"Into the Ancient Ruins" (Complete)

 

Whew! This one took a while - I really pushed myself to learn new things - new ways of rendering water, foliage, skin, stone. Care with how I handled the light, multiple light sources. Marie, my commissioner, was blessedly patient throughout its creation - and thank goodness for it. I feel like the results winded up being my strongest digital piece yet - I'm really pleased. Thanks again, Marie, for commissioning me to illustrate your wonderful characters!

Also! For anyone not yet aware, I now have an "Inspirations Blog" on Tumblr, set specifically for anything and everything that I find visually interesting, inspiring, or moving in some manner. I also tent to post image progression on there, as it provides a great slide-show feature. For progression on the image, check out its entry at The Shimmy Spot.

Cheers,

Mel

MDTG: Color Thoughts

My roommate asked for some thoughts and help with the color design for the film that he’s currently working on. As I’m an absolute sucker for color (And seeing as he is my buddy) I happily obliged. Above is a comparison of thoughts - what Pat handed me and what I, in turn, handed back to him as food for thought. Some of my accompanying notes:

•  Avoid using gray for a basis of color. It has an unfortunate talent for draining the life out of the hues around it, and tends to make the eye choose desaturated, sickly colors to try and match it: This can work in some instances, but there is ultimately a great deal of warmth in the story Patrick is telling with this film; it may serve better to reflect that in its color design. Pat’s also going for the warmth and sophistication of renaissance painting - gray as a neutral is about as far from that visually as one could get. Best avoided.

• Try not to use pure white for anything accept the glint of white light in the eyes. In this case, the same thing goes for gray - No touchie. Sepia tones will treat this design with more kindness - and better evoke the warmth found in renaissance painting. Emilio especially is a child with a  great deal of life and spark to him, like a little candle flame Whereas. Mia Talbert, in my own in-progress film, Caravan, was the polar opposite in her color design - she was supposed to look drab and miserable, like a plant that’s been kept indoors too long. Emilio, on the other hand is a happy, healthy child when tucked away in his own little world of imagination. You want him to look like he has blood running through his veins - a sense of warmth. Using a color tone for his shadow - I used a deep brown on a multiplied, low-opacity layer here, for example, and various tones of off-white to tan (all in warm hues) for Emilio’s colors helps. He instantly looks cheerier and more comfortable.

A quick, fun collaboration. More may be on the horizon. You can find much, much more on Pat’s film, My Dad The Giant, here at its official production blog.

♥Mel

Into the Ruins (Line Art & Flats)

A quick update to show you the clean line art and flat color stage of my current in-progress commission for Marie, of her characters Tyra and Marthin. Below is the line art of the rough sketch seen in this entry, and above, the flat colors, including some simple gradients to begin to explore the overall look and feel for the lighting. More updates will be coming along soon. Thanks for viewing!

-Mel

Roughage

A couple of rough sketches for you all. The above is the approves rough sketch for my current in-progress commission, including the thumbnail I settled on for the image. I'm having a brilliant time drawing Marie and her husband's lovely characters, Tyra and Marthin, again. The concept behind the image:

Tyra and Marthin are just entering an ancient ivy-covered mausoleum, its stairs likely winding down miles below ground into ethereal and uncharted ruins. As they've just entered, Marthin is traveling ahead just a little ways, reading the ruins with excited curiosity, to be certain they are not walking onto a trap or curse of any kind. There are curious stone edifices cropped up out a pool of crystal water, they covered in glowing, mysterious markings The pool itself has a small waterfall, pouring from a stone gargoyle's mouth. The light back by Tyra, she further up the stairs near the entrance, poised to fight at a moment's notice, would be brighter and beautiful, the ancient paneless window behind her allowing light to pour in from the deep forest outside. Down by Marthin the light would be darker and much cooler - he's heading underground, after all - and he would be lit, on one side, by his glowing staff, and on the other side, by the glowing hieroglyphs he's reading upon the wall.

 In addition, here's a couple of quick early-AM ARMSmasters-related doodles created while working on the project's newly launched production blog. They're rough and a bit dodgy, but were amusing to create whilst pushing around HTML and cropping thumbnails all the same. ;)

Cheers,
Mel

Ketrina DeLioncourt in 3D

Hey everyone! It's not often I share other folks' work on my blog, but this happening was far too awesome not to. Many of you may remember the character model sheet I created for miss Kat Bongard of her pirate RPG character, Ketrina DeLioncourt. Well recently, a very talented San Fransisco-based 3D character artist and modeler, Tim Woody, was kind enough to take on modeling Ket in 3D.

While the model itself is still a work in progress, the results already are absolutely beautiful - I love how well he's captured her design and character, and am very grateful for his time in effort in bringing Ketrina to life in 3D. I'll be sure to post the model's progression toward completion, as I receive it. Thank you again, Tim!

-Mel

ARMSmasters Production Blog is LIVE!

After a week of hard work putting the site together, The ARMSmasters public production blog is officially live! Please stop on through, follow us, and stay tuned as we chronicle our animated development process. Thanks, all! 

-Mel