CriticalOddness

Monster Concept Progress Update 3

Bigham — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 05:37:57 +0000

Well School is all done and I’ve started a few side projects to keep me busy until I land something. Here’s a little something i whipped up playing with the new cintiq….

UPDATE (June 30)
Ok, so I’m not happy yet on this one so I’m going to make it an in progress piece and post the process here. We’ll start with this one:

After some feedback i dropped out some of the larger, unnecessary chunks of detail and simplified large portions of the creature. I’m still not totally happy with whats going on with the back decorative pieces so those may change. I’ll post an update on this one soon.

I’ve started breaking up parts of the creatures exoskeleton and beefing up the legs. The vestigial wings have been temporarily/permanently removed for now.

Perils of Jelly Management

le blanc — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 06:01:25 +0000

I have the kind of body type where everyone assumes that I’ve lost weight.

I don’t know what this means.

Let’s say, for example, that I haven’t changed my net mass in approximately six months. Let’s say I last saw you five months ago. Let’s say I saw you today. You’ll say, statistically proven, without fail, “Holy shit, you’ve lost weight!”.

I haven’t been able to figure this out. I am able to predict it, clockwork precise. Why? How does this happen?

I need to keep my jelly in check. I am aware of my own jelly. I am aware of the jelly reduction that common sense demands.

But anyone I haven’t seen since at least February: “You’ve already reduced your jelly! You are a jelly reducing machine!”

But there is no jelly reduction. I weigh the exact same. There is something about my body type.

I posess some kind of nostalgia fatness. Some kind of fatness where people remember me fatter than I really am. Such that, even if I’m still kind of fat, people are all like, “Holy shit, you’ve lost weight.” It’s wierd.

Wierd science.

It’s kind of… demotivating.

SKYWHALER

Bigham — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 23:45:19 +0000

Well, here’s the explanation for me being MIA the past month and a half. This is the final split between 3 classes and was done with the aid of several Bioware employees offering crits. The proposal was for a game that would allow you to fly around in giant zeppelins and hunt `Skywhales` for their magical blubber, specifically a moby dick esque one that has recently killed your father. This would eventually lead to your facing off against the REAL villain who’s an insane Greenpeace nut who’s been manipulating the whales to become more aggressive. Enjoy.

The main character, with his uber functional outfit ready for skywhale boarding.

The Greenpeace villain Charlotte, who`s become infected with the genetic modification material that the Crabmen (yes from the previous project) used to modify the worlds` jellyfish creatures. So she`s slowly becoming a jellyfish-human hybrid while totally losing her mind.

This is Charlotte fully mutated into her final monster form and one of the crab man militia.

The jellyfish that fly around, land on ships and stomp on dudes in order to ingest them.

A Skywhale with ship size comparison. This was the last thing I did for the project character wise - rushed this out the door in 2 days. Really had to push these guys hard and fast in order to make them interesting and make them not `too` whalish. So they ended up being a bizzare combination of whales, dinosaur head bones, porcupines, elephants, sloths and traditional Japanese dragons combined with colors reminiscent to tropical creatures like poisonous frogs.

And the environments… For the interiors i wanted to do banal areas in which the main character could talk to the crew to increase moral and learn about back stories and possible locations to travel to or explore ingame. The interiors are of the engine room and the ‘Helium Ballast room’.

With the exteriors I thought it would be interesting to show an overview of the blimp as its docking with one of the sky-cities and then some cool perspective for a dramatic whale sitting as a crew member repairs one of the Zeppelin’s engines. I actually forgot to save the final version of the last one there so I’ll be reuploading this one later.

Kids book covers

Bigham — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 18:39:58 +0000

Here’s the two kid’s book covers- both have turner out quite good so I’ll post the two of them. For the two of these i decided to choose similar books to mimic in the layout and design. For the Lobster Dragon, since it is naturally a parody of Harry Potter i thought it would be appropriate to model the book after that series. As for the Oedipus book, Mike Mignola served as a major influence and i tried to work with alot of allusions to insinuate what would happen to the guy in the book.
These were actually put together as full book jackets though I’ll only post the covers since they were the only areas that were illustrated. Enjoy.

Oidipus Interior Illustration

Bigham — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:39:17 +0000

Here’s an interior illustration for the Oidipus story line - credit also goes to Cristy for the typography and Andy for the writting - thanks again guys.

and the rest?

Bigham — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:46:39 +0000

There were actually 5 illustrations as part of the last project involving the crab people. Three out of five turned out nice. Here are the last two good ones. For the first, we have the massive monolithic government area/market where i got to experiment with laying down a perspective grid courtesy of illustrator. Turned out to have its own set of problems but was interesting to attempt. The next one i had the lowest expectations for from the initial sketch but ended up turning into one of my favorites. It depicts the crab people riding inside their Jelly fish ‘vehicles’ harvesting their food source of ocean kelp, which hovers slightly above the surface of the water.

Crustacean city docks

Bigham — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 04:02:52 +0000

Thus begins the portfolio piece marathon. Here’s the dock area for the crab people who ride inside the jellyfish. This is all going to tie into the overarching universe of the Skywhales which is being tied into several projects at school.

Children’s Book finals

Bigham — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 23:24:38 +0000

Here’s all the character designs for the two children’s books. First we have roughs for Simon Boy Wizard in the cave of the Lobster Dragon along with the final renderings. This includes the previously two mentioned characters with touch ups and the fearless Beaver-Woman sidekick, Judith (Who’s actual name is unpronounceable beaver language). Next there’s the two designs Oedipus and the Sphinx. Tried to do something different with the sphinx by making it more lion-like and having a tattoo/colored hair of wings as opposed to actual wings on her back.

More children’s Book stuff

Bigham — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 08:01:51 +0000

Not much to say here - just some character designs for Simon Boy Wizard and the cave of the lobster dragon - I’ll have to see if I have time to do up a character study of his anthropomorphic-she-beaver-side kick… Otherwise - there’s still two more on the way regardless.

I’m quite proud of this guy - He went through lots of revisions then was inked digitally and colored in 2 hours. Kind of a record.

Here’s the final revision of Simon Boy Wizard.

Historial Character Redesign / Children’s book stuff

Bigham — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 04:14:22 +0000

Here’s the rest of that assignment - with the Wendigo/Fantasy-Creature-Hunter-for-hire by the HBC John Rae. As far as a game concept goes, i thought id make it interesting in that he would sport a flintlock-shotgun with a side-attachment flintlock incendiary grenade launcher. Now that’s a gun.
Its surprisingly tough to make a guy with mutton chops look bad ass and not look like he’s just a heavily armed drunk stumbling out of a bar. His process was a bit tough as i was working less with a silhouette in the final and had to find a balance between making him appeal to a modern audience while retaining a look reminiscent to his era. Some ranged from him becoming ‘too’ cool to looking ‘too’ old fashioned and I found a nice even ground between the two in the end. Tried to focus on cleaning up line quality for the pencil ones so things communicate easier.

Process work.

John Rae - Front Side Back view.

John Franklin - Front Side Back view.

In another class we’re working on some children’s book stories. For one of them I’m teaming up with Andrew to do a proposal for ‘Simon Boy Wizard and the Cave of the Lobster Dragon’. First part of course is to create the characters to which I’m trying a different style for. Here’s something a little similar to stretched out Psychonauts characters. He’s supposed to be a total self absorbed coming of age prick who’s been kicked out of magic school and has set out on the road to prove himself as able to solve problems that confront him not with his utter lack of magic skills but his whit instead. Here’s a little sneak preview

John Franklin - the Wendigo

Bigham — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 05:54:36 +0000

First Assignment of the new year is a redesign of 2 historic characters. We’re given to opportunity to twist history a little bit in order to make the characters apply to a video game setting. Here we have John Franklin, famed arctic explorer who ended up getting stuck in the ice with his crew and forced to resort to cannibalism before dying of starvation regardless. Changing it up a bit, I have Franklin as the only survivor of his crew after he feeds on his companions, transforming him into a powerful Wendigo. Of course, we need a nemesis and that will be John Rae, who originally found Franklin’s remains - this time though, Rae has been tasked with seeking out and destroying the explorer a la Vanhellsing - but less lame. I’ve only got Franklin done at the moment but this will be one of those front, side back deals so stay tunned. I’ll also be posting the process on this one, something I’m going to start doing more often here.

I started off thinking of Franklin in a ragity, torn up captains outfit which slowly evolved into a multi-layered-arctic-homeless-man look. Finding that there was just a little bit too much visual noise, i tried two variations of silhouetted figures which would stand out more clearly on an arctic landscape. I’ve always loved the idea that transformation into the Wendigo was a disfiguring one and that out of desperation the victim would try and conceal it, hence the bandages and handkerchief. Sort of like a bizarre attempt to maintain their humanity even though its obvious the victim has totally lost his mind.

Final colored rendering.

Portfolio Updated…

Bigham — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 04:42:48 +0000

Decided to go about the arduous process of updating the look of my portfolio page tonight. So a more refined feel, my email is actually listed now, a bunch of old stuff has been removed and the Baron piece added. Small changes will be getting made here and there but this should be just about permanent now. Get ready for the influx.

Bigham — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 06:13:58 +0000

Time to get my ‘A’ game on. Last semester to pump out work to a quality that will put all my previous work to shame. I’ll be posting alot more character stuff as the next 4 months go on.

We had to do a WW1 themed blog entry for my character classes blog. This was heavily influenced by the work found in Mignola’s ‘Baltimore’ in which he does lots of spot illustrations. Really quick - done with brushpen and photoshop in about 30 minutes.

Rock Video

le blanc — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 20:15:13 +0000

Gord and I shot this a million years ago. I wasn’t going to put it online until I had more material to follow it up with. But realistically, I’m lazy. I may never make anything ever again. Might as well put it out there. New Years and all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3-vodQFF9Q

Maharaja

Bigham — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 04:36:43 +0000

Time for something a little “weird”. Illustrating a creepy, emaciated Maharaja being attended by children is a first for me. Tried something a little different this time illustrating children (which i never do) and focused alot on lighting effects which wouldn’t be defined by brush pen but by color. It was strangely relaxing to go back to doing lots of detail in a piece - even if it was all digital. I might go back into this one when i get back post surgery, but for now this is the temp final.
This now marks the last project of this semester. See you guys in January - unless we decide to post some hilarious left hand drawings.

Bigham — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:43:59 +0000

Tis be the end of the semester, so here’s a ‘chunk’ of that wendigo /forest spirit comic i was working on for the past few weeks. It was enjoyable - though i think i’ll go back in and redo it differently with more limited colors, or none at all. We’ll see - time depending. Plus this is only eight pages of about seventeen.

On another note, we’re disabling commenting since we’re being hit so hard by the creepy porn spammers.

Ze Baron

Bigham — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 06:37:21 +0000

Another fun time rushed project - tested a new method to do the shading on this one - worked out pretty good for the first try I think. Anyways it’s supposed to be a dramatic lighting on a character. Themed this one to the tune of sci fi-industrial-WW1. Next upload will be my animation run cycle for Molmar, sometimes Friday maybe.

Day 4

le blanc — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:44:01 +0000

Current Count: 7,561

I would really like to make the 10,000 mark by bedtime tonight. I think this is a reasonable goal. With any luck, I’ll be able to nail another 1,000 before lunch, and then I’ve got until sleep overtakes me to do another 1,500.

I’m happier with the story now. I like it more. I may even love it, actually.

It’s still terrible. But I’m beginning to feel like the mother of an ugly, ill-behaved hoodlum. Sometimes, the best part about something is that it came from somewhere inside of you. And sometimes, that’s enough.

Day 3

le blanc — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 19:27:24 +0000

I’m a bit stuck. Stuck has a different meaning here. When I’m stuck on a story written any other month, I can be stuck for weeks, stuck forever. I have written 1,500 words this morning. I stopped writing at 12:08pm. I have been stuck for approximately 16 minutes. The pace is so frantic, and the bar is so low, that stuck and taking a break are interchangeable. I will likely be unstuck sometime after lunch. If nothing appropriate to what has come before comes to mind by then, I will sic some terrible happening unto our heroes, not previously set up, no need for explanation.

Diablo Ex Machina.

Current Word Count: 5,565

Which means that I’ve crossed the 10% threshold. 10% of the 50,000 goal mark, at any rate. It doesn’t look like I’ve gotten 10% of my story down yet. My magnificently bad story. As though Uwe Boll were directing literature.

Day 2

le blanc — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 20:10:08 +0000

Count: 3029

Ideally, I’d like to be at about 5,000 words by bed time tonight.

This is among the worst prose I have ever written in my adult life. I’m pretty sure the story has been done a dozen times, and in one month time, I’m going to end up with a 50,000 word shit.

Usually, I go back, edit and re-edit as I write. This may be a bad habit. I have a very very difficult time writing stories above a length of, say, 2,000 words. They collapse under the weight of me editing and re-editing. I hate making major changes to the story, ever, because I’ve already spent so much time getting it juuuuuust right. Sometimes, it turns out, when you get to a certain point, major changes to the beginning are necessary in order to make the right ending work. This is the way things work.

Layman’s description of the difference between extroverts and introverts is this: introverts think to speak; extroverts speak to think.

I think maybe the same general duality exists with writing. Some writers outline vigorously, prepare, plan, research: they think the write. Other writers simply start writing, it seems like the ideas they’re using come from the beating heart of the universe itself, and only stop to think when they *really* have to. They write to think

I think my problem is that in editor mode, I’m follow the introvert paradigm. In writer mode, I just try to let space time channel its magic through my autonomous fingers. Editor mode tends to be more powerful than writer mode, but can’t itself produce much text — all of my large stories are savagely victimized in the conflict.

If anything, what NaNoWriMo is doing, is allowing me to let my editor brain sit this one out, and wait as my writer brain churns out a mountain of clunky mess.

I can only hope that at the end of this, when editor brain gets full reign, writer brain has left it something to work with.