Work: Narnia- Floating Cogs/Creation scene

New visual for Narnia- I realised I'd done lots of concepts for plants but hadn’t done any of rock formations or natural landscape designs, so I created this image. It shows Aslan in the bottom right hand corner singing (as described in the book), but I have added cogs to the scene as if they are forming from his words, and the floating away to their destination.

I printed this image on the Uni printers and it came out really well, almost perfectly matching the on screen colours so I'm quite pleased. We have started laying out the book this week and this image will be in as a large fold out page for maximum impact.

Work: Narnia- Gate into the Garden

One of the scenes I am designing for is The Garden. This is where the tree from my previous blog post is situated and where Digory plucks a magic apple for Aslan. The Gate has a fairly basic description in the book, just as being Gold, with silver writing on it and surrounded by a wall made of turf. This Concept visual is to represent that gate.

Work: Narnia- Tree in the Garden

This is a rendering of the Tree in the Garden where Polly and Digory have to go and collect a magic apple for Aslan. In the book the description of this tree is quite basic so it left me quite a lot design space to play with. The book does describe the other trees in the garden as being “not only green but also blue and silver”, so I adapted this for the central tree and made it purple, green and silver- this makes it stand out a bit more showing it to be more important.

Expo Invitation

This is our invitation for the Expo- keeping with the Cog theme we tried to make it look like an old Victorian ticket.

Work: Wood between the Worlds SECOND render

Render number two, this is slightly more what I envisioned in my head but I still don’t think its right- yes it shows the look but it doesn’t quite feel like it’s giving enough information. I might do some tree concepts to try and explain the Idea a bit more; this would help give a wider picture of the whole design...I’m conscious that I'm running out of time though so it may have to do.

Work: Wood between the Worlds render

I’ve finally started designing the Wood between the Worlds... only slightly behind schedule. I started by sketching the design out then running it through Photoshop. It proved very difficult to render and I got quite frustrated with it, and almost gave in to despair! But then I tried a different rendering style using a little bit of photo collage to create a different look, resulting in this...

It’s not really what I want but as an image I think it looks quite nice and dynamic so I’ve kept it as some development work. Now I have to try and render it how I want it to look...however that may be.

Work: Laser Cutting

I went to the laser cutter the other day to get my model bits cut for the Great Hall of Charn, and here is the evidence. Unfortunately the laser cutter had a problem so I’ve not been able to cut the long walls, so for now the bits are sat under my desk waiting to be assembled.

I had leftover space on my sheets so decided to have the bits cut for a model of the magical bell plinth that sits in the middle of the hall. I forgot to take into consideration the thickness of the wood so I had to assemble it a little differently then I planned but I think it still gets the design across.

Work: Charn- Window of the Gods NEW render

I previously uploaded a render of “the window of the gods” showing the stained glass detail. Now I’ve done a complete rendering of the whole wall that runs the length of the Great Hall. On this version of it I’ve overlaid the brick pattern and CAD brickwork to show greater detail. I think it works quite well to get across a basic understanding of the style and atmosphere.

Work: Charn- CAD for laser cutting

These are the CAD files I had to make for laser cutting my model of Charn’s Great Hall. I’m going to go see the technician shortly to check the files are correct and then fingers crossed start cutting. I rekindled my relationship with AutoCAD to produce the files, and past experience taught me that curves are evil so thankfully a lot of the design was strait lines and repeated patterns.

I hope it looks good once made.

Work: Charn- Window of the gods

I’ve been working the design for the Great Hall of Charn up in CAD...its proving most difficult! This has defiantly been the most stressful bit of design so far. Trying to get all the arches, pillars, windows, Hammer beams, Doorways etc to line up and look good almost defeated me but its nearly finished now so the end is in sight.

Along the outer walls of the Great Hall are 13 colossal windows, 21meters high by 4 meters wide. Here is a visualisation of the stained glass within the windows. They represent god-like women of Charn (possibly Jadis herself). Again I have kept with the colour scheme of Charn and have over stylised the gods into twisted representations of people. Scary but beautiful is the tagline for Charn.

Work: Charn- Stained Glass Windows

Here are some of the designs I’m working on at the moment. The Charn Great hall needs to be vast in size and epically lit, therefore I decided to incorporate a huge Stained Glass window on the back wall, enabling me to play with light and shadows throughout the room.

This is a quick render of the central clock motif. The rose in the centre represents Charn’s hatred and fear of nature and the organic. Clockwork has almost completely taken over in this world so the rose imprisoned in the glass is trying to represent this.

This is one of the smaller windows to the side of the central rose window. The bound hands represent the cruel nature of Charn and their use of slaves and hostages. The colours that run through Charn are reds, blacks and greys.

This is a half rendered visual of the back wall in its entirety. The size of the door indicates the scale. The broken clockwork on the wall represents the clockwork nature of the world and becomes a common motif throughout the Great Halls design.

More visuals of the great hall itself to come.

Work: Dancing Lawn

This scene originally only started out as another tree concept, but as I got into it it sort of developed into a whole scene.

The basis for the design is around the location called “Dancing Lawn” it doesn’t actually appear specifically in the Magicians Nephew but it does appear in some of the later books. It could however be incorporated in some way into our film adaptation.

I wanted to play more with the idea of natural geological formations rather than just looking at individual trees. I wanted the area to look like the natural stone had been forced up and then a giant tree had grown across the central expanse, creating a sheltered cave-like space. To link with the Dancing Lawn idea where Narnian creatures could gather and throw outdoor celebrations I’ve played with the Idea that they have built bridges to connect all the stone monoliths together, allowing access to the larger grassland area. Giant Mushrooms also grow on the white stone forming smaller platforms around the larger rocks.

I wanted to do some more sketching because I don’t really do much actual sketch rendering, I develop my designs through sketch but once I have the basic forms I then put it into the computer and run it through Photoshop. So I wanted to have a go a sketching a design to completion, if nothing just for my portfolio.

I then added some colouring in Photoshop and added some extra shadows for a more three dimensional feel. I’m quite pleased with it now it’s done, and it may become one of the visuals for the EXPO, as it’s the size of an A2 page.

Work: Some more Flora

The concept designs for some Narnian plants are getting nicely underway. Here are the latest developments in the world of plants.

These first sets of 4 trees are designed to be decorative trees. They are very well trimmed and naturally quite ordered in their appearance. They could be suitable for the Garden Scene I am designing for later but for the moment I’m quite happy with letting them sit on the back burner for a bit.

The Bare Birch is a nocturnal plant, in that during the day it looks like a leafless twig, but at night it comes alive, emitting a turquoise glow from its sap that gathers in pockets on its branches. This creates the illusion of glowing leaves, only visible in the darkness.

This is a Candelabra Birch. Still a member of the Birch species it has the distinct white bark. The Candelabra is so named because of its branch structure which forms vertical catkins that grow upwards like candles.

This is a Fire Bud Tree. Its delicate leaves grow upwards, matting together to create a plume-like head, which resembles a tongue of flame.

 

The final decorative tree is the Flowering Horn. This simple leafed bushy plant grows naturally into the pronged form, where a single rose-like flower blooms all year round. If the flower is removed the plant withers.

This walking tree is one of the talking trees chosen by Aslan himself to become part of the Council to help look after Narnia. Its distinct yellow colouring is present in all the council members, distinguishing them from the other inhabitants of Narnia.

This is my second rendering of the Glowing mushroom- I tried to soften some of the edges under the mushroom to make it look a bit more organic and less strait edged. I think it works better now these changes have been made.

This final plant is my first water based plant. The Semi-Aquatic Giant Lily grows out of the water until it suspends itself by its strong roots above the water’s surface. This plant still needs a little bit more of a back story about its purpose etc

Work: Some initial designs

Now we are on the final stint towards the MA we have started focusing our work down, organising what we are going to be doing for the EXPO and our final work submission.

I started off by working up my Water Lettuce design a bit, adding more detail to the render, incorporating some feeding examples, leaf structure etc. The idea for these designs would be that they are conceptual studies, designed to show an overview of possible flora the director could populate any scene with, therefore a back story and contextual information needed to be developed. So with each plant I will add a brief description and relevant information to paint a visual, verbal and analytical picture of the plants.

After producing the Water Lettuce layout, I talked it over with Hannah and we both decided it wasn’t laid out quite how we wanted. It looks too scientific and doesn’t bring across the idea of clockwork, exploration or In-situ observations. So we sat down and had a big discussion about the book, layout and general guidelines on presentation. The following is the layout board we created:

We outlined example page layouts for every page eventuality so that the process of putting the pages together would be easier. We also designed any extra details we wanted like the Clockwork Page Runner and its colour variations, the page background etc and we got a quote from a book printing company and stuck samples down of the paper types etc.

This is the first page we put together using the new layout. It has some key images of the main plant, an example of the flower, an example of a creature Hannah designed to dwell in the tree and some sketch development images of the creature. The key written information is then added outlining purpose, botanical information, height, habitat etc I like this page layout, the background is effective but not too overpowering. I still think it needs a little bit of work as it still doesn’t sit comfortably on the page but we will sort that later.

This is an initial rendering of a fungus I designed for Narnia. I have written some background information for it if it needs it but this particular plant might just be put in the book as a standalone image rather than a fully developed layout page.

 

Since finishing these we have done many more images and designs but I will update those onto here later.

Style: Film references

Using our new Format (see previous post) we found some good film references; some past, some upcoming and some behind the scenes.

The first is Coraline (2009) which is “hand crafted in Stop-motion animation”. The author, Neil Gaiman, says that “Stop motion is such an interesting Medium because there is a realness, but you can also stylize your reality”. Stop motion therefore lends itself for mine and Hannah’s project as we really want the gritty textures of puppets but with that realness of stop motion movement. As said it also allows the reality to be stylised which is a key area in our design concept. In Coraline they also used Post Production effects to remove all the joins from Corallines various face moulds they used- this idea of using CG to enhance the stop motion is something I want to use for the set designs.

“It doesn’t try to be human...it is what it is, it’s very clever and slightly disturbing” Ian McShane

The next film is Frankensweenie (2012) a new Tim Burton film due for release this year. It is another stop motion film with a Post Production finish adding extra details and erasing marks. It looks crisper then a standard Stop Motion render and as said this is something I want to make use of. Its other unique feature is that it is in Black and White. I will be using a similar de-saturated look for Charn when I design it.

ParaNorman (2012) is from the makers of Coraline. It uses Stop motion mixed with some special effects. The movement, especial facial movements, in some of the scenes in the trailer look stunning and quite lifelike while still maintaining their character and texture of stop motion puppetry.

"It allows us to unite the versatility in design and mechanics of CG with the richness and solidarity of physical objects" (themakingof.com)

This final video is a short film by Carlos Lascano; A Shadow of Blue. It’s beautifully made using Stop Motion elements with CG backgrounds, Models, Post Production Animation and Live Action shadows. This is a good clear example of the techniques me and Hannah will be using for our telling of the Magicians Nephew. The puppet and its immediate surroundings, in this case the bench at the start of the film, will be stop motion animated and miniature set builds, with then fully CG backdrops. I also like how they use a key colour of blue near the end of the film, this is the same idea I will use for designing Charn but Red instead of Blue.

 

Style: Format

Long discussion regarding final format, in order to focus in design. Hannah and I agree that this would be flexible in directorial decisions eg all CG/all live/incorporating other techniques.

Pitch somewhere in between Coraline and Alice in Wonderland (2010)

ENVIRONMENT-  CG-scapes with real life interactive elements eg sets for character close-ups. Real/exaggerated textures, over-textured, handmade look.

CHARACTER-  Puppets, stop-motion. Exaggerated features and textures. Filmed on green-screen with sets/props for interaction (like A Shadow of Blue) Movement like a puppet is utilised for style and using the material to further the narrative eg Hanging people in Charn like hung marionettes.

COLOUR-  London; de-saturated sepia. Charn; de-saturated black and white with flash of red.

This may seem a long way from my origional vision of complete GCI (like Alice in Wonderland) but after discusion I now think this is a much nicer idea, producing an effective gritty design full of texture and interest would be more interesting to see and more interesting/challenging to design for.

Work: Redefining Roles

Hannah and I sat down before my placement and discussed at length how we were doing with The Magicians Nephew and how we saw our final product, what it would contain and how it would look etc.


The conclusion from this meeting was that we become “Pre-Visual Artists producing a Concept Outline” for the film. By doing this we were free to be as creative as we liked, fill in detail where detail was needed, and have more time to develop and produce a coherent visual treatment. To back ourselves up we researched practitioners within the field; George Hull, Walter P Martishius and Dawn Brown.


George Hull, Creative Director, ESC Entertainment
CGNetworks Production Coverage
Concept Art Production for the Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions


Commissioned to start helping the visual development process but later moved to the studio to join the Production Designer, storyboard, and Previsualisation artists


Drew design concepts for set interiors and vehicles


The film contained several thousand visual effects so this had him dedicating most of his time to drawing and painting key sequences from the script


“What was unique was the attention the directors paid to concept design and graphic story telling- very refreshing and creatively fulfilling”

Produced about 100 drawings of how set designs, miniature models and visual effects shots should look as well as 100s of colour storyboards including several high-detail production paintings

Pre-visualisation

“The process always starts by talking through the script with the directors and sketching out designs or scenarios: I would then ink in more detail and finish them into colour paintings or storyboards.”

“In post-production, I transitioned to ESC Entertainment as a Senior Visual Effects Art Director – I found the best way to provide art direction was to digitally paint ideas into highly detailed ‘key-frames’. These gave the crew visual targets to help describe precise lighting direction, colour palettes, value, composition and atmospherics.”

“Whenever I start an illustration, I think about the focal point and value composition first. I like images that can be bold enough to make the point in a few seconds, yet subtle enough to have depth and emotion”

“At the beginning of the creative process it is important not to get too tight with your work. For me, the production process starts with me blocking out my designs or storyboards in pencil first and then having the directors check to see whether I am on the right track. Because the Wachowski Brothers wanted considerable detail in the artwork I did, I would almost always ink my pencil drawings into higher design resolution.”

I did this illustration to pitch a few art direction ideas to the brothers

Besides making a scene look dramatic, a concept artist should always try to elaborate on the ideas as well. They don’t always get used, but it is an important part of the creative process.

Walter P Martishuius

Production Designer, Art Director, Set Designer

For a Production Designer, concept art is used as a communication tool to convey the look, feel and emotional content of the film as a whole, a set, or moment in the film

“The first use of the art is to express Walter’s vision of the film to the producers. The concept art is Walter’s opportunity to share with everyone what he “sees” for the project. At that point the look and style of the film is either approved or revisions are made. Once everyone agrees on the style, the images are shared as a source of inspiration with the rest of the production company. These images are usually presented in what Walter calls his concept outline. He will do an image for every major movement in the film. This way you can get a feel for the overall look of the flow of the movie. With the concept outline a viewer can see, at a glance, the balance between light and dark, colour, mood, emotion, shape and form as the movie progresses.

The concept outline can be as few as a dozen images or as many as thirty or forty or more.

The concept paintings can then be used by modellers, texture artists, lighting leads and effects artists as reference.

Dawn Brown

Illustrator, Set Designer, Concept Artist

Red Queen’s Castle (Alice in Wonderland 2010)

In Alice in Wonderland she was involved in the conception of the sets for the Red Queen’s Castle.

Worked with Set Decorator Karen O’Hara. Dawn produced concept sketches based on Karen’s direction and Karen showed them to Tim and Rob Stromberg (PD). Dawn the makes revisions to the design or if approved they go to set designers for blueprints then onto the shop to be built.

“Its the small unspoken details that are so important in telling a story like this.”

Most of the animal furniture Dawn created never made it to film but “that’s showbiz”.

For the red Queens castle Karen wanted lots of artwork- Dawn created over 25 pieces but only one was seen in the movie.

She created the environment by talking with Tim and Helena Bonham Carter so it would reflect where her character was coming from.

Articles:

http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/george_hull_concept_art_production_for_the_matrix_reloaded_revolutions

http://www.waltermartishius.com/conceptarthome.html

http://animatedviews.com/2010/tim-burtons-alice-in-wonderland-how-illustrator-dawn-brown-decorated-the-red-queens-castle/

Work: Merlin Entertainments Group

“The No 1 visitor attraction operator in Europe, No 2 in the world, Merlin Entertainments (Merlin) headquarters are in Poole, Dorset (UK).  Merlin operates an international portfolio of global and local attractions, among them many of the world's best known brand names - Madame Tussauds, The Dungeons, Alton Towers Resort, LEGOLAND, SEA LIFE, Gardaland, The EDF Energy London Eye and many more!

The company's 87attractions, 6 hotels and 2 holiday villages in 19 different countries across four continents; Europe, North America, Australasia and Asia, annually welcome around 46 million visitors, and employ over 17,000 staff.”

www.merlinentertainments.biz

I have just completed my 3 week work placement with Merlin Design Studios, London, and I had the most amazing time! The studio contained all the creative minds behind the various brands that Merlin own. I spent 2 weeks working with the SeaLife brand and 1 week working with Resort Theme parks. Due to Merlin’s need for secrecy when it comes to new aspects of their attractions, I won’t be able to show any of the work I did but, but for myself it was an invaluable experience and someday I hope to work for them fulltime.

Now back to reality I have lots of work to catch up on! PGD presentations hear I come.

Work: Plant Adaptation- Clockwork Tree

I’ve been designing some fantasy plants again but this time I’ve been trying to stick with the Style Guide that we produced for the Magicians Nephew. I decided to design a Clockwork tree combining a Willow-style tree and some clockwork mechanisms.

Clockwork Tree sketch

I sketched out some Ideas and decided on the following design. I Scanned in my sketch and put it through Illustrator (which I’m still getting to grips with). I tried rendering it in Illustrator but I still can’t quite get the look I want using Illustrator so I put the illustrator outline into Photoshop to Digitally Paint.

Illustrator render

In the style guide we said we wanted the look to be quite dark and a little bit sinister so I rendered the tree using dark colours making it look creepier. I also decided to add a eerie glow as if a light source was hidden within the Willows branches- this added a bit of mystery to the design. My colour pallet comprised of mainly dark greys and cool blues.

Original Painting which printed too dark

Photoshop Render

On my screen the final image looked fine but when I printed it, it was very dark and hard to define so I had to go back and play with the levels. The dark nature of this tree would fit well in my project as part of Charn’s environment or even the outskirts of the Wood between the Worlds.

Second Render

I did a rendering variation of the tree but this time increasing the lightness and adding some blue glowing fireflies around the trees. This makes the tree look less sinister and more magical...I’m not sure this is quite suitable for Charn but maybe appropriate for Narnia.

Work: Plat adaptation- Water Lettuce

For my project I need to create as many plants, animals, landscapes, forests, geological formations etc as I can as examples of my own practice for answering my research question for the year. After my previous blog post Research: Weird looking Plants (18/01/12) looking at some examples of existing and very unusual looking plants and fungi, I started to sketch out some ideas. I had already learnt through writing this post that nature can look very bizarre so I felt I was free to create some quite wacky and unusual plants, but I decided for this first attempt to base the design on an existing plant- the Water Lettuce.

The Water Lettuce was first discovered in Africa but now can be found in nearly all tropical or subtropical waterways. The plants leaves float on the water’s surface with its roots submerged below the surface.

This is my adaptation of the common water lettuce. I have vastly increased its size from around 30cm to 30meters. I have also transformed the root structure from a few fibrous tendrils to thousands. The main adaptation I made to the plant is that it no longer dwells in water- the large pod found nestled in the centre of the leaf formation contains a helium-like gas which the plant naturally produces, allowing it to rise into the air becoming a floating land plant.

I have designed many more details for this plant as to how it feeds, reproduces and how humans could use it but I will add these at a later date when I have produced a visual to show them. For now here is the Digitally Painted plant (which still needs a name):

My friend Cassie Peng (cassiepeng.blogspot.com) has been teaching me how to do Digital Painting in Photoshop. There are still a few things I want to work on with this image like texturing etc but I will sort those out later. As a first draft I am really pleased with how this image turned out- thanks Cassie you’re a good teacher!