Abby Park: Update 2

With my last couple tries of an final piece for Abby Park. I felt I wasn't satisfied with the previous and felt I will not give up and give another go.


I wanted to keep in mind of making an 'concept' piece of Abby Park then just an reference study like my first one. So I was looking through my references and found this one.

I really like this picture, because of few distinct objects like the bridge, fence and those twin dragons on top of the bar. In one sense it does look a bit complicated with a mount of foliage, that can get confusing and difficult but I thought why not.

Initially I had a few ideas of a character I could place in and maybe change some of the scenery. Now I felt I could of done small studies of this image, to look at the foliage, value, colour, perspective, basically understanding those fundamentals in this image.







So here is my development stages
First I laid down some quick perspective guides. To which, I should've made sure they are much more correct. Then I started to block in colour and some parts of the reference I found interesting.

I painted in a character on separate layer because I knew that I would change his placement. So I resized him to the right area, trying to convey his a guard.

I have improved the guard armor a lot more, still struggled in for an good pose and proportion.

Second and third one, I added a lot more detail and improvements to the overall piece.

This is my final result. I added some atmosphere to the piece of blurring and blending some areas and having the focus funnel down the centre. Also I improved the vibrancy, contrast within the layers properties and the controls.  I really do admire the little change of the centre piece which is an Dragonball from Dragonball Z and the surreal type of buildings, I tried to portrayed. I thought I did a fair job on the foliage and everything else overall.

However this piece was a pain in the arse in one way because I understand that I should of done small studies which could've cut the cost of time, working it out in the 'now' of the piece and as well there still a lot of improvements that I could enhance this image, though I am semi-okay with how my character turned out, but I understand the change next time.

I had a good critique by Nizaam him saying I should of got a strong reference to convey the character and look at my lighting and shadow of certain parts that should of casts some and maybe lighten up the background more to convince distance.

So thanks

I feel I will attempt another Final but this time, keep it more close to the reference, I enjoyed this creative spin-off but feel that I got a lot of fundamentals to understand to pull one off with better execution.

Abbey Park : Update

Not only we had to do traditional studies, we had to also do some digital ones. The transition of traditional to digital is nice, because you expand yourself trying more possibilities, styles that endlessly problem solving.


"This space still need to be filled with Digital Thumbs"

When cycling through my references, found this image I did imagine a great 'setting in minds eye' and so I just went straight into it. 

Here are some of the prep stages. So I started it in grayscale first, trying to establish the correct perspective then the tonal values, lightning, reflection, that gradually build up.

I got to a good stage and I thought why not try add some colour into the equation. So I changed the mode from grayscale to colour and created a new layer 'overlay' For some reason the colours didn't really sit well with it all or looked that good. Maybe because I didn't spend a lot of time on it, but as I was applying it on, just didn't look right.

So yeah, I went back to grayscale and carried on the picture to where I felt it was enough. It was as good battle indeed that I painted in all the foliage as best as I could and putting in those details in the far distance, reflection of the water and when the lights hits and when the darks hits. I really like the painted character, that I felt I captured him well, he doesn't look tirely correct placed their, but I understood material properties like his leather jacket and fabric.

There are some really great parts on this, which I feel I might carry it on and revisit this and finish it as a final or just leave it as a semi-final study, because it really was a great challenge and study that I learned a lot about.

This was my second attempt of a final, I thought to try and make it into a little concept also, since be a bit more creative. I tried to add a character in the background and make the four characters all mysterious. Same process as before, started off in grayscale and worked my way to colour.

Here you could say the final version at the moment. I feel I need to revisit it and fix it a lot, because it was good potential and I like the overall concept of it. Just need to execute it better. I still learn't different ways of approaching this, with making the foliage with quick suggestive marks and different brush settles, this looks very like 'water colour' , which I quite find it interesting.

Destination Abbey Park : Week one

It's was great to finally get back into the course and get into our first project!
We went to Abbey Park, to look at not only perspective and the scenery but lightning and shadows. 
It was a shame that it wasn't a sunny day, but at least it wasn't a raining day, just grey skies, there were so much beautiful scenery and interesting objects to draw from, that you wanted to just capture them all!

I'd firstly go around the park as much as I can, exploring the areas and take a lot of photographs

 Here is just a few images selected at random, just to show what type of garden it is.

As for myself trying to draw? Well let's say it was pretty difficult. Getting in turned again in drawing, with the things I have learned last year, my first page of thumbs wasn't too great but a good practise to reflect and learn.

Not only Chris asked for the mediums such as pencil to draw from, he did want us to experiment with colour. I didn't have colours with me, apart from a felt-pen. However as you can see, I struggled not only with perspective, but rendering or understanding what mark-making to use to achieve the foliage and others that exist around.

I couldn't really concentrate properly and focus for a good while, getting used to the idea of 'thumbnails' again, got a bit annoying since, how quality or quantity was needed?

As you can see, I have improved a lot more, after sitting down and breaking out my old ways and training in the new ways, to figure out way to go about it all. Even though I did these in a bout 10 - 20 minutes, I felt a bit more quality thumb studies would be better for my own learning.

Here are more studies of Abbey park, getting better in my accuracy, speed and rendering.

I AAAAAAMM AN SUUUUPER SAIIIIYAN!

As I am a big fan of DragonBall Z

I thought it be about time, to try and paint one for DragonBall Z. Yeah I used to drew them as best as I could, when I was really young and to be fair, still quite proud of them. Always triggers your memory of the time and place of the drawing :)

Anyway, yeah I found a really awesome 'Cos-Player' of Goku the main hero. So I decided to use him as a good reference to try and do a realistic approach of the anime.

Check his stuff out :)

http://www.facebook.com/LivingIchigocosplays




I didn't do much 'saved states' as usual. Though manage to capture some part of the development. You know a bit of evidence and as well can be a good understanding for viewers to see 'how did he do it'.

Erm, yeah the back ground isn't something amazingly creative, but I guess it felt just really did fit the overall. Simple but effective :)

Here the final outcome. I really quite like the Super SaiYan Aura around him which contrasts with the dark background.

I was only using one type of brush, a dry brush, which was a bit hard at times, but made it give off a acrylic and cartoony look and then, I made his hair a lot longer then the reference, thought it suited him better and then  the obvious nice explosive power. I did experiment with lightning as you saw above  but didn't look that good, but cheap.

The guy face was a bit of a challenge, due to the expression. I believe I did alright with the time spent on it as I left it for a while.

Happy that I finally done a DragonBall Z Painting :3!

My summer works: Part 2

Sorry for the parts but I thought to space it out evenly and not having one massive blog.

I have never really attempted a 'softskin' painting and I really admire a lot of paintings that look in this style, so I thought to give it a go. So a portrait painting which was going to be a speedy practise, but I just can't leave things when it looks too awkward  Though just was a good exercise for my first  painting soft skin tone. I also thought to get a funny expression type, just appealed to me :3

I painted it in colour, and after I thought to save a grayscale version as well.

Soon after this, I decided to do another portrait, they were just so fun, but I found that I did it reasonably faster or maybe stuck at it more consistently. Though I was contemplating this as a small caricature, since I made the features a bit bigger and wider than they should be >.> Probably just saying this because I should have done it better ha! There are a few things I notice now, I can improve on, but happy to leave it as it is. 

I also restrained myself from not colour picking the reference which I had done about 70%. I found that you do really appreciate the colours a lot more and get a great understanding. 

I did leave this one for a while, thought I would quickly finish this up. At the time I decided to do something a bit different and get practise in doing feathers overall. Quite a challenging piece, still got so much more to improve, but happy with the pratice :)

Bum of the day practise, ha :d For a friend as a joke.

However my focus on this was to study the tonal value and tried getting a nice gradient in painting the skin and also understand the curves of the body and proportions. Do really like this :)

Here is something different I thought to try, more so off my own creative back. I was planning to go for a Cat/ Bat, though then it turned out to be one with just wings, I couldn't think much to do in the grayscale version so I changed it in the colour version and thought to go for  cool consciousness-spiritual image.
Though it was useful for my brother to mention about chimera's which ironically have some similarities.

My summer works: part one

Apart from the reassessment project to do, I really wanted to get some digital practise in.  I am really proud of myself, not only I thought I did some great pieces at my level for now, but really felt a better connection and improvement, upon everything. I should of worked along side, learning the fundamentals of art, but at the time didn't find it fun, I just was happily-happy to paint what I felt like doing, yet I know it was majority of 'reference studies' but it something that got me back into it all and as I said I learned a lot from it, :)

"Any drawing is better than none"

I firstly did this back in May, was excited to get the chance to play the Phantasy Star Online 2 Beta with my brother , so I thought to give a go, painting our avatars: SaiYaMan is the NEman- Force, is my  character and the CAst - Ranger is my twin brothers. I am pleased with this since it gave me a great understanding painting this character and figuring out giving that brush texture correctly, given it a dramatic difference. The background was a screen shot from the game, but manipulated to fit the character for a good backdrop, so no credit for me on that.

The finals

SaiYaMan

Yami-Ryu

At this point I did stop for a while for unknown reasons, though I wanted something to get myself motivated into practise again, so I did a portrait painting of my girlfriend. (Who is officially now Ex.Girlfriend) Nonetheless, really felt this was one of my best paintings I have done, especially portraits. I started off in greyscale first so the tonal values would be a lot easier to understand and paint.

I used a reference that I took on my phone at one point when she was cat-napping, though due to my camera quality the reference was low, however still didn't stop me, trying to do my best!

After I completed the painting in greyscale. I converted it to colour. Added an Overlay layer and then painted in the colour. Keeping it close as I can to the reference. What I thought was a good decision is when I added an effect on a layer that gave it a grainy kind of quality, which gave it a bit of vintage.

Well I am unsure if she was pleased with it, we broke up in that week, guess it was a nice last present lol.

I did this little mess about, from my imagination. It has alright design but wasn't executed properly, however, I still enjoyed what I did and learnt from this,  I guess this looks a bit graphical design?

I thought to attempt a master study. From artist Carolus Druan. That I don't really know of to be fair, but came across him and I like this painting of his and thought to attempt it.

I tried to get  some sort of traditional painting sense. Learnt a lot from this piece when painting, understanding the values, light, darks and seeing the shapes that build up something when you step away.

Year Two, semester one Task 13: Reflection on year one, and ambition for year two

It's good to be back in Leicester on it's grounds and feeling this new burst of excitement and energy.

A brief reflection of my first year...

So grateful for such a challenging course, because I know it will deliver such potential growth within, improve those strengths and eliminate those weaknesses that I such need. It was pretty hard to adjust to everything. Not using my personal life or issues back at home as such as an excuse, I take full responsibility of my errors and ways but my main problem I 'did' lack in...I have never been a big 'studier' or keeping at something and furthering it on, just generally too layback and always left things right at the last milli second.

On a positive side, I really felt I did very well within what I have succeeded in  and achieved this year. Adjusting to it all, getting confidence and improvements with not only my Art passion but the whole university experience. I am an introversion type of guy, modest and humble, generally enjoy my own comfort and grounds, can not always express myself in the best or correct way, but it's been fantastic to meet such brilliant people in all years and the lectures that everything and everyone is so much inspiring, caring, helpful and focus on achieving those heights, that I am very grateful to be here at this present time and to have an fantastic learning support teachers, always willing to give guidance and wisdom.

Thank you all so far :)

On to the summer, you could say it started quite poorly but eventually it ended very happily :3!
You aer not here to see any dwelling, moaning or whatever nor I am here to do so but overall from certain events that happened you could say in one perspective the summer wasn't good. However I understand it was necessary for me to break free from my past self. That fantastic opportunities arose , which really shifted my consciousness to new plateaus and back to my soul path.

I did get one surprise, in a way I did have an expecting thought and feeling, I just knew that I had not done well in the first year!
 I was right, my results seemed a bit unfair and bizarre because I did really put effort into my work, best I could, though I guess it wasn't a good enough standard for some reason. On reflection  I do agree in many ways, as reworking the project enabled me to see why I might get a low grade even though at the time it really didn't look that bad to fail. Nevermind though, because there was a 1 continue for me to use and so I did.

There was an Game Production Reassessment Project to do, whichI was required to model and texture a 'Tree House'; which was to be a wooden structure set amongst the branches of a tree with the structure set within a small scene; onto a patch of ground with plants and foliage etc.

I didn't get bitter or down over my results no way, as I said, I take full responsibility of my self and actions and not waste energy passing the blame. I used the energy to get excited on the fact, this project covered all of the essentials that covered most of the projects this year, an fantastic opportunity to progress,  my  capacity of  understanding and using 3D Max Studios. Which I so dear know I needed the practise!

So here is what I had achieved

It was a lot of aches and pains, but I recovered from them and feel well more equipped and stronger on all levels :3 So I received my results and I passed and progressed to the second year ^_^!

Within the timeframe of the summer period to now, besides the reassessment project, it didn't stop carrying on learning and improving my artistic skills in 2D formula. I did a good bunch of digital paintings, which I was very pleased with the results of each and every one. Although I still have a lot to learn and to improve on  it was rewarding to see how much  better I have become.

From reflection of my first year I feel I have gained a greater commitment because I now understand more and have improved my skills of drawing fundamentals which I believe are the most important element for my course. Getting into using the modelling program has been very good and the realisation that using the blog is a good way to communicate my interests and work with others.

For me to improve on all this Year 2  sees me almost starting afresh. I am trying to break old habits which have seen me completing the work but not necessarily to the potential I know I have. Year 2 sees a more motivated and self directed James. I am hoping hat the second year will continue to stimulate me into becoming more 'serious' in reaching my goals and giving me the skills that will enable me to progess into a career of my choice as well as develop me personally on all Trinity levels!

By the end of the second year I hope to have achieved

• good time management skills
• commitment to extend my practice and learning
• beginning to communicate my work to others through the development of a portfolio
• achieve new techniques and knowledge in use of software, modelling, drawing and painting