It was a dark and stormy Knight...

Today was the first time using a Wacom tablet properly and I can see why you would pay the extra cost because it feels like you're using a real pencil and paper. I have a cheaper make of tablet at home (TRUST), which I haven't used much yet but will be now. anyway here are the test paintings I've done today.

I know it looks like cartoony rain but I was just trying to draw clouds and ended up rushing towards the end.







For my Space essay I am going to analyze the production design of the film 'The Dark Knight'. Perhaps not the best choice of film in terms of running time (245 Mins) but should have plenty to talk about. I will probably focus on a few scenes. Plus would it be good to take screen shots from the film and analyze them in greater detail? I presume that I am supposed to be looking at the composition of the film. (they way it feels, mood, atmosphere etc..)

Any feedback would be much appreciated. At least to tell me if I'm on the right lines or not as the case may be.

Theory essay mostly and life drawing

Today I was mostly working on the theory essay on perception. I've basicly done an introduction, going over the basic things.

I did also start to do some more quick sketches (just focusing on the shapes rather than composition) but didn't get very far.





Here is the life drawing. I think that these are some of the better drawings, certainly better than last weeks anyway.

Sketches and Scribbles

Today I've been reading closely, the two books I've been given (The Fall of the House of Usher and The Pit and the Pendulum), and have highlighted all the important bits of description which will help to build a picture in my mind of what to create.
From that I've also been doing a few rough sketches while writing a list of words from what I've highlighted.
I have also found other reference images off the internet too, as well as a book with images of Gothic style architecture. These images help in imagining an atmosphere.










I preferred metropolis to the last film. I especially liked the beginning with all the machinery working. it was weird seeing people dressed in old fashioned styles in a sci fi film though. The city shots were good except for the old aeroplanes which looked quite silly.

Life drawing in next post. (my phone ran out of power so I couldn't use the camera)

Unit Two: Space

*Update to paragraph 1. All the sets were leaning over, flat with details drawn on. it looked like a stage show. Its wasn't realistic but very abstract. It felt like something from Alice in Wonderland.



Today I watched the film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari.
To be honest I got lost and didn't understand what was going on.
*Not much else to say about it.

The two books I've got for the new project are The Fall of the House of Usher and The Pit and the Pendulum. I have started to read the latter of the two as it is slightly shorter. The last time I attempted a digital concept painting it came out so terrible, i cant imagine what its going to be like this time. After reading the story's I should know where to go with the creative side of the project. As for the essay, I will definitely be looking at a film rather than a game although I haven't chosen what one yet.

I do hope that i can improve my Photoshop painting skills over the next four weeks.

Final Self Portrait and Life Drawing

Here is my final self portrait. It has taken a long time to get to the state it is in now and I'm happy to say that it is finished. Photoshop isn't my strongest point as I only know the basics, but I think it has come out reasonable. The only thing I don't like is the fact that I don't feel I've spent enough time on the final portrait.




Here are the life drawings from Tuesday. I admit that I wasn't in the mood for drawing on Tuesday, which would explain why some of the drawings were drawn rather sloppily.

Nearing the end

Here are the latest Maya tasks

These are the different shaders created

Clay




Red Plastic




Glass




Silver




Gold




Chrome




Glow (with geometry)




Glow2 (Without Geometry)





Here is the Glass and Bottle Scene, with the glass using a Sampler Info node to control reflections. I stupidly forgot to switch refractions on, on the glass shader the first time I rendered, but that was easily fixed.




Here are the Poker Chips. Texturing was straight forward.




Here is the Detectives Desk Scene. Complete with ambient occlusion and depth of field. I was surprised at how quick ambient occlusion took to render. Usually it’s the slowest render pass.




Here is my last test portrait. I realized that folding the images around the cubes was difficult to get to look right. So I’m just overlaying the images onto the cubes. My final portrait won’t be blue either.

I have finally finished the essay on portraiture. This I found difficult. Particularly starting, but its done and out the way.

The Start of a Busy Week!

I've done some sketching of myself and also another variation on what I want my final portrait to look like.

So here are the rough sketches of me. one looking good and one looking evil. (not intentional)





this third sketch is probably how I want my final piece to look like. Obviously I haven't thought much about colour and background yet.



I do have some simple Photoshop examples. Only done roughly with some photos.





Going back to the third sketch, it bears some resemblance to cubism style paintings. Just a few examples I found in a book entitled 'The Cubist Epoch' by Douglas Cooper. Both have very cubic buildings.

Robert Delaunay
'The City Seen From an Open Window'
1911



Fernand leger
'Houses Among Trees'
1914



The rest of this week is going to be really busy. I've got an almost finished essay and just need to really concentrate on getting a final portrait together.

The work of the past few days

I’ve come up with some more ideas for my portrait. Particularly experimenting with towers in different ways. I have looked at two books to do with architecture. Sky high: Vertical Architecture by Chris Abel and the Seventy Architectural wonders of our world edited by Neil Parkyn. From this I did some very simple sketching and from that created some more images in Photoshop.

These were some initial rough sketches from which Ive gone into Photoshop and generated some more alternate ways of using the towers idea. (for those who have only just started following... more information on this previous post.)












Here are Tuesdays life drawings. (I apologise for the terrible image quality)
The first, I thought came out well and i didn't have any spare time at the end either. I spent a lot of time getting the left arm right. (if that makes sense)




The second picture was much more difficult as there were less reference points. virtually the whole back was redrawn several times, but i think i rescued it in the end.




The last drawing was a quick 5 minute drawing. I think it came out reasonable.



This blog update has taken what seems like forever to do (gathering all the images / copying converting / down sizing for the internet), so i haven't gone in to as much detail is i would normally have on writing.

I think i need to focus on coming up with other completely different ideas.

Films and Documentaries

The Elephant man

I thought it was a good film. I didn't actually realize that at the end he died. so knowing that, i think it was a happy ending as he finished his life happy. It did have some sad moments, like when he was treated like a circus animal. i was actually very happy when he said near the end that he was not an animal but was a human with feelings just like everyone else. I thought the makeup was fantastic. particularly well in black and white. I think colour would have made it less realistic. The fakeness would show more. Using black and white also added a spooky atmosphere. The film shows that people judge other people initially by their faces. In the case of the elephant man, they were so shocked at the way he looked that they don't get a chance to know him.

The Face Transplant Documentary

The documentary was about a woman that had here face ripped of by her dog. She has another persons dead face transplanted on to her (whats left of) face.
I don't think that it is wrong to have a face transplant because its not going to look exactly like the dead persons face and if someone wants to donate then thats fine. This is a before/after picture. the new face is very similar to the original as it has molded to the shape of the bone structure.

Maya Tutorials - Lighting and Animation

Here are the latest outcomes following the six tutorials given.

The first four tutorials are lighting/Rendering tasks. None of this was modeled by me and I was following the tutorials on lighting word for word. So I am only following instructions.

The first two are examples of 1 point lighting.






This is an example of 2 point lighting.




This is an example of 3 point lighting.




The next set of images are the same scene but rendered with different styles of lighting.

Early Morning




Mid Day




Night Time




Horror Style




Sci Fi Style




Fire Lighting





The last two tutorials were on basic animation.

The first video is of a Rocket flying past the moon.

Video here

This tutorial was the quickest to do. All the hard work had been done already. all that was needed was to attach the rocket to a motion path. (a curve was provided). And there was just a few bits to tweek but that was it.


This is of a Toy Robot Walking, complete with arm and head movements etc.

Video Here

This took slightly longer to animate but was simple still. The bit at the end was just an added extra by me and also the flashing lights too. It took ages to render. (trust me to max out the settings on the shadows for the sake of an eight second animation.)

These tutorials took the best part of an entire day to complete, Thinking that i would wiz through these. Whereas before i was just modeling what we had be asked to model and wasn't following the instructions word for word, it actually took longer this time because I was reading the tutorials bit by bit.