Saturday 22 March 2014
Wednesday 12 March 2014
Jack Couvela Brief: Assassin's Creed: Character Sketches
Here are some of the early sketches I did for my Assassin character.
Selected design.
I tried to think about my character's costume in a practical manner. I wanted a lot of his armour and weapons to be concealed for the most part, so I designed a step by of how his costume layers up (more for my own sake, than anything else) Firstly, just normal clothing. Second, protective armour plus weapons. Third, how the coat conceals this. And finally, fourth, how he looks in 'Assassin' mode.
Similar to how Edward moves in AC: Black Flag, I wanted my character to have his hood down when the player is just walking around, exploring etc. But he put's the hood on when moving in restricted areas, or during main missions.
Selected design.
I tried to think about my character's costume in a practical manner. I wanted a lot of his armour and weapons to be concealed for the most part, so I designed a step by of how his costume layers up (more for my own sake, than anything else) Firstly, just normal clothing. Second, protective armour plus weapons. Third, how the coat conceals this. And finally, fourth, how he looks in 'Assassin' mode.
Similar to how Edward moves in AC: Black Flag, I wanted my character to have his hood down when the player is just walking around, exploring etc. But he put's the hood on when moving in restricted areas, or during main missions.
Jack Couvela Brief: Assassin's Creed: Character Research
Jack Couvela, from Ubisoft Reflections, has set a brief in which we need to design a new setting for Assassin's Creed. The design can placed in any time period we like, and we need to design a character, a weapon/prop and a building designed around the climbing/free-running aspects of the game.
Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet!!!
I'm a big fan of the Creed games, so this should be fun....hopefully. For a couple of years now, I've been wishing they'd focus a game based in Victorian London. I think the design of the city, the narrow streets and tall buildings will be ideal for the main character to scramble around. The games are also synonymous with history, visiting landmarks, tweaking bits here and there for story purposes (which I love) and London is obviously embedded with a deep, rich history. What if our Assassin was framed for the Jack the Ripper murders? What if he has to break into Buckingham Palace or Parliament? Or scale to the top of Big Ben? To me, it's ideal.
So, I decided to focus on the character first. I wanted to create a great sense of believability with my character's costume. You have to be able to look at him and instinctively know what time period he's from. So, pulling in form lots of sources, I had a wealthy amount of reference material handy...
...a pretty intense amount of research if I'm honest. One thing I was concerned about though was the fact that Victorian London people wore a lot of dark clothing. And the famous white hood of Assassin's Creed would stand out. HOWEVER, I remembered that the character Ezio wore a black costumer (in Revelations, I think??) and it just looks...cooler. So, I'm going to maintain a similar style in my character.
Next up, sketches!
Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet!!!
I'm a big fan of the Creed games, so this should be fun....hopefully. For a couple of years now, I've been wishing they'd focus a game based in Victorian London. I think the design of the city, the narrow streets and tall buildings will be ideal for the main character to scramble around. The games are also synonymous with history, visiting landmarks, tweaking bits here and there for story purposes (which I love) and London is obviously embedded with a deep, rich history. What if our Assassin was framed for the Jack the Ripper murders? What if he has to break into Buckingham Palace or Parliament? Or scale to the top of Big Ben? To me, it's ideal.
So, I decided to focus on the character first. I wanted to create a great sense of believability with my character's costume. You have to be able to look at him and instinctively know what time period he's from. So, pulling in form lots of sources, I had a wealthy amount of reference material handy...
...a pretty intense amount of research if I'm honest. One thing I was concerned about though was the fact that Victorian London people wore a lot of dark clothing. And the famous white hood of Assassin's Creed would stand out. HOWEVER, I remembered that the character Ezio wore a black costumer (in Revelations, I think??) and it just looks...cooler. So, I'm going to maintain a similar style in my character.
Next up, sketches!
Friday 7 March 2014
Shelly Page Brief: Boudica: Final Pieces
I wanted to create two Final Pieces for Boudica. The first one being a clean cut piece of design, something useful as if I were passing it over to a 3D modeler or designer. Another one being a more 'concept' piece that places the character within her environment to give a bit of context about the world she lives in.
Enjoy.
Enjoy.
Shelly Page Brief: Boudica: Development
So, I began my process with doing some fast grey-scale sketches. I had a good idea of what I was wanting to achieve, so this went very quickly.
After selecting my design, I moved quickly into a painting pass. I like to keep up a sense of pace and momentum with the early stages of an image. Plus lots of coffee helps...
As I was wanting to keep this quite a 'real' image, I used a heavy use of photo reference and textures. In hindsight, it was too much. It was bogging down my design and making adjustments difficult. Which is good, as it's useful to learn from mistakes.
So, fueled by another gallon of coffee, I broke away from this bad habit...
...and with the use of textured brushes, began creating a character that I felt belonged to ME rather than relying on the photo reference. At this point, the lethal dose of caffeine began to wear off, which was good as I needed to calm down and focus on the smaller intricate details that make the image look more believable.
After selecting my design, I moved quickly into a painting pass. I like to keep up a sense of pace and momentum with the early stages of an image. Plus lots of coffee helps...
As I was wanting to keep this quite a 'real' image, I used a heavy use of photo reference and textures. In hindsight, it was too much. It was bogging down my design and making adjustments difficult. Which is good, as it's useful to learn from mistakes.
So, fueled by another gallon of coffee, I broke away from this bad habit...
...and with the use of textured brushes, began creating a character that I felt belonged to ME rather than relying on the photo reference. At this point, the lethal dose of caffeine began to wear off, which was good as I needed to calm down and focus on the smaller intricate details that make the image look more believable.
Thursday 6 March 2014
Shelly Page Brief: Boudica: Research
After flicking through the list of names on the brief again, I wasn't entirely sure who Boudica was. So I did some digging and thought that this could be an interesting character to update. My idea is to bring her forward place her in an 'adult fantasy' genre like Game of Thrones, of which I think is an ideal setting, So I started doing some research and gathering reference materials (see below). I want to her have a tribal feel but, since she started an uprising, I thought it would make sense she picks up pieces of armour/equipment here and there from slain enemies. Therefore making here better equipped and a stronger warrior. So there would be a mish-mash of armour.
One thing that's been bugging me for a while now is how female warriors are depicted in games and concept art. You can see in some of the references I have below, that a lot of these females don't wear very much clothing............why?
According to my research, Boudica was part of a Celtic tribe in who died roughly in 60-61 AD. A Celtic Tribe in Britain. It would have been bloody freezing!! Also, what good is a warrior/fighter if over half of their body is exposed flesh with zero armour??
No no no. My version of Boudica is going to practical. She's going to be warm and protected. This is something I feel I HAVE to have in my design.
One thing that's been bugging me for a while now is how female warriors are depicted in games and concept art. You can see in some of the references I have below, that a lot of these females don't wear very much clothing............why?
According to my research, Boudica was part of a Celtic tribe in who died roughly in 60-61 AD. A Celtic Tribe in Britain. It would have been bloody freezing!! Also, what good is a warrior/fighter if over half of their body is exposed flesh with zero armour??
No no no. My version of Boudica is going to practical. She's going to be warm and protected. This is something I feel I HAVE to have in my design.
Shelly Page Brief: Beauty and the Beast ABANDONED
So I settled on a design of Belle that I like and began painting the Final design. However, I became increasing uninterested in the design. It felt as though all I had achieved was create a contemporary version of the famous gold dress Belle wore in the Disney film.
I hadn't created a 'new' take on the character. Merely updated her costume. If I was bored painting her, then I imagine others would be bored looking at her.
Belle wasn't working for me anymore, so I've abandoned 'Beauty and the Beast' and decided to choose a new character from the list. Below is some of the painting development of Belle.
I hadn't created a 'new' take on the character. Merely updated her costume. If I was bored painting her, then I imagine others would be bored looking at her.
Belle wasn't working for me anymore, so I've abandoned 'Beauty and the Beast' and decided to choose a new character from the list. Below is some of the painting development of Belle.
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