Made some minor adjustments on the first page image, mostly her open eye. One the second page I wrote a brief introduction and fixed her head (hair, face, and proportions). Two more pages for Red, hopefully the other 50 something pages won’t take as long as these two did. :)
-Jesse
“The key to success is to keep growing in all areas of life – mental, emotional, spiritual, as well as physical.” –Julius Erving
Added three different under painting layer for their hair, clothes, and skin. I also cleaned up some sketch lines and added another shadow layer set to multiple.
I have to turn this in tonight, so there’s still some work to be done before then.
-Jesse
“Don’t despair tragedies or misgivings for they are forging a path for you.” -Ciara Ledesma
So, I added the freckles I forgot (again) and increased the shadows to my splash image, also adding highlights to her hair. Pretty happy with it, but I think I’m going to go back and edit her face a little, I really want her to look as young as she is suppose to be, maybe it’s the lines under her eyes or the dark ink outlines, but she seems older than 17 years old. :(
I thought I fixed the hair on the full body image on the right, but that doesn’t look right.
Also, been slacking on my character description. I’m not really sure what I’m suppose to put in there, so I’m going to have to track down some concept art books and see what type of info is standard.
All and all this week started off a bit slower than I’d liked, but now that I’m over the hump (and finished with my videography project) I anticipate a momentum shift.
-Jesse
“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” -Maria Robinson
Yesterday, I refined some of the characters and began adding shadows to the characters through a new layer set to Multiply and a brush with 100% Opacity and a 40% grey color.
I’m not sure what exactly I’ll be doing with the shelf like structures off to the left side, I initially had a grocery store in mind, but I suppose if people can do stretches on the ceiling, I don’t have to necessarily limit myself to anything in particular. Or more specifically, limit myself to things that reside within reality.
I have to resist the urge to add too many more people, although I do really want to put another person (three or four) on the ceiling. But I do need to keep in mind that I have to turn this in (complete) on Friday.
-Jesse
“In a world of instant gratification, patience is dying and her sister impatience has taken center stage” -D. Ridgley
I was assigned two projects this week in my Computer Art class. One was an Abstract Art project and the other is a Representational Art project. This is my initial sketches for my representational art project.
I’ve spent way more hours than I care to admit, working on being able to draw the basics of the human form without reference. Several years ago with consistent practice I felt I was “almost there,” and has started focusing my efforts on specific areas like hands, feet, and the head. Really learning details. But now I’m back in the “how do legs work again” phase. The upper body comes a bit easier, but that lower body is going to take some concentrated efforts.
I enjoy doing these types of bizare public gatherings. They draw inspiration from my love of Norman Rockwell and Where’s Waldo.
This one leans more to the side of Where’s Waldo, but if you ever want to get a better grasp on anatomy, I’d suggest just playing around with things like this. It’s fun and extremely beneficial, like a concentrated training session, jam packing several dozen anatomy sketches all into one.
This one I did in 2006-07 and at the time I didn’t have that amazing perspective brush, so I just winged the scaling of everything and everyone, but this is less about getting everything to look exactly like life and more about leveling up the skill set.
Ink and Watercolor project I did in my first semester in my Two Dimensional Design class. This one was about moving the viewers eye around the artwork, but it had a similar start, I just added this silly, social commentary element that sometimes shows up in my work.
That’s kinda the vibe I’m going with in the sketch for my Representational Art project.
-Jesse
“Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.” –Benjamin Franklin
Added colors and shadows (40% grey on a multiply layer). I’m a big fan of the digital painting look, but there is something about the simplicity of cell shading that I really appreciate. I’m still not as good at it as I’d like, but what is practice for if not to get comfortable doing something?
I’ll probably come back and clean up some of the shadows, and possibly add a second shadow layer to really push some of those darker areas back.
After that I’ll be throwing this one on the page layout and fixing the character introduction. I’ve decided to go ahead and make 4 page spreads for all the main characters. They’ll include a1/2 or 3/4 splash image (page one), a full body shot with a character introduction (page two), a full body turn around at the top of the page and several character facial expressions at the bottom of page three, and finally several (two or three) full body shots that’ll lend some weight to who the character is. Show some personality, how they dress, or perhaps some hobbies, etc.
-Jesse
“Failure is just the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” –Henry Ford
Where I’m at now.
Last week I had an idea to complete a character sheet for Red. I’ve been wanting to do one for her in a while and haven’t been able to get around to it. Last week I also had an assignment to add text to an image in my Computer Art class, so I thought I’d knock two birds with one stone. :)
This is my starting point. I created some placeholder text and added some head shots/head turn-around I had of her to add a little interest and fill some page space. Not really thinking design at this point, just looking to get started and adding the elements I want to incorporate.
I started to think a little larger and decided that I’d like to create a full two page spread, one page just seemed to random and to fragmented. So, I extended my canvas in Photoshop (Note: usually if I was creating a page layout I’d be using InDesign, it’s specifically made for such projects and has features that make the whole process, but because I initially wanted to make this for my Computer Art class I used Photoshop because that’s the program we’re required to use) and added one of my larger images of Red.
This is where I really started thinking about design, I broke out my Magazines and started looking for inspiration on how they broke up the page elements like page numbers, headers, etc.
I saw this half-tone background in one of the tutorials and thought it’d be a good fit, so I threw that in there and then started working with the character introduction text to try to get some depth by separating all the elements some how.
At this point I also decided that the splash image I was using for the first page wasn’t working. Conceptually, it felt too emo and seemed to be too emotionally different in tone than the full body image on the second page. Looking at it from a design aspect her looking off to the left brought the attention away from the second page instead of towards it. After looking at it for a while I knew it wasn’t working and decided to place a temporary filler image until I figured out what to do.
After arranging and re-arranging elements for quite some time I ended up with this layout. I ended up axing the multiple head shots, it just didn’t feel appropriate for this introduction spread. This is more like the, “hey check out this character, her name is… here’s a little information about her…” and then they would turn the page and then probably see a front, back, and three quarters shot, and then maybe a head turn-around or some facial expressions.
So, I stuck with something a little simpler. It was also at this stage that my teacher told me that this wasn’t going to work for my assignment and I started working on Science Blows Me Away… :(
So, the image I’ve been working on has been for this splash page and this is where I’m at with it right now. Still some work to do on both the character and the design. I also have to change the hairstyle on the full body image to the current style of the splash image.
-Jesse
“Your dreams won’t work unless you do.” -Unknown
Still working at 12.5% using a soft brush to draw/sketch.
Flattened any layers to make a single layer on top of the grey background, zoomed into 50% and started erasing with a hard edge brush at 100% opacity. Just trying to keep the best lines.
Starting to ink in the image working at 50% ( I usually save at 25% which will ensure crisp edges).
-Jesse
“When you confront a problem you begin to solve it.” -Rudy Giuliani
I’m working on a character sheet for Arissa Redding using the last image I made with her wearing her uniform. I was going to use the portrait image of her pouting as part of it, but it seemed a bit too emo and clashed with the smiling persona of the uniform image. So, I set off to start a portrait style image, but this time with Red being a little more bright and silly… and border line cute. So, I asked my friend Google to search in a place I knew was crawling with cute Asian poses, K-Pop.
After finding the image I wanted for reference, I began searching for some solid hair style reference. I think I’ve had five or six different hair style variations since I started really attacking this Blue Moon storyline and now I am convinced I’ve found a winner.
This “bob” hair style was suggested by one of my friends on facebook and I’m glad I had asked for feedback when I posted that image. It actually goes back to one of my first concept images of Red (back when her body type was still based off of a top super model lol). That seems like ages ago, but it’s only been a couple months. Time flies…
Where I’m at now. You’ll recognize the uniform from my previous Arissa concept, I’m really digging it, I might make some small adjustments, but it’s pretty much how I want it at the moment.
Hopefully will have the finished product and then the character sheet by Monday.
-Jesse
“Hate is not the first enemy of love. Fear is. It destroys your ability to trust.” -Unknown
Starting off with reference as usual. It’s difficult to find anatomical reference for people (especially women) that don’t conform to societies ideal proportions.
Red’s been an athlete for a the last couple years of her life, but for the last year she’s been in a funk after the passing of her father. I wanted to show some weight gain, but still retain some of her body shape from her previous athletic participation. Concentrating the weight gain in her mid-section and thighs.
Uniforms are tricky. As the story takes place 150 years in the future I wanted something that looked futuristic, but still held some grounds in reality. With these reference images, I chose a mix of old and new; keeping the look more academy then utility as she is still in school and not in combat.
Lighting was pretty similar to the original in the anatomical reference.
Ended up keeping her hair closer to my first couple character designs. Still haven’t decided whether I’ll use this burnt orange hair color or the maroon I’ve used in the past.
The hair style still needs some refinement, but I feel I’m getting closer to what I originally imagined.
-Jesse
“Person who chases two rabbits catches neither.” -Confucius
jesse vanwagner 
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