Hero & Villain - Fashion Designers

We had to do another one of those things where we take a life drawing and push it into a character, our direction this time was to make a hero and a villain. So rather than do a cliché hero and villain in a sci fi or fantasy setting, I wanted to try something different and I decided to do characters based off fashion models/designers. 

I've always been fascinated by how outlandish the designs are of haute couture fashion and always thought their designs and approach could be applied to character design the same way their designs are distilled into typical clothing. I looked mostly into Alexander McQueen's stuff since they tend to have very striking imagery, unusual texture, and extremely strong silhouettes. I also just really wished more mainstream animation took designs tips from haute couture fashion, some interesting imagery could arise from it. Some films have that feeling such as The Fall thanks to Eiko Ishioka's wonderful and creative costume designs and many of Coleen Atwood's work. 

Anyway here's my villain Eloise Von Snoot:

Former fashion model turned fashion designer and couturier, Eloise has become one of the top designers in the industry only second to Lillian.

Top left is the original life drawing done in ink. Originally a hero stance and a typical medieval-fantasy like character, it slowly evolved into something more sinister. It is really fascinating to see the slow evolution from the original to the final. Eloise's silhouette is taken from one of Alexander Mcqueen's Savage Beauty designs. Ever since I came across that image I just had to incorporate the silhouette somehow into an evil character at one point. 

Meet Lillian Forsythe:

Lillian has been a model since she was 3 for children's clothing. At the age of 16 Lillian started her own fashion label which quickly rose to popularity in a couple years. She was declared the #1 Top Fashion Designer for 3 years in a row. Lillian is known for modelling her own designs down the runway.

Here's the original drawings and some roughs that got to the final. Her clothes are a mix of a ton of fashion designs I looked up as reference. I think it turned out fine, I just wish I had more time to refine her design and maybe push it even more like Eloise's. 

Caricature Sculpture

We got to sculpt the model and caricature him! It was a ton of fun and extremely relaxing. The time flew by as we did it and I heavily enjoyed the process.

I was on the fence about adding eyes but I really liked, from my position at least, how the light was coming from above and casting a dark shadow because of the eyebrows I made. I decided not to put any and (if lit correctly) gives it this feeling he's looking pretty far. I really digged this assignment!

Royal Winter Fair

Some drawings I did from The Royal Winter Fair!

We had to make an illustration based off a drawing we did while we were there. My friend and I wanted to go see the sheep herding event, so we did and we drew. It was also very entertaining and cool to see how the border collies were so well trained to always move the sheep towards the owner. 

I found the way the sheep reacted and moved to be humorous. They always looked extremely scared and whenever they moved as a group, they always created this nice flowing composition that directed your attention back towards the dog which is what I did for this illustration. I made sure the bunched up sheep had some sort of flow that pointed back towards the dog. 

And the page of extremely rough sketches of the sheep herding event.

Some sketches from The Royal Winter Fair.

 Lots of sheep because there weren't much animals out when we went for some weird reason apart from the sheep. Even then, there weren't much sheep out either. I was looking forward to drawing birds but the entire area where they would be was just empty cages. I was sad.

Multi-plane Layout

Long time no see! I'm back and will be posting some stuff from the past semester. Apologies for the lack of posts but school got busy, then busier, then even more busier. It was non-stop. Anyway I'm back since it's winter break so here's my first update!

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Here's my MLA assignment which turned out way better than I had ever hoped considering I'm not much of a layout guy. I love compositing so putting it together was a ton of fun as well!

Unfortunately my roughs are at school and they aren't open until next week! I will update this post or make a new one when I do get my hands on them again. We had to make a mini pitch package with the concept art we did for it.

Life Drawing Characters

For life drawing we had to take one of our drawings of the model, push its silhouette and make it a character afterwards. We also had to do the final characters traditionally. Here's how mine turned out!

For each one I wanted to take a different stylistic approach. The one on the left is more graphic and cartoon modern/Ronald Searle inspired design. The middle was more form based and three dimensional with a dash of Hirschfeld. The one on the right is my own approach to character design and its a character I created last summer. 

Here's a more thorough breakdown of the development:

The life drawing looked very sinister and creepy. I first thought of this snake like character to go with it but the more I played around with the silhouette the less evil and more snooty it became.

Some silhouette explorations I did using ink and a brush. The one that's circled at the top is what gave it that snooty attitude. By accident it made a nose shape that I continued to work with until the final.

Meet Mr. Moby!

I had trouble figuring out what kind of person would pose like that until I thought of a music conductor. I wanted to try a style I haven't really tried much and since it's Inktober I researched some of Ronald Searle's work. I cleaned this up with a brush pen for that authentic jittery ink look.

I chose this one just because I really like how I captured the gesture of the shock.

This was also going to be someone villain-y. But the more I played with the silhouette the more it reminded me of someone I knew from an art gallery and his upbeat and joyous personality. I kept thinking of that guy as I worked on it and slightly based the look off him. The bottom right silhouette is a very early version of Mr. Moby and when I thought of it as a sinister character.

Meet Stuart!

Named after the very guy that inspired this character. This guy's always full of excitement and is guaranteed to always bring a smile to your face.

This life drawing was drawn during the week when we drew with conte attached to sticks hence the scribbly tree like look. Regardless I liked the pose and wanted to push it further.

Played a lot with the arch of the back and had originally thought of the character as a magician revealing something. But then I realized I already did 2 human characters and wanted to try something non-human and more cartoony. I pushed it to be more cartoony in silhouette and decided to use my character I created last year...

Meet Carecrow!

I'd like to put a description now but I'm actually working on his design, personality, and story a bit more. So look forward to seeing him very soon!

Muppet Marco

A tad late on posting this but this season's banner was drawing ourselves as a Muppet! 

Here's Muppet Marco!

And the banner with all that participated! Everyone did an awesome job again!

Stop Motion Shenanigans

First stop motion class was super fun! Here's a fun little thing that Gabriel Arrellaga and I did together in class. Nothing fancy, we just had to do a mini in-class thing then got to fool around afterwards. 

Fan Expo + Cuphead

I noticed I didn't post about it here! 

But last thursday was my last day at Studio MDHR!

During that same day Fan Expo started and Cuphead was there for all to try out! I managed to attend on Friday with two friends and seeing Cuphead in the Xbox area was freaking awesome! Watching people play, enjoy, and talk about it was an absolutely wonderful experience. It was definitely the highlight of my day there and my entire summer.

Post E3 and during the summer, the game still felt like a small indie title even after all the press it got (with the addition of a Cuphead mascot at PAX). But finally seeing it at one of Toronto's biggest conventions in person and having its own booth under Xbox, it really hit me that this was even bigger than I thought. Not to mention the fan reactions I witnessed which was absolutely wonderful and a dream come true.

I've always wanted to be the creator or be a part of something that people have such passion and excitement for. I've always been on the other end of that and finally being part of the creation side was such an amazing moment and a dream that was fulfilled. 

I am so glad to be part of the team and I hope people enjoy and look forward to its release. One of my friends that tagged along heavily enjoyed the game and I hope everyone will as well!

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School started again yesterday and I'm back at it for third year! A lot of people also knew about Cuphead and were excited for it and I'm so happy that everyone seems to be genuinely interested in it! Also extremely looking forward to the rest of the year and I'm eagerly awaiting to be assigned a group for the group films next week. 

Let's see how this year goes, bring it on third year!

Cuphead in "Don't Deal With The Devil"

Since the end of June I've been helping out the team at Studio MDHR with the wonderful traditionally animated cartoon videogame Cuphead! A videogame with a 1930's cartoon aesthetic AND animated in 1930's style: drawn and inked traditionally on paper! Even the lettering and UI!

I've been looking forward to this game since it's first trailer and having the opportunity to have a hand in helping with its production is a pretty rad experience. It's also been really cool to be able to work on it right after it generated a ton of buzz this past E3. The team is spread across in different locations but I've been working directly under the art director Chad Moldenhauer, one of the brothers responsible for coming up with the idea. I've mostly been doing inking/clean up, colouring, some additional animation, as well as printing, scanning and filing the mounds of drawings they have and a bit more stuff. 

If you haven't seen this visually stunning game here's the trailer! Available when it's ready™ 2016 on Xbox One and PC:

" Cuphead is a classic run and gun action game heavily focused on boss battles. Inspired by cartoons of the 1930's, the visuals and audio are painstakingly created with the same techniques of the era, i.e. traditional cel animation (hand drawn & inked!), watercolor backgrounds, and original jazz recordings. Play as Cuphead or Mugman (in single player or co-op) as you traverse strange worlds, acquire new weapons, learn powerful super moves, and discover hidden secrets. Cuphead is all action, all the time. Do you have what it takes? "

Cuphead website:

http://cupheadgame.com/

Studio MDHR links:

http://studiomdhr.com/
https://twitter.com/StudioMDHR

https://www.facebook.com/studiomdhr

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Above is a drawing I made of Cuphead and myself as a Cuphead character! MugMarco? Mugco? I drew, inked and coloured it the same way they do with the rest of the game.

An inked MugMarco! I made sure he was much of a caricature of myself as possible with a square head, glasses, a square handle to represent my earring and a rounded triangle for a nose. I also made it so his cup head is a pencil holder because I like drawing and I keep my art utensils in a similar fashion on my desk.

Coloured and looking jolly!

Different coloured variations with a bonus black and white version that I still like. In the end I just stuck with making it look like Cuphead in terms of a colour scheme.

I drew this Cuphead in the same pose as the typical Mickey Mouse pose you see on every shirt he's on. This was actually just a test to try out the style as well as the inking (I didn't have a 0.5 marker so I had to use my 0.3 to thicken the lines to achieve a similar look) before drawing the one I made of myself. 

Coloured with an opened eyes version, he was originally casually shooting a projectile.

A Familiar Adversary

Bolik comes across a familiar nuisance on the foreign planet...

I'm been trying to put characters in "moments" recently and this is just a start. I'll keep at it.

Life Drawing Catch Up! Part 1: Anatomy and Figure Drawing

WHOOPS

Looking back, my last life drawing post was last year! I didn't update anything about that this past year! MY BAD. So I dug up a pile of drawings that I kept, unfortunately I either lost or accidentally threw away some that I actually liked. So these will have to make do. 

BEHOLD PART 1: Anatomy and Figure Drawing

Anatomy

A few anatomy studies from the past year that I kept. I was scared to begin studying them since THERE IS SO MANY MUSCLES. But in terms of drawing them it wasn't so bad. The techniques we learned on how to draw them were extremely useful and made it easy. 

The muscle test on the other hand...having to remember so many had me nervous during winter break. But I passed the written test with flying colours! And I made sure I didn't cram for it and studied for it weeks beforehand since there seemed to be hundreds in the arm alone. We also ended up drawing real preserved human bodies at one point which was probably one of the highlights of the class for me. 

Look at them glutes.

Never skip leg day!

Unfortunately I cannot find my muscle test drawing (which I did extremely well on and got on the wall! WOO!) but here's an old picture of a drawing I did of the legs in the same view as the one I submitted for the test. Also unlucky me, I can't find this drawing either...and I liked both of them. I swear I kept them somewhere safe but they weren't part of the pile. 

Life Drawing

30's

1's

2's

3's

5's

Portrait

Overall I didn't improve as much as I would have liked. My limited time at school + insane workload + commuting pretty much required me to choose between extra life or doing homework that I can't do at home because I didn't have the tools or software. But studying anatomy has definitely helped me a ton and makes me view figures differently as well as making it easier for me to construct and rotate characters.

The class itself was a vast improvement over first year. It was much more relaxed with the teacher I had and it was more about how each person approached a drawing and not about how closely you can draw to the textbook examples that first year life drawing only seemed to have accepted. First year was such a depressing atmosphere for life drawing, it was extremely refreshing to have a class that accepts your approach and how to make it better. Hopefully third year is the same!