fuuu

Well as my last post for some reason decided to not show the images for my game merch packaging project, I'm gonna have to upload them again.
Once again, here are the box net designs for my special edition game sleeve and action figure boxes.
Also, I made this projust tie in with the other, using the setting I had created to design the merch packaging for.

Right okay, actually, it seems the file size of my box nets is far too uber for this website, so if you really want to see them and you can be bothered, heres a link to my DA where the box nets can be found:
http://choochoomedic.deviantart.com/

Finished... sort of.

As I seem to have neglected my blog for quite some time, I should probably ramble a bit more about what I've been doing as its coming to the end of semester II.
I've pretty much finished both of my main projects now, and have a fair bit of work to back up the outcomes of both. But still, I can't help but panic that I've done everything wrong when I look through it all again...
For one of my projects I wanted to generate some conceptual design for a race of characters based around a certain theme. I chose to go with a "deep-sea" sci fi setting, for a supposed game called "Abyssal". After digging through images of lobsters, squids and other gribblies I started to scribble some stuff down which ultimately led to three final designs of the different species of the 'abyssal' race, and a host of vehicles, weapons and architecture to support the imagery and feel of the race. Anyway, as talking about my doings isn't really my strong point, I'm just gonna show you guys some of the bits I've been working on for this project...


For the other project I looked into the merchandise available for games, and researched packaging for action figures and special edition game sleeves to produce some mock-up designs for both. As I have never really done anything like this before, I found it to be a bit of a challenge seeing as my mathematical ability is pretty much non-existent...
But anyway, I'm gonna show the final box-net designs for my figure boxes and special edition game sleeve, and hopefully on friday if all printing and sticking things to things goes well, I'll have some actual mock-ups made to show... Something will go wrong I'm sure of it.

More fishy fluff

Just trying to churn out some quick variations on the fishman idea at the moment. Here's a couple of the better ones... Hopefully I'll actually be bothered to explain my ideas in some detail on here soon...

Texture Fluff

Seeing as I've slipped from keeping this up to date with what I'm doing, I thought I'd post something I've been trying out which I think has been successful...
I've been playing around with textures in my character concepts, not only as a method of enhancing the aesthetic of the design, but also as a tool to speed up the design process. I have tried it out on a couple of quick concepts for a sea creature, in order to quickly get a transluscent and mottled effect on the skin without spending ages trying to achieve this with layer upon layer of low-opacity paint. Considering these are just some quick rough concepts, I think it really helped to add some depth quickly and easily, and gave me more of an idea of what direction the look of this character should be heading.

Cityscape

This is a section of a city that I created just for experimenting with using images from maya models in photoshop for the purposes of achieving more accurate perspective and realisitic lighting in my paintings and landscape designs.

Damn you Maya

I've been practicing with Maya a little more, and I managed to put together a half decent sci-fi cityscape, which I planned on using in photoshop to paint over, to get some nice shadows and realistic perspective etc... However I decided it would be clever to play around with the lighting, and now every time I come to render my work, it comes up totally black. I've tried resetting to default lighting, but it just ain't having it. Anyway, in the mean time I attempted to further my techniques in photoshop by trying out a little portrait work. I've never done this before, and it has showed me that using reference material is incredibly valuable when it comes to getting realistic lighting and shadow effects.

Robot

I've been playing around with Maya a little more, and I've put together a basic robot. I'm not too sure if its finished yet or not, I may add a little more to it, the coil thing in the background is something I put together with the intentions of adding it to the design, but I hit a bit of an issue as I couldnt work out how to connect the objects making the coil together. Hopefully I can figure this out unless I'm going totally down the wrong path...

Anyway, once it is finished I'll have a go at mapping it and see what I come up with.

Bat, bat, come under my hat

After a bit of thought I 've had a change of plan for my second semester projects. Initially I was gonna try and re-visit some of the areas I overlooked in the last GDD (mainly the mechanics of the game and alot of actual gameplay). But after thinking about what it is that I actually want in my portfolio, I should really be working to progress my strengths so I am able to show off to employers what I am actually good at, rather than wasting time worrying about the things I am not so good at.
Ultimately I want to be involved in the concept stages of the design process, mainly providing character and environment designs that project a certain feel and mood. I want to further my exploration of this aspect by firstly producing a series of maybe 5-10 character designs which I will then select 3 or 4 from to model in 3D. These models may only be a bust of the character, but seeing as I currently know very little about 3D modelling, it should still prove quite a challenge. I am also considering rigging one or two of the models so that I can possible put a few of my animation skills to use.
For the other project, I'd like to work on some environment designs, perticularly thinking about the use of colour and texture and how it affects the atmosphere of the piece (relating back to my report). Along wiht this I'd like to work on several display pieces showing my processes and work flow, which more than anything would just look pretty cool in my portfolio.
As for the 3D modelling side of things, I'm slowly picking up a few more things now, and hopefully soon I can try my hand at modelling some detailed characters, rather than just piecing boxes and shapes together. Tutorials on the internet have so far proved very helpful to me, and I know some of you other guys may be new to this kind of thing so here are a few (hopefully) helpful links:
www.creativecow.net
www.tutorialized.com
www.lynda.com
www.creativecrash.com

Hairy Cube

I've just been playing with some of the textures and things on Maya which seemed pretty cool and interesting. I'm not really sure about how to correctly apply these just yet, so I just decided to make a hairy cube. Lovely.

Horrible 80's Vase

I've been having a dabble with Maya, I'm finding it alot harder than 3DS Max at the moment, but so far I've somehow produced some kind of disgusting 80's looking vase. Thought I'd post it up here anyway.

3D Models

I haven't posted on here in a while so now that I've made a little progress with some 3D work I thought I'd share what I produced. Its pretty basic and not as detailed as I'd like, but I still need to practice with mapping and all the complicated stuff so I can make something a little better.

This was just a simple idea intended to look something like an engineer's workshop, theres a bit of lighting also and some glass effects in the windows, even though you can't really tell because it has nothing to reflect. I'm happy with it for a first try anyway. Next I'd like to have a go at making something organic...