the drawing tree portfolio entertainment design

Using the value scale in previous designs I thought I should try and apply it into some of my own studies. Therefore I researched into some demon creature designs on Pinterest. I then found this reference image on Pinterest https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/335729347217432440/ and decided to use it as reference to expand on the drawing above but in Photoshop. Looking at the illustration below I saw some interesting horns and eyes that I could apply to my demon design.

Below is the concept art sketch I created using the reference image above as a guideline, forming a more evil and possessed creature. I chose to create a demon character because they have some more darker tones in there designs which I thought I could apply into my value studies. The first image below is where I have sketched out a rough design for my demonic creature, then I have gone through and added some base values to the design to bring the 3d shape to the head.

The painting below shows my progression so far into painting some more detailed values into the demonic creature. As you can see below I started with the eyes first because that is where I wanted majority of the shadows to be to show that evil, almost skeleton eye shape, with white eyes that show a possessed creature. I then moved onto creating some more values in the lower face and neck to form some more evil features into the design.

Now below is a technique I have learned to colour a image using the values I have already painted but changing them into colour value, this is known as a gradient map in Photoshop. To do this you select the layer you want to change and then you go to Image> Adjustments> Gradient Map. It then creates a menu similar to the one in the gradient tool. This allows you to create different colours for different values, in this case I have made the darkest tone black, then added some dark reds for the darker tones. Then I applied some lighter red to contrast. Then I added some orange and white on the lightest tones to make them stand out from the red skin.

Usually when I use a gradient map I make sure I paint all the values in first and then add the gradient map over the top to get the colours in. Finally I would then paint over the gradient map with a small brush just to enhance some extra detail. I learned this technique from a artist called Marc Brunet who creates concept art tutorials on Cubebrush and the Youtube channel BrushBoost. This has allowed me to enhance my grey scale value drawings and then develop them into colour values which is something I struggle with a lot when painting straight onto a drawing. I prefer to work in grey scale so this method personally helps me out a lot. Below is just a quick example of how I use the gradient map on my designs/ Photoshop paintings.

Character design

Below are some sketches that I created using Aaron Blaise's tutorials for designing characters. So the first images below are applying some human anatomy to a cartoon character. I chose to do this because I have been studying some anatomy of different body parts in my sketchbook and I wanted to try applying those lessons to a character design. Therefore I used Aaron Blaise's gesture drawing tutorial as a guide to create this basic character design sketch.

After doing a quick 10 minute rough sketch I went back and in the style of Aaron Blaise applied some character design features to the rough sketch allowing me develop the design and refine that anatomical structure in this design to fit the gesture.

Elephants

Now this tutorial was done using a pdf document I got from Aaron Blaise teaching me the basics of how to draw elephant character designs. Therefore to improve my understanding of anatomy in animals I thought I would give it a go. Unlike the video tutorial I used for the character design above, I used a step by step drawing image to help me plot out the basic shapes for this elephant.

Then after creating the rough drawing/ sketch I went over the design with a pencil brush to create the more refine details in the face & trunk in the style of Aaron Blaise. By learning these techniques from my case study I will be able to apply these into my own designs to help develop my style and improve my understanding of human and animal anatomy in cartoon designs.

Dan Sanders Peer Marking

This is some peer feedback from my peer Joe Bumpus. This will allow me to expand and improve on my art fundamentals work before the deadline. By having this feedback available to me I can take the time to go through my artwork and improve/ annotate further any of my design processes or techniques that meet the different learning objectives. I shall go through this feedback and apply any of the advice to my work in order to improve on the work I have already created so far.

This is a quick grey scale sketch of Ian Mcque's Alley painting, however this time I have painted it from a different perspective. Therefore in this image you can see you are looking from the character the furthest away in the original painting. I chose to recreate this image from a different perspective because I wanted to show that I have considered composition from a different angle. So to make this image have depth I used a grid and one point perspective to create the alley going off into the distance with the other character in the foreground on the right hand side. To make these features alternate around to a different perspective I simply looked at the original image then flipped the design around in my head, so that everything was essentially back to front.

If I have time I am going to create a more detailed value painting of this Ian Mcque study from a different perspective.

For this tutorial lesson I learned how to use reference photos of animals and draw over them to form the basic muscle shapes, which could then be taken and placed onto another animal to form a creature.

Elk

So to start with I drew over the top of this elk photo, by drawing some points on the Elk I was able to form the basic body shape and legs for the Elk. This would form the base body shape for the creature that I was going to create. All the images below show my process for designing a Elk with the photo reference, so I created the head, hooves and antlers. This allowed me to create a Elk design that I could make into a creature. Plus learning this technique will allow me to create further studies of animals rather than trying to draw animals free hand.

Horse

This task was to simply use the technique I learned for drawing the Elk and use it with over animals without guidance. Therefore I was tasked to use this method for a horse. As you can see below I attempted it by plotting some points on the image below it and then drew the basic shape outline that shows a horse.

Bull

Now this part of the tutorial was to draw some muscular legs for my creature. Therefore like the Elk I learned how to draw some muscles over the top of a reference image. This allowed me to create a more muscular design that I could apply to my Elk body to create a interesting animal creature design. Below are the processes I went through to get the body shape of a Bull which I am going to apply to the Elk at a later stage.

Head shapes

Below I learned how to separate the faces of animals into different core shapes. This would be beneficial because it will allow me to block out a head shape for my creature with simple basic shapes that I could combine together using both animals. The main purpose of learning these head shapes was also to help improve my understanding of a anatomy in animal head. This also goes towards the animal studies above too, because these processes can help provide a more efficient way of using reference images, rather than trying to copy them free hand.

Creating a Creature

Now using the reference images/ tutorials above I have used the basic shapes of the Elk body, Bull legs/ neck and a Lion/ Elk head. Below is a stage by stage design process for creating my creature design. This would be a good idea for creating any character/ creature in a animation design process because you will have the basic anatomy you need, you can just draw over the top of it to create a interesting and appealing design.

This was a normal photo of a horse but I was tasked to change the shading so that I could apply the values to my creature design. To do this I went into Photoshop and with the image selected I used; Filter> Filter Gallery> Artistic> Cutout. This created a basic block shading for me to look at and apply to my creature in terms of values/ shading.

Below is my final design for my creature where I have taken the previous rough sketches and used another layer and a pencil brush to draw over the top of it to create a more refined and detailed design for this creature. I have also used a soft brush and added the shadows from the horse image above to make the creature have that three dimensional look, rather than looking like a flat design.

My task this week was to create a repainting of an artist of my choice but only using values from the value scale in the image below. Researching concept art on Pinterest I stumbled across this image of Rapunzel's castle from Disney's Tangled. Looking at this design I thought it would be a interesting art piece to repaint with values. Therefore I used this value scale below as my grey scale value palette.

Below is the reference image and a example of using a value scale for painting in values. So to start with in the painting at the bottom of this image, I only used the 3 main values in the value scale that are behind the smaller swatches. This includes a light grey, midtone grey and dark grey. Using these 3 greys allowed me to create a basic blocked out painting of the castle with the river, cliffd and waterfall in the background. This first painting allowed me to see where the basic elements of this repainting would be in the scene.

I then took the simple painting and duplicated it into a new layer. Furthermore I then used the rest of the grey scale values in the value scale to create a developed painting from the previous painting. Unlike the blocked out painting, this one had more details such as tree leaves/ bushes, rock shadows and a more in depth scene with the castle being the focal point. But looking at the painting I realised that I still needed to apply further detail to the design.

Once again copying the painting layer, I then applied some further detail with a dark grey tone to make a rough drawing of the details I still needed to apply. This also provided me with a reference into where I needed to add those extra details to make the scene more three dimensional.

Rather than duplicating the drawing layer I decided to add to it on a new layer, allowing me to draw over the details with different values to make the shapes stand out from the light tone of the base colour for the tower. By doing this I was able to create some bolder shapes that stood off from the background and make the focal point more clear. Furthermore to get the texture of the leaves and bushes in the foreground/ midground I used Aaron Blaise's foliage brushes to create a leave texture. I did try to paint the leaves individually but I was really struggling so I needed to use a brush that could form those shapes.

Above is the final repainting for this piece of artwork where I have used a combination of different values to create a alternative version to Rodel Gonzalez painting of Rapunzel's tower. But painting in values has allowed me to understanding the use of shading to create harsh shadows. Whereas lighter tones create some softer highlights that help to bring that level of depth into the environment painting.

Below are some silhouette drawings for two of my characters in my narrative animation. Silhouettes are good starting points for designing a character because you can form the basic shapes for an idea without having all the refined details in a sketch. However sometimes overlapping limbs can make the pose harder to design a character over the top of because you cannot see the pose clearly. Therefore as it is just a silhouette and has no details you still need to consider how you create a pose within the silhouette.

Below is a silhouette drawing for Ava. I chose to make this pose because I wanted to see if I could design the character over the top of a pose with overlapping limbs in the silhouette.

Below is the rough design of Ava that I created using my model sheet and the base shapes from the silhouette. If I had not made this model sheet I think it would be been a little difficult to keep the anatomy in proportion. However I am planning to have a silhouette scene in my animation with both of these characters so this is a good start to learn using silhouettes to create poses.

Below is a character silhouette for my character Duncan. Now the pose below is a great example of what not to do in a silhouette this is because of the shape of the arms it is difficult to see what he is doing. This is because although his intention is to have his arms by his side, you could also think this character is holding a axe or reading a book, because the pose is not easily identifiable it is hard to see what is going on in the pose.

Therefore If I looked at the silhouette before I drew over it for a character design I would not know where to put the arms and what pose they would be in. This is why considering your character's pose for the silhouette is important because it can be easy to make a design that will not be easy to identify as  a silhouette.

Therefore when applying silhouettes into my narrative animation or even character drawing, I need to make sure I consider the pose before I try and add some character designs over the top, because if the audience look at a silhouette and cannot tell what is going on then they will loose interest in a animation or character design.

Zorn Palette

This week I learned how to use the Zorn Palette and what it actually is. Anders Zorn is a painter who creates portrait paintings of people. However he only uses a specific palette which is seen on the right hand side in the image below. This specific palette includes; Ivory Black, Cadmium Red, Yellow Ochre and Titanium White.

Therefore to explore using this colour palette I decided to mix some different colours from this palette. This could help me with creating some swatches in Photoshop for when I create my own painting using the Zorn palette. In Photoshop I used some specific brush settings in order to blend the colours easily, these are the steps I took to create my blending brush;

1. Oil pastel large brush
2. Impressionist
3. Brush settings
4. Shape Dynamics on
5. Duel brush on
6. Texture on
7. Transfer on
8. Smoothing on
9. Or can use mixer brush and change the opacity then use the colour picker to pick the blended colour.

Therefore the next few images below were my exploration into using my mixer brush to blend the Zorn colour palette to create different colours/ Swatches including skin tones.

Painting a portrait using the Zorn Palette

Before painting a portrait using the Zorn palette I needed to find a reference image to paint. I am going to paint myself with traditional oil paint. Therefore I decided to pick someone off the internet. Until I watched a video from "Draw with Jazza" called "Aussie Ross". This got me thinking about Bob Ross and his oil painting, so I thought why not paint 2 in one for my Anders Zorn study. Therefore I picked this image from his YouTube video as reference for my Photoshop painting.

So to start I sketched out a rough outline of the portrait above, using my blue construction pencil brush. By having the reference image in front of me I was able to study the proportions and apply them to my drawing. I tried to avoid going into too much detail as I would be applying digital oil brush strokes over the top. Furthermore to help me get started I created a small palette with the Zorn Palette in order to get the right skin tone for Jazza, as well as his hat & shirt colour.

Now being limited to the Zorn palette I was unable to create the navy blue for his shirt, therefore I blended the Titanium White and the Ivory Black to create a light grey tone that matched the value of the shirt blue colour. Now I began painting in the block colours for the base of the portrait. Once again I kept referring back to the reference image, while also using my swatches to create the base colours for the; hair, skin, eyes, mouth, hat, short and eyebrows. By using some trail and error with blending the Zorn palette I was able to create the basic colours for my portrait.

After having the basic tones down I started applying some darker tones to create shadows and extra details, particularly in the hair and shirt. The hair was going to be a challenge for me because I don't really go into detail with hair strands in my own style. Anyway using my oil brush I went through the gaps in the hair and applied some shadows to create that curly looking shape in the hair, as well as applying some light values too. In addition to the hair I went through and applied some outlines on the shirt with a darker tone of grey to help show those smaller wrinkles and details in the shirt. Then I decided to go through and add some small details in the eyes and mouth by adding some highlights and shadows to create those natural looking eyes and mouth depth.

Below is the final image for this portrait. To get this stage I continued to add some more layers of colour, blending the skin tones with a combination of the oil brush and a blender brush. This allowed me to create that natural skin tone that matched Jazza's skin tones in the image above. Furthermore I used some smaller brushes to create those smaller details like the gums and pupils, providing me with a further detailed portrait. The main issue that I really struggled with was the details in the hair, as this was curly hair that had lots of separate strands. But I thought that I would be there forever painting individual strands of hair. Therefore I applied some more shadows, highlights and some darker yellow tones for the outlines. This provided me with the basic shapes that formed the curly hair underneath the hat.

Therefore my next task using the Zorn palette will be to apply it to my traditional studies, allowing me to develop my technique with using the Zorn palette in my art portfolio.

This is my case study for my new chosen artist named Aaron Blaise. This artist has been trained by another artist I researched Glen Keane. As you can see above I have collected some images from Aaron Blaise on this pinterest board. Aaron Blaise's art style is very Disney like, since he was trained by Glen Keane and he has worked on  many Disney movies including;

• Mulan
• Pocahontas
• The Lion King
• Aladdin
• Beauty and the Beast
• The Rescuers down under
• & He directed Brother Bear

Aaron Blaise a animator would previously worked for Disney but now he spends time creating animation tutorials on Youtube and his website https://creatureartteacher.com/

I have recently purchased some of his tutorials that I shall use over the course of this project to help develop my own style for designing characters, as well as learning the basic fundamentals of human anatomy. I will also use these human anatomy tutorials to then apply into my character designs.

This weeks task was to create a drawing of a; Eye, Nose, Mouth and Value Portrait using only CHARCOAL! I found this task particularly challenging as I am not really fond of using charcoal personally as I always manage to smudge part of the work I like so have to keep redoing it. Anyway for this task I had to first get some primary research/ reference images of myself or someone else. So of course I used some images of Lawrence that someone else took.

Reference images

Below are the 2 key images I used as reference for my different charcoal studies.

Eye

To start off I chose to draw the eye first using the reference image on the left hand side (Above). I chose to do the eye first as I thought that this would be the most difficult so I went straight into the deep end, as I haven't used charcoal since Art GCSE. But looking at the image below I think this drawing came out pretty well for a first attempt. I used a chopped up piece of rubber to get the highlights, as well as a combination of a Charcoal stick & a Graphite stick. This allowed me to get the various tones in the drawing to make it look like an eye.

Nose

Next I decided to draw the nose allowing me to learn more about values in the facial region. This came out fairly well as the shadows show where the light is coming from. However the darker tones at the bottom perhaps need some more blending as they are very bold on the page, whereas in the reference image it isn't as bold. But the different values help bring out that nose shape, along with the nose ring. I also used the right hand reference image for this  drawing.

Mouth

Now this drawing below was also done by using the reference image on the right above. However this defiantly had to be the most difficult drawing so far. I decided to use the graphite stick to sketch a basic shape out for the mouth, but the lips kept looking too large or too small. So this took multiple sketches/ rubbing out to get to this stage. But once I was happy I used the charcoal stick to shade in the values. However looking at the image below I still think something is wrong with the shape of the mouth. It maybe the values as the darker values inbetween the lips seems a bit off to me. The lips look like they may need some adjusting as the values seem to look very similar compared to the reference image above.

Value Portrait

Finally the images below show my value portrait of Lawrence using the reference image on the left (above). I chose to only do a half portrait as I didn't feel very confident with drawing a full face in charcoal, so I thought I'd play it safe with this one so I could get some of those detailed values.

So this image below shows my first sketch using the graphite stick to help me plan out the proportions for Lawrence's face. However as you can see this did not go as well as I hoped as the face looks very long and very rounded in the chin.

Therefore rubbing out some of the lines I managed to fix the issue, looking back and forth from my page to the reference image, allowing me to make the face less rounded. As you can see I made the chin less rounded, as well as reducing the length of the face. By doing this sketch I felt more confident in knowing where my different values would go on the face.

Therefore diving into using the charcoal I chose to go with the darker tones first and then build it up and then add the highlights last. So in the image above you can see I have started applying those darker tones with some mid tones around the nose to help blend the different values together, while also getting those lighting elements into the values.

Continuing to add those dark tones, mid tones and highlights I ended up with the final result of the image below. Now I know what your thinking where are the eyes or mouth details, but the task was to apply the different values in the face area rather than the facial features as I have already done those separately above. The main task for this image was to get the values right in the face as our skin is not all one shade. However it is a little unclear in this image but I have applied some different values in the forehead on the right hand side near the hair to show that lighting element.

But for a first time attempt at drawing a human face (well half a face) I am pretty proud of this drawing as it looks similar to the reference image and shows clearly different values I have attempted to apply to the drawing. Overall I think I may need some extra work put into it but I shall get some feedback from Lawrence to see how this drawing (and the others above) can be improved upon further.

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Source: https://50194030dansanders.wordpress.com/category/art-fundamentals-for-animation/art-design-portfolio/

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