Elsa - Turnaround for 3D game model

Meet Elsa, my first character turnaround I have ever worked on.  I finished it early February.  Personally, I think this one is better than Myria, but they both have a lot of potential.  One of the hardest things for me right now designing characters is not sticking to just the original idea.  Once I find an idea I like, I stick with it.  Which, actually, is quite a horrible thing to do.  I need my designs to be flexible and ready to change in order to not let the designs get stuck, but always pushing to make the designs better and more fluid to stay focused with the story they are to tell.  It's not just about making a cool character, but about bringing life to a character in a story.

Perhaps, I'm a little carried away with long unrealistic hair at the moment.

Myria Turnaround

This is my second turnaround that I've worked on.  It took a long time to make.  One of the downfalls of this character is the long hair in the front.  The potential problems are for this character as the main character of a game is that the hair blocks the form of the character from the front, and will cause polygonal collisions which could ruin the immersion of the player in the game.  However, if you've played Bayonetta, you would know that long, or even complicated hair can be worked around and even help define a unique silhouette for a particular character.  I decided to go ahead and push for the long hair in the front.  Since the idea for this game is a 3rd person action game, the camera will follow the character - it may be more important to focus on the form of the back of the character than the front.

The colors are a little too intense, which is nice, but they don't compliment a dark vampire world full of monsters.  Part of thinking of color schemes is knowing the background the character is going to be set in.

I adjusted the colors a little bit from the top picture which is the original limited color pallet design.  I desaturated the colors by adding a little bit of green hue to the whole design to lessen the intensity of the red, also to keep the colors a bit gloomy.  Then I added back in some brown to the leather and some maroonish red into the pants to bring it back to my goal for Myria.  This character will stand out nicely in heavily forested areas, and bluish backgrounds of night skirmishes and castle dungeons.

Vis Dev for Games - Vampire Hunter Concept

I'm currently taking a class about visual development for video games.  It's a pretty nice class.  I get to learn a bit about conceptual art specifically for the game design process.  Right now I'm working more along the lines of character design.  I've been doing many preliminary drawings for a specific character of my own design with props and personality development.  This is the character concept so for.

 

 

This is just a rough value composition for a possible final illustration.  The basic premise of the character's background is she is originally a young innocent and nieve girl, whose love has gone missing in the Crusades and has been captured by dark creatures of the night.  She seeks help from the Church, though they are unwilling to help her with war being waged in the east.  A dark and mysterious priest though is willing to lend her a hand by giving her to power to go and find her love herself.  Without thinking, she accepts and receives a new and strange power.  Little does she know, in her is the power of darkness and slowly but surely it consumes her.  As she herself becomes captive of darkness, will she be able to save her love enslaved to a dark fate?  

I know men typically are the knight in shining armor, but I thought it would be pretty interesting to have a female lead.  A story of some white knight is just a children's tale, a black and white story.  But, a story of a soldier fighting for the church who has been taken captive being saved by his love who unknowingly has become possessed by evil to save him makes a much more interesting concept.  What will her love think of her now that she has sided with the Devil, while he has risked everything for God and the Church?  Will the means justify the end?  Sounds like a good drama, and perhaps somethings can be learned from the dilemma.

Childhood Dreams

It has been one of my childhood dreams to go to Japan and Tokyo in particular, though I'm not sure yet if Tokyo is going to be the place I call home someday.  Maybe.  There are a few game companies that I would like to work for there like Vanillaware, Studio Tales, Kojima Productions, and even Square Enix.  There are many games I want to make (so many ideas floating in my head), but one in particular would be one to rival the Persona series.  I just love that series so much.  It's hard for me to say which one company I would prefer above the rest, because they all are so talented and have some great titles.

A few months back I've been having some email conversations with Vanillaware, particularly about what skills they require for hiring a new member of their team, animation, illustrating, language skills and that sort of thing.  I was actually surprised that they responded to my emails since they were in English.  Come to find out, it's actually not impossible for a gaijin like me from the states to get work over there after all.  I even checked with Tri-Ace who makes the Star Ocean series about hiring foreigners.  They actually have staff on hand and classes to help you learn Japanese.  However, you do have to be pretty good at what you do to get in regardless.  The gaming industry is getting pretty competitive to get in these days.  But, you'll be surprised that many of these companies will actually give you the time of day to answer some questions if you're looking into breaking into the Japanese gaming industry.  One thing for sure I've found out, know your Japanese ( in most cases you have to pass a Japanese proficiency test).  Well, I'm working on it;)

To tell the truth, I don't fully know why I want to go to Japan.  It's partly because it's completely foreign to me, and going there would be an awesome adventure to live life differently.  I'm also a huge fan of the Japanese anime, manga, and gaming industries.  They're all wonderful story telling tools and I would love spending the rest of my life speaking to the world and hopefully encouraging and inspiring some people out there who could use a nice little pick me up.  I also know that my destiny is partly wrapped up in Japan.  You could say, God put it in my heart to go there.  I don't think I'll fully understand until I take the voyage and discover it for myself.

George Kamitani, from Vanillaware sent me this as a New Years greeting.  It's a little creepy, but pretty cool at the same time:)  I like it.  As far as I know this isn't a new game concept.  2010, Mr. Kamitani sent out a similar image called Three Graces, which started some huge rumors whether it was going to be Vanillaware's new game they're working on.  Sadly, no, at least as far as I know.  I have no idea what they are up to, except they have been doing some testing on the PS3, and that they will finally start incorporating some 3D elements now.  I dearly hope they hold on to their amazing ability to work on the 2D level, at least to some degree.  I'm actually a little embarrassed to point it out, but theirs a typo in George's name...

Future Plans in Akiba

Well, I'm planning to go to Tokyo - Akihabara to be precise.  I'm looking at taking a summer camp program at Digital Hollywood University.  It will be a grand opportunity to practice my Japanese, and meet some professional animation and game studios, as well as meet some fashion studios and get the scoop on the Shibuya 109 building.  This last year the DHWU summer camp students got to meet Studio Ghibli and I believe a Namco developer.  They also meet with some J-Pop style fashion designers which will be a nice bonus.  If all goes well, I'll be going the summer of 2012.  My portfolio would be ready by that time, I hope.  One of the things I learned when I went to the San Diego Comic Con is that there is a very high level of talent out there, so you best be ready when the time comes!  But, I also learned that many artists out there are skilled enough to get work, but they're too timid to give it a chance.  I thought I was pretty good when I went job hunting at the SDCC a couple years back, and I quickly found out that compared to most - I suck.  But, I also found out that there is work out there for up coming artists that aren't experienced or very skilled yet.  In any case the future looks exciting.  Tokyo, I look forward to walking your busy streets and getting to experience life there.

Akihabara is a city of the future. You know this to be true because of the giant killer anime school girls that attack the city periodically.

Life's Lessons

I've learned many things this past Fall semester.  I've learned to never give up.  It's not over until it's over.  My dad was in the hospital and had an unexpected heart attack which was a complication to an expected easy hernia surgery.  All the doctors but one gave up, he tried even though everything seemed hopeless.  And, even to his surprise my dad survived.  It was a true miracle, in the fact that every medical effort failed to bring him back, but yet one had hope and tried anyways.  No one knows how he could survive after about 45 minutes of no heart beat or signs of life, but yet he made it.  And, even the one who never gave up was shocked, even more so seeing that my dad fully is recovering and having no permanent brain damage.  It is true that not everyone is so lucky, but yet it's a great lesson to learn.  Who really knows why anything happens in our lives?  All that we can do is never give up, fight to the last breath; for you never know what lies beyond the bend of the circumstances and choices in our lives.

Apart from amazing life lessons, I continue to find myself closer to my dreams.  This past semester was the first semester that I have ever used Maya, 3Ds Max, and Adobe After Effects.  After some frustrating moments of learning something new, I find that I'm getting the hang of this new 3D monster devouring my childhood 2D Sprite world.  No worries, I plan on mastering both.  There's no reason why one has to replace the other.  Now I'm finally learning how to use Painter and Photoshop for digital illustrating.  I've been waiting since the day I started school to take a class like this.  So be on the look out for some cool new digital art coming in the next few months.  In any case, here is some work from the last semester using the Unity Game Engine and Maya.