Poorly executed

One of my biggest problems as an artist is my complete lack of consistency. This stems from me not drawing NEARLY enough. I'm lucky if I get a good sketch in per week, when really I should be doing 5-10 a DAY. I'm hoping to carve out more of my time in the future.

Here's an example of a drawing that I think is okay, it's just very inconsistent (and has anatomical problems among others).

This is Spy Jupiter. This is just digital inking over digital sketching. The tentacles aren't filled in, so the outlines may get confusing... I think it's a neat pose and a neat situation for him to be in (entagled in some tentacles that seem to organically grow out of the walls). One thing I notice is his right arm's foreshortening. And his neck may be too long.

And, this version of Spy Jupiter goes "off model", even though technical there is no model for the character, it's all in my head.

Part of growing is adapting, and not copping to a particular "style" until all the fundamentals are there, but it's hard for me to do any kind of art for games if I can't distill my character designs into something you can refer to quickly. Consistent proportions, angles, outlines, etc.

I think a good exercise for anyone (and I'll try and do this) is to first, draw a simple character model (front, back, side and 3/4 pose). Then, for about 10 days, draw that same character in one new pose per day, staying as close to on model as possible, warming up with 20-30 quick gesture, skeletal sketches of the character to get a feel for how that character carries his weight, how he walks, and generally what makes him stand out from other characters.

If I get past some of this drawer's block I've been having, I'll definitely give it a shot.

Spy Jupiter Dump

After a week or so of farting around in my sketch book, playing with designs and proportions, I decided to sit down and do a walk cycle. This is very rough, and I'm hoping to simply get my feet wet. I need more intermediate frames and more exaggerated movements, but here it is:


Also, here's a enemy/boss design I farted around with:



And finally, I tried to simplify the Spy Jupiter character design, to make animation easier:



Definitely more to come.

Spy Jupiter: Color, Proportions

Here's a quick color/proportion test for Spy Jupiter.



I don't like the face much at all. It seems way too flat. And the goggles are awkward when they reach the back of Spy's head. I'm pretty sure I like the colors, which was the point of the exercise anyway.

I also fiddled with Spy's body proportions, and I think I hit upon a good model for Spy Jupiter. It's a good super-deformed proportion -- right around 3.5 heads tall, super exaggerated hair, larger hands and feet. Reminds me a lot of Classic Mega Man.



The thing I've always failed at is consistency in character design. Sometimes my characters are 8 heads tall, sometimes only 2 heads tall. I'm forcing myself to make conscious decisions about Spy Jupiter, really fleshing out his anatomy (pun definitely intended). Having to think about how long his arms are in 3-dimensions and making them look good in any pose is a huge challenge for me, especially without any figure drawing under my belt. I've got a long way to go in this regard.

If I want to apply this or any of my characters to a sprite-based game, I have to get consistent proportions down right off the bat, so that different animations (walking, running, jumping, shooting) of the character can be arranged in arbitrary order and still come off as looking seemless.

I wanted to get a standing/breathing and a simple walk cycle for Spy Jupiter this weekend, but it didn't happen. It's hard to break myself free of the Wacom, but drawing on paper is refreshing. It's obviously easier to draw on paper (and the results are much better, albeit not as clean), but without a quick undo option, every pencil mark seems like a commitment I'm not ready to make.

I think my next exercise will be creating a simple flipbook animation of the 4 key frames of Spy's walk cycle. Getting those joints to look consistent will be a challenge, and I'll probably learn a lot. Then I'll flesh out the inbetween frames, think about the secondary motions (hair, the fur collar, etc).

Spy Jupiter

Here's a sketch (aiming to be a model drawing) of my favorite character, Spy Jupiter:



I feel like going through the exercise of planning out the Spy Jupiter game, design document, maps and all. Until I find either: a way to slow down time so that I have 36 hours in a day, or some people willing to help really work on it, it'll have to remain the un-done project.

I am hoping to take a 3d modeling class (to complement the animation class I took last semester) and would love to model out Spy Jupiter. I think having pre-rendered cel shaded characters on a hand drawn/cartoony/solid shaded background would be trés magnifique.

I like the Magmalisk. I just think it's funny to have a giant lizard/dragon with a tail that ends in a flame.