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Express Delivery: The Daily thread
Xavi
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I recently joined artslam, a Livejournal community that issued the Challenge of creating one piece of concept art a day for a personal project (for a 3 month duration). Since I'm building a new portfolio I thought taking this on was the natural choice.
Lots of furries took the challenge as well, that kinda makes the community a little ... hard to look at, but eh, whatevs
So anyways, I'll be copying and pasting my progress here as well. Hope you enjoy it and feel free to leave anything that pops to mind
Day one. Introducing EXPRESS DELIVERY.
We had a pretty bad thunderstorm last night, took away the internet for most of the internet. Even now its a little flakey ... meh.
In any case, some good progress was made. My idea is called EXPRESS DELIVERY and its about a crew that basically delivers items trough space ... and time!
At its most basic concept, what these people do is create stuff that people historically need or have used in order to achieve something grand. Excalibur? These guys. The one ring? Ditto. ipod? Yap. The E.D. crew creates these items and then travels trough space and time in order to deliver them, the stories would have to do with not just the delivery but also with the travel and exploration that would ensue.
Yeah I know, its a little Futurama, but I like the slight twist. Artistically wise this gives me a great excuse to have these guys in whatever setting I want, so the doors are wide open. I like the idea of a small crew composed of the delivery person, the driver and the manufacturer of the items. Then well have the ship, the rival crew, the home planet, all the good stuff.
Anyways for day one I just played with the idea and put some thoughts down on paper for a female and male protagonist, as well as a first pass at the ship design. The ship is as important as a character since you would be seeing this ship ALL THE TIME, so it requires some special attention.
Day two, developing the leading female 01
Okay so today I figured I wanted the leading character to be a female, and that I should develop her first. This character needs to be flexible, nimble and able to adapt more than anything, given the nature of her job. Im a big fan of the German film "Run, Lola, Run" and I wanted to draw some inspiration from the leading girl there (this is what drove the design on the right.
The design on the left is what she might be wearing in a more hostile environment, or maybe some space exploration, just keeping things loose at this point.
Day three, developing the leading female 02
Just one design today, but I'm pretty happy with her Just trying more looks for our leading lady. Ill be moving on soon though, just to keep things fresh
One thing I want to make sure is noticeable is that I want all of this to look colorful. I happen to think Gears of Grey War looks badass but I am also sick and tired of the lack of color were getting used to in today's next-gen games, so I really want to emphasize vivid color schemes, things just look better that way
Day Four, starting the environment exploration
Today I felt like starting the environment exploration, and for that theres nothing better than speedpainting.
To this end I really wanted to try a new set of brushes I download from Saenijoh over at Deviantart. Heres a link to them if you're interested (and you should! Theyre rad!)
Anyways, on to the art. Exploring what the crew of Express Delivery might find in their trips trough time and space
Lots of furries took the challenge as well, that kinda makes the community a little ... hard to look at, but eh, whatevs
So anyways, I'll be copying and pasting my progress here as well. Hope you enjoy it and feel free to leave anything that pops to mind
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Day one. Introducing EXPRESS DELIVERY.
We had a pretty bad thunderstorm last night, took away the internet for most of the internet. Even now its a little flakey ... meh.
In any case, some good progress was made. My idea is called EXPRESS DELIVERY and its about a crew that basically delivers items trough space ... and time!
At its most basic concept, what these people do is create stuff that people historically need or have used in order to achieve something grand. Excalibur? These guys. The one ring? Ditto. ipod? Yap. The E.D. crew creates these items and then travels trough space and time in order to deliver them, the stories would have to do with not just the delivery but also with the travel and exploration that would ensue.
Yeah I know, its a little Futurama, but I like the slight twist. Artistically wise this gives me a great excuse to have these guys in whatever setting I want, so the doors are wide open. I like the idea of a small crew composed of the delivery person, the driver and the manufacturer of the items. Then well have the ship, the rival crew, the home planet, all the good stuff.
Anyways for day one I just played with the idea and put some thoughts down on paper for a female and male protagonist, as well as a first pass at the ship design. The ship is as important as a character since you would be seeing this ship ALL THE TIME, so it requires some special attention.
Day two, developing the leading female 01
Okay so today I figured I wanted the leading character to be a female, and that I should develop her first. This character needs to be flexible, nimble and able to adapt more than anything, given the nature of her job. Im a big fan of the German film "Run, Lola, Run" and I wanted to draw some inspiration from the leading girl there (this is what drove the design on the right.
The design on the left is what she might be wearing in a more hostile environment, or maybe some space exploration, just keeping things loose at this point.
Day three, developing the leading female 02
Just one design today, but I'm pretty happy with her
Just trying more looks for our leading lady. Ill be moving on soon though, just to keep things freshOne thing I want to make sure is noticeable is that I want all of this to look colorful. I happen to think Gears of Grey War looks badass but I am also sick and tired of the lack of color were getting used to in today's next-gen games, so I really want to emphasize vivid color schemes, things just look better that way
Day Four, starting the environment exploration
Today I felt like starting the environment exploration, and for that theres nothing better than speedpainting.
To this end I really wanted to try a new set of brushes I download from Saenijoh over at Deviantart. Heres a link to them if you're interested (and you should! Theyre rad!)
Anyways, on to the art. Exploring what the crew of Express Delivery might find in their trips trough time and space
Xavi on
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The character design of the girl looks good, but hardly any of the stuff on her seems like it provides any real purpose other than looks. (helmets, shoes) Nice colors though.
I'm getting a real Beyond Good and Evil vibe from the environmental shot, and that is always a good thing.
INSTAGRAM
Yeah naming isnt my strong suit at all
Thanks for the comments btw, Ill have a new update later tonight
Well... If you changed from Express Delivery to Xpress Delivery, it would instantly become several times more extreme....I mean, Xtreme.
Seriously though, I like the idea of it being somhow related to post. Why not look at the postal service a bit closer to find a name that suits it: "Do not crush", "Handle with Care", "This side up".
Heres tonight's update:
Day Five, landing in uncharted territories.
I totally messed up with the size of the image. Usually I work huge just in case I want to print, but I accidentally did this whole piece in like 800 by 400 pixels, woops! So yeah, this one aint gonna see print anytime ever.
Continuing with the environments theme, here is our ship landing in some sort of uncharted planet, Im thinking part of the challenges these guys may face is not only delivering the items, but how they go around getting the materials as well. I mean if WoW taught us anything is that fetching for stuff is fun! Right?. Just playing around with shapes and adding a bit more color than yesterdays piece, although I think Ill be doing some pencil and paper environments soon, just to keep things fresh.
Not the most exciting of updates, since 3d wip's tend to be pretty meh at the early stages.
I liked the ship design I had going early on and decided to spend some time fleshing it out in 3D, this can be pretty helpful since it really forces you to think about the shape of the object and lets you know how it would look in-game. You'll see more updates of this sort as I get more modeling and texturing done
Got to spend some quality time with the model today, and right now its getting pretty close to the concept, so I took some renders to show it off
Right now its a tad below 1000 polys, so thats a pretty good start
got some pretty cool designs here...though I'm not sure how these people know to deliver things on alien planets...back in time....I mean..we know Earth's history...but how do they know the history of all these other worlds and how/where to deliver what package...how do they get the package in the 1st place? nah mean?
Yeah Im pretty lost myself on the logistics of the story, I just know I like the potential and Ill have to make it work somehow
Anyways:
Day Eight, first pass at The Builder
So in Express Delivery, theres the guy who makes it all happen. He forges, crafts, creates whatever item is necessary in order to complete the delivery granted he has the proper materials. For him I'm thinking definitely alien and definitely have a God/Santa Claus vibe to him, it feels right. I also figured a person with this job wouldnt move around much, he would have a space segway of sorts to move around.
Anyways, really rough first pass at him:
Also, you could probably give off a more Santaish vibe if you gave him a beard of mist/cloud instead of real hair. Santa is known for having a fluffy beard.
Day Nine. ship model done (ish)
Small update again BUT a big step nonetheless since Im pretty much done with the ship model, now I just have to map it and texture it, which is gonna take twice the time it took to model it ... but oh well. Progress is progress.
Took a render into Photoshop and painted some semblance of a texture there, just to give me some ideas for the final look. I think it came out pretty close to the concept, so thats great news when it comes to working in 3D
Day Ten ... little late, starting the Mechanic design
Super long day at the studio yesterday, got home and took a nap, then woke up and went to bed :P
So yeah, first yesterdays update, and once I put some colors on todays sketch, I'll upload it also
Anyways, this is the start of the design for the third member, you saw a bit of him on the day one update. This guy basically makes sure things run, he deals with the ship and its pretty much the errands boy all around.
Day Eleven, making a delivery
I wanted to keep exploring what kind of places the crew of Express Delivery will explore as I think they will be the most important element of the entire process. The worlds ARE the most important characters here.
For this particular example I imagine a giant beast living in solitude, unable to make any friends and thus relies on the technology it finds to keep itself entertained. The E.D. crew then makes a delivery that might be able to change all that.
Day Twelve, to the skies we go
Almost didnt make anything tonight, I actually started doing a digital portrait and it was going south really quick, so I just started messing with colors and came upon this piece. I'm also pretty happy with this one, so at least I got something good out of it
As for what I'm going for here, its obviously a little Tim Burton, but also a little Bengal (one of my favorite artists, French, but lets not hold that against him) Even if its a simple layout you can still find interesting shapes in the clouds and play with some high contrast to find something nice looking amidst all that. Im really having fun trying to think about the places these guys will visit and how different to their home planet everything is.
Y'know, I think you should take a session or two (or in this case, a day or two since each day is a session) of just brainstorming abstract shapes, and trying to turn them into scenes / items / people. Just 5 minutes for each abstraction, you can come up with some great ideas and you'll also start linking one idea with another one, helping you define a theme for your project
Hope this helps.
Its a great idea, Ill make sure to do that soon
Day Thirteen, journey to the big city
Not too much in terms of explanation today, these guys have to go all over the place and Im having a blast thinking of places for them to travel to.
For this piece I think I actually will go back to it for a full color treatment, since I think it has a lot of potential. Usually working in black and white will make sure you focus on the tones, and if you are succesful then it should be a much easier transition to a color piece.
As I work on the 3d model of the ship, I still gotta come up with something substantial to show (cause a half mapped model doesnt show particularly well, honestly) so I decided to make another speedpaint with the same style as the one I did yesterday, since I was pretty happy with the results (hell, I even uploaded it to my website)
Anyways, I like the idea that all the garbage has to go somewhere, Star Wars has definitely played with the idea some and I wanted to try my hand at it too ... but what could a garbage planet want from Express Delivery? That tale is untold but Im thinking something along the lines of a portable black hole would help if you run out of space. The big ass machine you see in the middleground is probably used to make all the junk more compact and ... digestible? Thats exploration for another day, could make a cool model if I make a model sheet out of it.
I'll see if I can give any crits in a bit.
Day Fifteen, the Snakes lair
Running a little late, I work in videogames as a Concept Artist and some days are much busier than others, so thats why I've been missing for the last couple.
Anyways, I gotta make three posts today and as soon as Im done here I will be back in Photoshop till Im done, rinse repeat, so lets do this
This particular update is a continuation of exploring the world/universes these characters will visit. I thought a giant snake living in a giant pit without any sort of exit would be interesting, maybe the locals worship it as a God and have to feed it? The ED crew might have a solution for all that, hopefully
Day Sixteen, the Sky Battleship
I was getting tired of working with a limited palette, ideas werent coming trough and hey, I wanted to work in color (plus a sky its always a blast to paint)
Flying Battleships are nothing new, Super Mario 3 is way ahead of me, for instance, and Skies of Arcadia was terrific, but the idea is still very intriguing, plus I love the aesthetics of larger than life war machines busting trough clouds, its a cool contrast.
Thank you. Thank you for that sketch. It is the best thing I have seen all day.
I'm liking the idea, but I think you should spend a little more time with the crew before getting in-depth with the environments they will be inhabiting. Of course, it's your portfolio. Do as you will.
Just keep it awesome.
Well, with another 75 days or so to go, I'm sure there will be plenty of that...
Oh jaysus thats a lot of days left
Day Seventeen, Dispatch Girl portrait
Ive been meaning to make a portrait for a while, but my all Photoshop attempts were too embarrassing, so I ended up going to the sketchbook to get a good base, haha.
Anyways, Im going forward with the main girl character design and I wanted to explore that a bit more.
Day Eighteen, introducing the Rival Crew
Taking it easy today. Long week at the studio and I don't want to start the weekend burnt out.
So the story is obviously going to need some "villains", but I actually dislike the word. Like any animation fan thats worth his salt I watch a fair amount of Miyazaki films and I find that his stories very seldom have "villains" in them, instead they have characters that have other goals than our hero, but they're never really evil per se. Miyazaki and his crew do an amazing job of creating empathy for their antagonists and thats something to strive for.
That being said, you're not supposed to like this guy. Hes smug and overconfident, but he does take sever pride in his job and acts that way. I see the different crews in Express Delivery working for a common goal, but theres plenty of competition therein since the highest ranked crews get to deliver the most important items! Would you like to be personally responsible for delivering the ten commandments or be the person who delivered post-its? All that is dependent on performance.
Day Nineteen, chase on the abandoned city
One of my big exercises for this challenge is to be able to work on lighting, mood, contrast and layout, so thats why you keep seeing these environment paintings from me. Its something I haven't done much of in the past and I really want to develop it into one of my strong points as an artist. Practice doesn't make perfect, but it sure as hell makes you a thousand times better.
Im thinking that aside from the rival crews there should also be a "time preservation corporation" If you think of them as the PETA or Greenpeace of time and space, you're probably on the right track.
Day Twenty, twenty one and twenty two; More rivals and some loose environments
Phew, I was hoping I wouldn't fall behind, but I guess a couple of days isnt too bad. I usually like to make every post separate, but none of these pieces is beefy enough anyways, so might as well put them all together and move on
I also got done mapping the 3D version of the ship,. so Ill make an update with that once I have some textures done. Its gonna look good!
Anyways, on to today's pile. I wanted to make some rough thumbnails for environment ideas, since the speedpainting process was beginning to feel a little tired, and theres nothing like working in pencil and paper anyways, so you might see some of these brought to full color one of these days. As for the rivals I tried a full body shot and what could their ship look like. I went for some more exaggerated silhouettes and a more mechanical look and feel overall, but well see how that develops since I don't even have much of an idea at this stage.
Hey, been a while! Dont worry though because I'm still in this. Its been a tough week at work and I was a little burnt out, but expect a few catch up posts soon!
My Art Director lead me to one of the most fascinating books on Visual Development Dream Worlds by Hans Bacher is an ABSOLUTE MUST for any artist out there. He was the Visual director for pretty much any animated film from Disney back in the 90's, as well as some other stuff, for 25 bucks if you don't buy it, then theres something wrong with you. The book focuses on how to make good layouts as one of its pillars and I decided to take it to heart and get my ass to practice, really trying to narrow down on successful use of layout and contrast.
Today's image is really simple and not detailed, but once I get more comfortable I'll be bringing the detail to areas where its necessary. For this one though, describing a person inhabiting a large palace welcoming the ship from our crew, I wanted to keep it basic and powerful.
I had this thing drawn 2 days ago, just didnt have time to give it some color. Trying to follow the same style I had going with the Dispatch girl portrait and its pretty good practice at the end of the day anyways.
Spent a couple of hours today starting the texture job for the ship. At this point I wanted to get a small portion of the texture done so that I could set the expectation for the level of quality I'm going for, so please focus on the detailed part and ignore the obviously untouched areas :P
For those who care about the specs, the size of the texture is 512x512 pixels, the detail area is about 10% of that size. All done by hand, no photo ref, color map only (no spec and no bump)
I was about to make this a double update since this is actually two days both of work, but it felt cheap, so whatever.
Another update on how the ship is looking and eventhough its about 50 percent there (the bottom part is not started, and the back area I spent about ten minutes so far) you can still get a feel of how it will look when its done. I added a normal and a specular map for good measure as well
Oh yeah and something I forgot to mention was that the model is only about one thousand polys, so this is something you could see on the Wii or PS2 easily (provided they can fudge a Normal Map like Path of Neo did on the PS2, although nobody bothers with decent Wii tools cause "casual gamers don't care about graphics" ...)