine about Ed Roth) for some inspiring disgusting imagery. (Evidence of my adventure below.) Basically, I spent my Saturday just viewing some stuff that came from artists before who did some of the original "grotesque close up art."

However, on Wednesday, on the actual inspiration day, I did some thumb nailing of scenes from the movie Amelie which I wanted to make grotesque. (See below) I scanned them and from the images scanned, I began doing some rendering, fleshing, and color testing. I reviewed some of the art from Saturday and some scenes in cartoons (Ren and Stimpy, Spongebob) that are known for their use of unsettling close-ups, which are the main point of my project. Also attached at the bottom is one of the pieces that I am furthest along on, still have to finish the body, the puddle he'll be laying in, the tears, and a bit of an implied environment.

Inspiration Day

Hello--since I've already done my research at the library, I decided to use this day to begin the hardest piece in my series.  For this piece, I wanted to base the colors and composition off of Disney fairytale movie stills, and went through movie stills of sleeping beauty to find inspiration.
First, I started with a pencil sketch.  This took me longer than I expected, and I was having a lot of problems with the paper.  I decided to sketch digitally, and chose to stick to the digital sketch which I've uploaded.

Then, I colored it--and hated it.  I redid the colors, began rendering, and this is where I am as of today.
I think it's still in the "ugly phase," but I like what I've laid out.  The stairs are obviously a wreck but it's salvageable (i think.)  I think its manageable and will have a good result.

Also, I organized the pages of my book and decided to set my goal at two more pieces--a tiny spot illustration, and an acrylic painting.  I also have two ink characiatures that I hope to finish.

Inspiration Day at the Walters

For my inspiration day I went to the Walter's museum. For my semester long project I'm putting together 3 paper-cut out scenes that involve animals, people, and an environment for them to live in, so I focused everything I saw for inspiration. I took several pictures of scenes with animals and humans in them to see how they put together foreground - middle ground - and background. I also was paying particular attention to the shapes of the figures; I want to be able to convey simple shapes in my scenes.

My girl character is also wearing masks in each of the scenes so I took a lot of pictures in the room of wonders, the skeleton structures made for good inspiration:

Since many of the scenes are carving into the paper, and taking away from it, I looked at a lot of the ceramics to see how they created depth from a flat plane:

And finally I took tons of pictures of paintings with several panels, since I'm trying to tell a story through my three panels without actually having text. 

The trip to the Walters was a lot more helpful than I thought it would be! Originally I went to look at how the renaissance paintings used depth and animals in their compositions, since I'm trying to put together a composition in a tiny area - but as I went through the entire museum I noticed the different styles and techniques of different artists. It helped because I'm creating different moods in my panels, and by seeing the different styles I was able to observe how one particular style created a different mood. Also, I was really happy to see so many paintings that were illustrative stories through several panels. I think I have about 40 pictures and I'm going through to see what stays the same in which panels and why and how the artist visually tells the story through just pictures. The art of Asia was also helpful because many of the sculptures included animals made purely out of simple shapes - which is what I need to do to make my panels. Overall the trip was enlightening and successful, I was kind of stuck as to how I was going to create visual depth from paper, but now I'm feeling more confident. Also, seeing the stories from panel to panel is helpful to analyze what I need to do to make my story evident. 

Below I've attached a picture of a grumpy security guard who was being harassed by several high school students that I felt were super obnoxious. Proof of me going to the Walters~ 

Inspiration Day

John Kim and I went to visit Zach Montoya, a senior illustration major. We talked to Zach about character and environment design and got his feedback on a few of our pieces. Zach also gave us an hour tutorial on how he approaches creating his own environment. He created a quick futuristic city-scape (pictured below) and talked about how he was creating it and what tools he was using.

Zach uses photo-manipulation in the beginning stages of his concept pieces to get general shape and value down, and then proceeds to manipulate the images to suit his own interests and needs. The above image started as a cityscape image and then he warped it multiple times and created overlaying copies of it at different angles to create an abstract image. He then pinpointed parts of the picture that he liked and worked more into them with varying tools. The above image is a completely different composition than the starting photo. I found it amazing how quickly and efficiently he was able to create a readable image. The images below give a genreal idea of his process:

I tried using Zach's technique to create my own image, but found it incredibly difficult. I think I will try using Zach's technique a few more times before, but I can't see myself using it very much in the future. It doesn't seem to be in my comfort zone.

This is Zach's Blog: http://zachmontoya.blogspot.com/  He mainly does editorial and book cover pieces now. Here is an example of his work:

I also worked on a few rough clothing sketches on a character model that I have been working on. I plan on changing the character's body type; however, I am pleased with the face I created.

The color schemes of the clothing are not very good right now, and the clothing designs are very rough. I'm going to get some feedback from my friends that are developing the game and see what they think.

4-11-2012

Today I used the day to visit a senior illustration major, Zach Montoya. He showed his work process to us and what he does on photoshop for doing landscapes. Zach did a demo of how he would approach a landscape and it was very helpful. Seeing what he did for each layer in Photoshop gave me a better understanding of how some art pieces in general in photoshop should be treated with. He demonstrated how to make presets for custom made brushes and how it creates texture to some of the environments he creates within his pieces. He showed us some short cuts in photoshop that would later benefit digital illustrators when they are in deadlines for concept art. I'm inspired now after looking at his work and from his work process on photoshop because before I didn't know how to approach the semester project. Zach advised that instead of creating just concept art for the characters, the environment are just as important if not more essential to the design of any game, book or story. So instead of creating just character designs of the main characters within my game, I'll include the environment and scenes within it also. I really want to work traditionally and finish it with photoshop because when looking at the works that I have created in the past up until now my pieces do not seem as appealing as I wished them to be. I haven't worked with acrylic for a very long time and I might try experimenting with it to get some of the textures Zach showed Dan and I. To see the process in Zach made while creating the environment that is produced below look at Dan's response.