Here are some images of Disney character's that have been transformed and drawn in a more photo-realistic style. I just thought I'd post it up here because of my previous posts about Princess Jasmine and Esmeralda. Hope you like them as much as I do!
Esmeralda from Hunchback of Notre Dame
Princess Jasmine from Aladdin
A special thanks to Lija for sending me the link for this! It's much appreciated~
All credit goes to Jirka Vinse Jonatan Väätäinen for these fine pieces of work. If you're interesting in looking at more of this artists work, you can find it here: http://jirkavinse.wordpress.com/
This is an image from a Deviantart artist called elledupomme and you can this image and the rest of their work here: http://elledupomme.deviantart.com/
The colours in this picture are very well executed. I like the faint blue glow around the hair that falls so beautifully off the side of the moon. The dots of green and red bring about a really magical feel and the clouds look very real, light and fluffy.
As well as this image being very beautiful, the rabbit on the moon is what really reeled me in because I'm a big fan of mythology and the moon rabbit is a myth based in Eastern Asia. There's many different concepts of of the moon rabbit but it's most well known for pounding ingredients with a mortar and pestle.
Knowing the basic myth behind the moon bunny, I find this image very interesting because the rabbit is sharing tea with someone. Did the rabbit prepare that food? I love images that make you ask question and really get you thinking.
This slide shows the 6 images that most influenced the character I chose to develop which is my Dancer Concept.
The model at the top is what first inspired the dancer concept and all the other images had influence on colour schemes, materials and the environment.
This is an image from a Deviantart artist called animae_rian and you can this image and the rest of their work here: http://animae-rian.deviantart.com/
I found this image on Deviantart and the colours captured me immediately~ I love how bold and bright the top of the image is in comparison to the bottom. It creates a wonderful contrast. The glowing effect and the blending on the jellyfish really brings them to life. My favourite part of this image though has to be the hair. I really like the way this artist used different colours to separate the strands. It also brings together the rest of the picture because it kind of melts into all the other features below.
These are just some brief slides explaining the archetypes I've chosen for my character. I didn't feel that the 7 archetypes stated on the brief really fit my character so I decided to choose something else. I thought that a healer/cleric would be fitting for my character because of her caring nature and after some research, I found the perfect archetype, the wounded healer. This is a person who has suffered from something in the past and has gone through a transformation or softs, which propels them into doing good deeds.
I was happy to find an archetype that matches her personality but, in order to fulfil the brief properly I had to use one of the 7 archetypes stated so after a little bit of thought, I decided to join this archetype with the hero/heroine. I think helping people no matter how small is seen as an act of heroism anyway so I think it works well together with the wounded healer archetype.
As I want her to be within the healing archetypes I had to of course design a weapon/instrument of some kind that helps channel her healing abilities.
After looking at several artists, I've been thinking a lot about dancing props and how I could tie the aesthetic looks of this instrument to match her character. So, I looked at different designs of staffs and they all have an ornamental design at the top so I decided to create a feathered design to resemble a feather fan.
It looks very basic but what better to bring it to life than colour~ Like the caravan colour schemes, I decided to play around with different Hue settings until I could find one that I was happy with.
The colour I decided to pick was is this blue/gold combination because it matches perfectly with my characters outfit. I thought that the gold was quite important since it works together with my character's jewellery and the green stone in the centre of the prop matches her eyes.
As you can see here, I came up with two different ways of wielding this instrument. The one of the left is of course suppose to resemble two small hand fans. At first I was aiming to create a staff but I quite like the other design because it works better as a dance prop in comparison to the other so, that's the one I've decided to pick.
This is just a very quick doodle I did on Paint tool SAI so you can get a better idea of how my character looks with the props. This picture also gives a good indication of the size of these props in relation to my character.
Another thing I've decided to address after various comments during my presentation is the colour of my caravan. With it current colours, I've been told it looks more like a western wagon rather than a gypsy caravan and it's quite dull in comparison to the mix of rich colours inside. So I decided to have a play around with the saturation and these are the colours that took my fancy.
This is the colour scheme I have chosen. I chose this one in particular because I like the combination of both the pink/yellow and purple/yellow. These colour are also a little more tame in comparison to some of the other colour schemes. They're more subtle yet still quite vibrant which matches the rich interior perfectly~
Okay so, I've already designed the inside of her caravan so I've been busy working on the outside. These are a few very rough sketches I did. The overall appearance of this caravan is again based on the gypsy style.
This just shows the different elevations (Front, Side and Plan).
These were only rough little drawings to get an idea of the kind of shape I wanted to go for and this is my second drawing which has more detail.
As you can see here, the perspective is off and the wheels are totally flat. This was something that was pointed out during my final crit presentation so I went back and fixed it.
As well as correcting the wheels, I fixed the angle of the door and added the other back wheel (behind the stairs) which is suppose to be visible from this angle. I'm happy with how it looks now and the difference between the two pictures is as clear as day. I'm glad this was pointed out to me because I'm always open to any corrections and improvements. I aim to get better so, please feel free to share your views on my work.
Hyung-Tae Kim is a Korean Concept artist that's done work for the likes of Magna Carta and War of Genesis. the style he uses known as 'Manhwa' which is basically a term for Korean comic style and it comes to no surprise that it's similar to Western comics and Japanese manga.
I like how in Hyung-Tae's work, he combines both western and Japanese styles in his work. He over exaggerates the human anatomy but doesn't harshly outline them like in the Marvel comic books. Instead he uses his colouring to define the body's features. This is something I'd like to have a go at sometime.
I've looked at a lot of character work but I chose these two specifically because I think their appearance is fitting of a performance troupe.
Starting with the one on the left, her outfit is very feminine with the lace and frills. Her under-bust also fans out into a petal-like arrangement which also emphasises this femininity. Her appearance is also very striking from a theatrical point of view, all the way from the fish net tights to her umbrella prop. Which again, brings me back to possibly making a prop/weapon for my own character.
Now for the picture on the right. I think her design is similar to that of a dancer because of the few clothes. It's defiantly a good way to show off the female form too. Another thing similar to a dancer is the colourful and light materials like the veil attached to the back and her see-through sleeves.
I really like the green colour used in her design, it's very eye catching. And I'm the kind of person who likes all the smaller details but, I adore the leaf-like design throughout her outfit. It really brings it all together and gives an organic feel to the character.
Overall, I find Kim Hyung-Tae's work extremely inspiring. His outfit design are just so individual and distinctive.
Alex Drummond is a concept artist that mainly specialises in environment designs. He's got clients in lots of big industries such as Universal Studios, Marvel, Rare and many more. His work is very refined and his attention to detail is immaculate. I'll definitely be coming back to his work if we doing anything in environment design again.
I really like this piece, I think Alex has done a good job of creating a mystical atmosphere with the use of green/blue tones. The orange glowing orbs dotted around the picture also add to this and create a beautiful contrast with the rest of the surroundings.
His attention to detail with textures, the reflection in the pool and the lighting really brings the image to life. It has a soft after glow feel to it creating the perfect ambient fantasy setting.
I also like the way he's put a person in this setting because it gives you a good idea of size. I should really consider this the next time I do any environment work.
I think this is a great example of light and shadow. I really love the overlap of the cool blue lighting and the warm reds from the torches.
Strangely enough, the bookshelves are my favourite part in this picture. I really love how Alex managed to define the books by using the dark and light in the image. They aren't done in much detail of course but you can still distinctly work out what they are.
And again, use of placing a person in the image helps you grasp the idea of size.
This is one of my favourite images Alex has produced. The colours used in this picture actually reminds me of some of the settings in the movie Avatar.
He's created some interesting shapes with the trees and the hanging shrubbery which almost creates a veil around the area. That webbed-like effect also creates a very mystical feel to the image.
The water again is just so full of life with the different blends of colour and the reflections. The waterfall has a nice glow rather like the the surroundings on Twilight Princess during the night.
Overall, I adore Alex Drummond's work. He does a lot of sci-fi designs as well but I think I'm more drawn to his fantasy and ambient looking works.
If you wanna check out more of Alex's work here is his website..
This is just a quick doodle in which I was experimenting with colouring. I didn't really like how my turnaround seems to be so flat so I decided to do a rough drawing where I've coloured and shaded. It looks pretty damn messy but I don't think the gradient for the skirt looks too bad when you do it yourself.
The pose for this is suppose to be a dancing pose. Like I mentioned in some older posts, I think I really needed to draw something that clearly shows who she is/what she does. I just hope the messy colouring hasn't taken away from that.
Princess Jasmine is the second Disney character that I've been told my character resembles. She was created by John Musker and Ron Clements who are also very well known for working on The Little Mermaid, Hercules and the more recent animated film, The Princess and The Frog.
Princess Jasmine as you all probably know, is from Disney's Aladdin (1992). She's not a performer or anything or the sort so, I think the reason for the comparison with her and my character is to do with the use of blues and her black hair and maybe the skin tone. Also, the flat colouring I've done on my character sheet is similar to that of Disney.
Here are just a few concept drawings of Jasmine.
I adore the simplicity of these sketches. As well as doing expressions, I should probably do more work on drawing her face from different angles like on this image. I've still yet to draw some expressions for my character and post the one I've drawn based on my own photos but I shall get round to it.
The colouring here is very simple and it looks like it's been done with markers. I like the idea of using each stroke to define the folds in the curtains, it's simple yet effective. I also like how the jewellery stands out a lot.
In Jasmine's colour scheme as a whole, I think they picked some very good colours. Looking at colour psychology, Blue is said to have a very calming nature about it. It's not necessarily the shade of blue Jasmine wears but, the colour blue does have some associations to Royalty.
As for complimentary colours, Blue and gold are said to be a perfect match and contrast with each other very well. They're also a very rich colour combination which maybe the reason she has black hair to help absorb these bold colours. Black and gold are also another set of complimentary colours.
Overall I really like her design and going through it now, I can see a lot of similarities between my character and Jasmine but only in regards to colour. Still, very interesting to look at none the less.
Okay so, after having a lot of comments about my characters resemblance to princess Jasmine and Esmeralda, I've decided to have a look into their appearance and characteristics in more depth.
Let's start with Esmeralda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. She was created by Victor Hugo in the early Hunchback of Notre Dame novel in 1831, and has been re-created in various films but is probably more well known for in the Disney version.
As a character, she's probably the closest match to my creation because she's a gypsy and a performer. I found a very interesting blog here that goes through her history and where she originally came from. I was surprised to find her appearance is most likely based on Gina Lollobrigida who played the character Esmeralda in 'Notre Dame de Paris'. Tony Fucile, who was the animator supervisor for the character Esmeralda in the Disney movie, might even have studied some of the dance sequences that took place in 'Notre Dame de Paris'.
Take a look and tell me what you think~
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In this video, Esmeralda's dance starts at 2:19
I think that the way she moves, especially the very quick frantic movements and the way she uses the space or her stage may well be inspired by the above video. If I were to create a longer animation of my character, these two videos are definitely the ones for me to look at. Another thing I could look at is props. In both videos, Esmeralda uses props. Maybe this is something I could look into for my character if I have time to further develop her or, I could even incorporate her weapon into some sort of dancing prop or instrument because I've yet to design her weapon.
Here are just a few concept pieces I've found..
The big curly hair defiantly resembles Gina for me, and even the red outfit she wears is quite similar to the design they gave the Disney's Esmeralda.
Now, the top picture got me thinking about my own character and about poses. I should really draw a quick sketch of my character in a dancing position because action poses can tell you a lot about a character without having to explain. You see this a lot in concept art for example, warriors are usually in a fighting stance or at least looking ready and preparing themselves for battle. I should quickly sketch some images of her holding her weapon of choice and/or do some rough dance poses.
A special thanks to Lija Jursins for giving me the idea to look into Esmeralda and for sending the link of the 'Topsy Turvy Day' video. Thank you!
For my third mini brief, I had to create a flip book animation. I had various ideas of this and my first one was to make her dance or twirl. Then I started thinking about her clothing and such and I realised it would be harder than it seems so I had a play around with other ideas. One of my peers suggested doing a courtesy but when it came to drawing it, I actually found it harder than the twirl despite the fact it's a more simple movement so I decided to go with my initial idea.
Here's the storyboard work for my animation.
[I apologise for the bad quality scan, I'll be updating this post soon and replacing it with a better image]
Since it had to be done in a flip book, I only had to work with 20 pages so for the story board there wasn't really going to be lots of key frames so I stuck to the start, middle and end. As you can see, the sketches don't have much detail, the reason for this is not only because I wanted to focus on the movement, but because it was quite a complex movement, I wanted to keep her as more of a silhouette so it would be easier for me to draw.
I've done story boarding before for a film trailer I produced in my Creative & Media Diploma and what I did was use post-it-notes to help me gather my ideas and get a better feel for each frame and it was easy to do the filming from too. So, I decided to draw my animation out frame by frame on post-it-notes. I just found this easier since I'm able to trace of each image into my sketch book, that said, I didn't trace over the previous drawings like onion skinning, it was merely a method for me to transfer it easily.
And here is my finished animation. It's basically all the above post-it-note drawings all put together in sequence because I drew it frame by frame.
This is is the finished thing that I've transferred over to Photoshop for my blog and portfolio or work. It looks like I did the drawings for this fairly quick but It actually took a long time to do because the twirling motion wasn't as easy as I thought It would be. It sounds simple but it was hard to draw. I think I captured the twirling movement pretty well in this animation though.
My character is a dancer, a travelling performer to be exact and I'm still developing her background because it's still a little sketchy but I was suggested a nice idea by my sister about a travelling circus. I really like this idea because, with the archetype I've chosen and her as a character in general, she doesn't strike me as being a leading lady or main character and with a circus, she'd be part of a group.
So to tie in the whole travelling/gypsy/performer idea I've decided to do a caravan as her living quarters/environment. I had some good feedback about looking into Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles so I shall hopefully get round to doing a post on that. Either way, the caravan idea has spawned a bit of interest so I'm quite keen on sticking with it.
And here is my finished design of her little living space~
I'm so pleased with the outcome for this particular drawing. I think it's my best so far~ I focused a lot of attention to colour in this design which was inspired by all the gypsy settings I did research into. I've never done any environment work before so this was all pretty new to me but I found it very fun, especially when I was trying to get the lighting right. I started to play around with luminosity and different effects. Another thing I learned was to never highlight in white because it's a little too artificial and it's hard to make effects work with it so I found a dark yellow was good to use. Anyway, I'm very proud of my final image but I'm more interested to know what you make of it. Lemme know what you think! I'd be grateful for any feedback~
This is my finished piece now for the turn around. The three images, as you can see, show the progression up to the finished picture -The basic sketch, rough character outline and then a coloured version. I hope you like them~
In all honesty I'm not actually that happy with my final turn around. It isn't really to do with the character but the style of drawing I decided to take on. As mentioned in previous posts, I have more of a sketchy style but for the purpose of character design I thought it would be in my better interest to make a more clear drawing so features and what not wouldn't be deformed or misinterpreted.
The colouring here in comparison to my environment work is very odd too because these images just have flat colour. I think I might draw another version of this turn around with a more sketchy approach and colour the gradient myself because the problem I found with using the gradient tool is that it would be difficult to shade like this.
I've had a lot of comments on my work being quite similar to that of Disney and I've had obvious comparisons to anime/manga drawing which is the kind of style I developed since a young age anyway. I might not like this piece but, I'm still impressed I tried something different and managed to clean up my outlines despite that fact I found it very difficult. And instead of using heavy or clean black outlines, I could rely more on the colours to define her features and make them clear.
Overall I've obviously learned a lot about my own style and how to make things work without going outside of my own drawing style. It's also been quite a learning curve for me but I would like to get away from that anime/manga style and draw more realistic stuff and I think in order for me to do that I need to start experimenting with colouring and body proportions. As far as anatomy goes on this piece, I don't think I did that bad but the eyes are very typical of an character you'd associate in an anime though so that's something I need to work on. I think the cartoon-like feel from this picture has become more apparent because it has no shading so in that sense it almost feels incomplete to me. Anyway, these are all things I'll work on in the future and I if I have the time, I might go back and try do this again with a different approach like I said.
I wanted to take on this challenge so I could work on drawing different expressions for my character. Instead of looking up other peoples interpretation of the 25 expressions challenge, I decided to take photo's of myself doing all the expressions, or at least TRYING to. I understand some of them aren't very good but it was surprisingly difficult to force particular emotions and for the sake of character development they're all very over exaggerated. I tried experimenting a little with different poses too.
Before any of you mistaken this idea for being vain, the reason why I did this was because, I find that after looking at other peoples attempts at this challenge, you end up copying their style or way of drawing each expression and I wanted to make sure I didn't get stuck in that trap. I find that photos make a much more better material for referencing from because you can get a better idea of anatomy and lighting. Sure there are lots of artists that manage to achieve this with their style but anime and comic character tend to have a very different approach to anatomy by exaggerating features. So ultimately, I would press that photos are a better source for referencing.
This is one of the sketches of my character that I've drawn by using the expressions sheet above. This is drawn from the 'Angry' expression in the top right hand corner. I actually found this really difficult because I had problems getting the expression right so, the sheet above didn't really help as much as I had hoped. I think the translation between real life and a cartoon-like drawing was made it hard. I had to mess about with the mouth and eyes a lot to create a more believable expression.
Time is of the essence so I decided to mix the two outfit designs together to create a brand new outfit. There were features I liked on both of them so what better than to combine them? Anyway, now I've finally decided on the hair, make-up, skin tone and outfit I decided to get started on my colour scheme.
These were the initial colours I thought to use. The red, green and blue are quite typical of the Egyptian palette. When I first started applying all the colours I just couldn't get them to work together so I messed about with the different tones and although the red created a nice contrast with the blue, it just wasn't working for me so I took it out. So now I've been left with blues, greens and nice gold tones.
Another thing that influenced the use of greens and blues was from some photo I found when I re-visited the collection of pictures I took during my visits and such. There was two lovely texture/pattern that I photographed that I really liked the combination and simplicity of colours used. I also found some materials that my mum has used for her dancing outfits. I draped the material in such a way to help me get an idea of clothing folds but, I took quite a liking to the colours too.
I really like how I managed to gain a balance between all the colours and the gradient on the skirt makes a very nice touch. This clean style was quite a challenge for me though... This picture is part of three different poses for my turnaround (concept art/sheet). Because of this, I think I'll just carry on with this style for now but I have a gut feeling that I won't like it after a while because it's way too time consuming for me and I already feel like my progression for this module is going slow.
Now about her outfit, as mentioned at the beginning of this post, it's a combination of all my outfit designs. I wanted to keep the straps that go over her chest because they're matching with the drapes design and make the outfit work better together with that sense of continuity in the design.
I decided to add a little ornamental accessory to her hair to add a little contrast and bring more attention to her face. The veils came out better than expected and the opacity settings on them works really well to bring that beauty and delicacy. This is also a matching statement to go along with her background story and characteristics.
Overall, I'm really happy with the design, I just hope I do as good of a job on the rest of the concept sheet.
Following up on a lovely comment left by one of my fellow peers, I decided to make this post about different skin tones.
This picture rightfully belongs to CelestialValkyrie and I take no credit for this drawing.
I was kindly given this link by Clover Lawn for inspiration towards what kind of skin colour I should go for. This picture also has that beautiful sketchy feel to it that I like and the outfits and colours work wonders together; it's very fitting for the character I'm currently making~
As far as skin colour goes, I really like the creamy colour to this, it's a nice sandy tone but I think I might go a bit darker. For her environment I was thinking more of a desert-like world so I'd like to get a crisp, chocolatey tone. I do love the outfits in this image though.. My design has already got a lot of these features though, like the drape and the flowing veils. I do like the idea of her having a hood though. It works well with the idea of her being a traveller and a commoner so to speak. I might just draw a hooded cloak as part of her more casual look.
A special thanks to Clover Lawn for the comment and the link!
Okay so, I've decided that I want to use the Egyptian bob style in black; keep it nice and simple~ But here's some little doodles I did on Drawr. They're purely experiments but I thought I'd just put them up here. Drawr is actually a really nice website. It's very similar to that of Pixiv, in fact the these two sites are kinda linked together. It's a really great way of finding young and talented artists with similar interests to your own. I might post a few peoples work when I get the chance. This is the first time I've ever used Drawr but it was a fun experiment not being able to use layers and any fancy tools. It's a very striped down drawing system but none the less, you can still create some really awesome stuff.
This is the hairstyle I've decided to go with. My reason for picking this over the jazzy blue and yellow design below is because, the colours are way too loud and vibrant and I don't want to take any attention away from her outfit.
This was just a little mock up I did to see how the Tutankhamen spin off looks. I rather like it but I think to pull it off the colours need to be toned down a bit. But I've decided to go with the simple black do anyway.
