Comicon 2011 - Concept shape sheet

I've been sketching in my sketch book today, something I've not actually done in a long time, continuing my entry for the Comicon Challenge 2011. Here's a couple of sketches I did.

From here I started drawing up my concepts in Photoshop. This image shows my progress in the two thumbnails at the side and then where I'm at now

Concept modelling tomorrow, watch this space...

Comicon 2011 - Knight Punisher

Comicon 2011 rears its super head and I'm in!
I've postponed the previous character in order to enter the competition over at gameartisans.org
If you're not familiar with Gameartisans, it's a community of game artists and animators brought together on its forum to take part in competitions and post up pieces of work. If you are an artist of any form I would recommend checking it out as there is some amazing talent on show!
I had entered the competition before but never finished. This was due to my lack of expertise at the time however and I return this year with every intention to complete the challenge.
This time round in the character art category, we are tasked with creating a known super hero or villain originating from a comic and setting them in an alternate universe.
There have been some great entries so far including my friend Dan who has entered the concept category, where the same rules apply, and opted to create a Renaissance Spawn. It looks great so far and I'm hoping that Ubi Soft see it and ask if they can use it as a playable character in a future incarnation of Assassins Creed!
Check out Dan's entry here http://www.gameartisans.org/forums/showthread.php?t=26030

For my personal entry, I am envisioning The Punisher in Medieval times as a black knight
http://www.gameartisans.org/forums/showthread.php?t=26061

So far I have put together a reference sheet but I am currently working on a concept that I hope to have complete by the end of today. Here's the reference sheet for now but check back soon for further progress!

A new day, a new project

After my failed 3D-day project I am seeking some redemption and have decided to start working on a project devised by myself and the very talented concept artist Mr. Dan Widdowson. After sending him a rough idea for a character he very quickly whipped up an amazing 2D character concept

And so I am tasked now with developing this awesome image into a 3D model. Thanks to the detail along with discussions between me and Dan, I have a very clear image of how this should look or at least a basis for it and so now I am commencing work on a head bust.

I'm still developing shape at the moment and it's by no means perfect but I am pleased with it so far! I'm not going to rush this and intend it to take a good while to fully complete but I think that's a good thing really. As you can see this is just a bust but I intend it to be the basis for the finished model and probably project it on to the full figure. That is a long way away yet though but I'll post updates at major milestones so check back soon!

Knowing when to call it a day...

Not really happy with how this one is going so might have to write it off and move on.
It's a learning experience and I know that more time concepting is needed and to not over complicate the model if its intended as a one day project... :/ shame really but oh well...

3D-Day #2 - Base Mesh

It's taken far too long as I couldn't decide on what pipeline to take but I'm gonna really up the ante and plow on with this!

Can't stop, I've got sculpting to do!

3D-Day #1 - Concept

Where do I begin?! While it's exciting to think about starting a day like this, it's also like "OK GO!.....errrmm?"
Do I create a male or female character? Set now or in the future? Or the past even? Are they even human? What is the meaning of life? ARRRGGHH! It can be quite difficult to get going kind of like writing a story or an essay for school, I always used to find writing the first paragraph the hardest part.
So I turned to the very useful tool that is Alchemy, a free drawing program that lets you just completely free up and get scribble away, it's awesome! http://al.chemy.org/
I had a scribble and this was the first thing I came up with that I thought "Yes...yeah this could turn into something good!"

I love this program because as I described it to Dan, it's like looking at a cloud in the sky and seeing a face or creature and feeling inspired to recreate that!

What I saw was a queen. A somewhat abstract queen of course but albeit a royal figure that was a bit crazy, which instantly made me think of Helena Bonham Carter in Alice in Wonderland. I'm not a huge fan of the film but I loved her performance all the same!

With this in mind I've pieced together a mood board for the creation.

My thoughts on the project as it stands are that I want to create an abstract model. A character that doesn't conform to standard proportions that can be seen more as a cartoon like character but with good detail in the garments and crazy big hair! The colour scheme is something I've wanted to try for a while with predominantly white all over making good use of the ambient occlusion but then combining that with a strong purple. I'm not definite on the blue yet but I was thinking maybe just for certain details the blue might lend itself well...maybe!?

Next step base model...

3D-Day!?!

It's nearly half 11 and I've got a completely free day so I've decided that today is 3D-Day! It's been too long since I have had a blog update so to counteract that I will be blogging my progress throughout the day as I start and (hopefully) finish a character. This first half hour before 12 I'm going to use to decide what character I will attempt so here goes!