Creature and Evaluation

The final design of the Lovecraftian/Dune/Audrey inspired beast. I feel that this is by far and away an improvement over my previous design work. It clearly illustrates the monster and also takes into account how the creature will move, with its segmented neck, and looser underjaw. There are errors I would like to fix and several areas I would like to improve. As while I feel this is good for showing the physical design and form. It could do a better job of illustrating the nature of the creatures skin and the texture of that. At the moment it looks a bit flat. And of course there is still much room for improvment overall. As a starting point for the models though It does its job well and means that I can spend less time designing and more time modelling the design. Which means I will get it produced faster, which is vital. One final thing Is I feel that the area where all the tentacles join could be better thought out. I went for a creepy Lovecraftian style "Eye" them and I neglected the practicality of having that many arms joining in the one place. As it stands the transition between these areas could have used a lot more love than it ended up getting. And is definitely something I will have to improve when it comes to the model. The tentacles aswell could have used more love and been a bit more defined in just how they are segmented to move.

However overall it is I feel successful in as much as it is a definite improvement for me and it serves as a perfectly serviceable start for creating the creature in 3D.

Woops

Something I forgot to include in my previous post was this. Which I threw together quickly to help me get an idea of how I was going to go about the storyboards and what shots they should incorporate.

Storyboards

Here we have the storyboards for the final video. I feel that they provide a clear description of the scene and clearly illustrate what is happening. A vast improvment over my previous storyboards and even on the previous thumbnails I feel.
This also provides me with some excellent ideas for the final design of the creature. And as designing that is the next step then this is vital.

Thumbnails + Evaluation

Following on from what I had created previously I decided to put together a series of thumbnails to further illustrate the compositional ideas I had in mind for the project. Using techniques I had been practising within other modules I put these together to help me gauge the colour and composition of the scene. I feel that as I drew more of them I got better at them. They are also vastly superior I feel to any other thumbnail work I have done in the past. They do a good job of helping me pick out ideas for the composition and even design elements for the creature. I do feel however that they could be improved further by me furthering my knowledge of composition/perspective and design. I feel that overall though they are successful as thumbnails as they help clarify to me certain points about the composition and design that are to be explored further when working on the final designs.

The second set of thumbnails is vastly superior to the first as I feel that they are clearer and read better from a design standpoint. and they help illustrate the scale of the monster much better because of this. This set are more successful and its these that I will be keeping in mind when I go on to create my storyboards. As it is this level of clarity I hope to achieve with them.

More Spits!

Exactly what it says. More spitpaints :p

Fallen Empire/

Three Wheels

Weather Demon

Required Skills

For this project I will be assembling a library of material I can use for learning the relevant skills.
As I have never really composited footage before, this will be vital. Particularly when matchmoving and making it look real.

A vital part of this will be the Gnomon workshop's masterclass on creature development. Which includes an entire disc on how to fit a CG creature in with a photographic plate.

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/products/masterclass/3dcreaturedev/

Other areas I will be looking at for reference and learning skills is Digital Tutors, and of course other Gnomon courses.
http://www.digitaltutors.com/subject/video-and-vfx-compositing-tutorials
http://www.digitaltutors.com/subject/video-and-vfx-matchmoving-tutorials

And of course I will also be attempting to improve all aspects of the skills involved in this project.
By this stage I already have a fairly good idea of what I want the general designs to be, and what the finished images will look like.

The next stage is to thumbnail and do some initial storyboards and sketches of what I want the project to look like, as-well as nailing down the final designs for the creatures and the world.

Ideally id like to have a mix of elements to composite, organic, hard surface, some creatures, machines and environments aswell.

So, a checklist for what I have to do next.

-Thumbnails
-Storyboards
-Shoot photos & HDRI (for SIBL)
-Final Designs
-Shoot HD Videos
-Modelling
-Texturing
-Rigging

Spit and Colour

A few paintings here, just practices, trying to be more bold with colours and make nicer images.

I also started doing the "spitpainting" challenge to practice, so there is a few of those uploaded here aswell. 30 minute paintings done to a specific subject.

Underwater Police

Strange Visitors

Practice