Shelly Page Brief: Beauty and the Beast: Belle Re-Designs

I wasn't overly happy with the Sci-fi design I did of Belle earlier.  The problem I had was, if you looked at the design, you wouldn't instantly make a link between the character of Belle and my painting.  Not without being TOLD the back story, which isn't good.  So I'm going to approach it in a more traditional fashion and recreate the famous gold ball-room dress that will, hopefully, create a more obvious connection.

So here's some quick designs...

Ron Ashtiani Brief: Vehicle Design: Final Design

Ron Ashtiani Brief: Vehicle Design: Painting Development

Shelly Page Brief: Beauty and the Beast: Belle Final Design?...maybe not...

I worked up the design of Belle to a finishing point, but by the time I finished, it didn't feel...right.  Although I like my design, I don't think it's suitable for the character of Belle.  Although a wanted to create a 'moodier' character, I think I've lost the sense of innocence that comes with her.

I think I'm going to start again!

Shelly Page Brief: Beauty and the Beast: Belle Designs

After digging through some research, I began working out some black and white sketches...

Choosing a design I liked, I moved forward into further painting developments...

I developed the painting to a point where it was nearly finished.  This gave me an opportunity to experiment with the UV lighting idea I had...

Shelly Page Brief: Beauty and the Beast: Research

I wanted to take a break from the Vehicle Design brief and started working on something different.  Shelly Page set an additional brief based around character design.  From a list of characters she provided (including the likes of Sherlock Holmes, Helen of Troy and Hades) we had to redesign this character in a modern day/futuristic or even alien world setting.  Going into this brief, I already had an item of some of the things I was wanting to achieve with my character designs, so I chose Beauty and the Beast.

So, first things first, the research...

The most obvious resource for this was the Walt Disney film.  However I decided to dig into the background of the original fairy tale and tried to ignore its existence.  From the story, there's no defining description of the 'Beast'.  Original drawings that accompanied the story many years ago have different takes of the design, including large boars to goblin/devil designs.  It was mainly from the 1930's - late 1990's where the more Werewolf designs started taking place.  But even now, that's beginning change as interpretations of classic 'monsters' are being reinvented.  Unfortunately I think this might be due to the Twilight phenomenon.  The 'Beastly' image is a good example of this.  So I started thinking outside the box a little, and thought of other classic relationships between a female lead and a 'creature'.  So I looked at films like An American Werewolf in London and even, to an extent, Alien and Alien3.  A idea started forming of what I was wanting to achieve with this relationship.

I wanted to set my characters in the future, so I started looking at 'modern' fashions designs for male and females...

I also stated having another idea I wanted to experiment with.  I want the Beast to look human for the most part.  However, in different lighting (mainly ultra violet) I want his appearance to become more ghastly.  So I did some research and the colour difference wit UV lighting too.

Let's start cracking out some designs!

Ron Ashtiani Brief: Vehicle Design: Colour Rough

To try and help establish a sense of mood for my vehicle, I did a quick colour pass.

Ron Ashtiani Brief: Vehicle Design: Re-design

After a bit pick of feedback, I added some tweaks to my design.  The main issue was the was the body being too low to the ground as well adding additional wheel space.  I've also gone through and made some of the surface edges more hard edged (rather than ultra smooth) to mimic a more militaristic style.  I'm starting to feel more comfortable with this design.

Happy days!

Ron Ashtiani Brief: Vehicle Design: Research and Thumbnails

We've given the brief by Ron Ashtiani to design a vehicle based around his futuristic 'Neo-Racer' brief.  The brief asked a for car design that has been created by a Military based company.  The car needs to be fast and aerodynamic, yet maintain a military feel.  Other aspects of the vehicle design  also include lethal weapons, it can fly for a few seconds at a time ("...falling, with style...") and must have a minimum of three wheels (no motorbikes here).

Fair game.

Vehicle design isn't necessarily my thing, so I was looking forward to the challenge.  But first things first.  The research...

Though military in it's origins, this is still a racing vehicle.  So I looked at chunkier sports cars mainly.  Nothing too smooth or ultra-modern.  I also had a look at some military vehicles, the Tumbler from The Dark Knight trilogy as well as some concept art from Iron Man.  Why Iron Man??  I want my vehicle design to store and hide away it's weapons in a practical manner, the same way Iron Man does with his suit.  Not all of his toys are on display all at the same time.  So I wanted to see how the intricate panels on the suit work and see if I can transfer this to my car.

Next was my initial thumbnail designs...

My first pass of designs consisted of drawing quick and fats by hand.  This didn't last long as it ended up in an exercise of extreme irritation.  So I moved over to digital.  I began with black and white paintings (how I normally begin painting characters and environments) but found myself in trouble as my loose style wasn't really working for the vehicle.  I was concentrating on the tones rather than the actual DESIGN.  So, I started again in digital, but purely sketching, which turned out quite useful.  Early in my designs I couldn't help but be influenced by the Tumbler from The Dark Knight.  It's such a unique design, I knew I had to avoid this like the plague as my design would only turn out as a "Tumbler rip-off".

Once I pinned down a couple of designs, I moved back to black and white painting to add some weight to my design...

I focused mainly on one of my thumbnails sketches and started fleshing it out further.  I was mainly to work out the balance between sports car and military vehicle, whilst keeping in futuristic elements such as neon lighting.  Again, I was trying to move away from links to the Tumbler, but due to the chunky paneling, I also realised this design could easily start looking like the Delorean from Back to the Future.  Another element I want to avoid.  However, between designs 3 and 4, I think I'm starting to find a balance.

Onwards...