Unreal Engine 4

Greetings and salutations! Today I wanted to share some of the things I have been discovering since I acquired Unreal Engine 4. Unreal Engine 4 is a beautiful piece of technology. It's post processing effects and the way it handles materials are some of the best that I have ever seen in the games industry. I am quite excited about finally being able to use it because I plan on rendering out the final game model for Aphrael in Unreal Engine 4. In addition, I am teaching myself how to use the engine effectively so I can create games in it because well, that's why I'm going to school, to make games!

Anyway, one of the projects I had made at The Art Institute was a first person maze game in the Unity game engine. This was before I had access to Unreal Engine 4. The textures were very basic at the time but I had programmed the movement system to resemble the older first person dungeon crawlers like Eye of the Beholder and Dungeon Master. However, that was because of my lack of knowledge on programming scripts. I used Unityscript for the game, but I had to translate how to do it from a C# tutorial explaining Prim's Algorithm. I actually wanted smooth movement between steps and rotations, but I didn't know how to do it.

Now comes in Unreal Engine 4. After messing with it a bit, I wanted to see if I could translate my maze game into the engine using the new Blueprints system. I had seen many things about it and it seemed to be an easier alternative to coding C# or C++. So I finally delved into the Blueprints and... I discovered how wrong I really was.

I discovered that the Blueprints system in Unreal Engine 4 was still a programming language. Instead of being text-based, it was node based so you look at code in a visual environment instead of a text environment. This totally threw me off. I came in expecting a nice visual flow editor for familiar code and discovered that I had to learn an entirely new coding language! While the logic doesn't deviate from other programming languages, because it is a visual language, the syntax is radically different from any language I have used before and that's saying something because I have used HTML, Python, Javascript, Unityscript, and C#.

An example of my use of the new Blueprint language in Unreal Engine 4

I think one of the things that make Blueprints hard to understand at first is that the flow of information does not read right to left like it does in traditional text-based languages. Instead, functions receive predefined inputs and are read graphically from left to right. In addition, some features that you could use in say C# or C++ are missing or not supported like two dimensional arrays. To use a two dimensional array or at least simulate one requires creating a one dimensional array and giving a unique ID to each index. Each ID then holds data that corresponds to whatever data you are storing in that array and how it is organized. I have not figured out how to retrieve data from such a structure in Blueprints yet but when I do, that will help enormously for building the collision array that my original project used to help restrict the player's movement.

The other thing that makes Blueprints hard to learn at first is that specific functions that you would normally expect like main(), void(), or update() are handled very differently. You do not call these functions but instead have to create references to them like update(). There are specific function commands like timelines that allow use of the update function. There is even an Event Tick; however, I discovered that the Event Tick is not exactly the same as the update function. Instead it is more like calling deltaTime in a Blueprint.

Everything is so different in Blueprints that I had to throw out what I knew about coding (except for logic which if you understand coding logic than that will give you a head start) and learn from scratch all over again. It has been fun though and I find the Blueprints interesting to use. Is it easier or faster to use than a text-based language? It is hard to say and I don't know enough coding to really make that distinction. However, I do like looking at the Blueprints because it makes it easier to follow coding logic than in a text-based editor.

I am happy with Unreal Engine 4 and there is a lot to discover with it. I hope I can make a full fledged game with it soon. Unreal Engine 4 is an entirely different beast from Unity, but I am having a great time learning it. I can't wait to render a high resolution image of Aphrael in Unreal Engine 4. That is going to be quite interesting and fun!

WIP: Aphrael Sculpt 2

Greetings and salutations! Before I begin, I just want to let everyone know that there is mild nudity in this post. Now I am posting today because I believe I am at the point that I can finally begin sculpting clothes over Aphrael's body. However, before I do, I wanted to show the underlying structure of her body to make it easier to understand how the clothes will fit on her plus I wanted to show her off with hair now sculpted on. Here she is below:

Front View

Side View

Back View

Now doing the hair was quite difficult. I went through at least two attempts to sculpt it until I got a result I wanted. How I finally got there is I used a method that is used quite often in games, but with subdivided boxes instead of planes. I used these boxes to lay hair around her head. I then combined all of the boxes into one mesh and sculpted it until it resembled hair, or at least my attempt to make it resemble hair anyway. Here is what the subdivided boxes looked like when I combined them together:

I used some soft select (or proportional editing as it is called in Blender) at this point to shape the hair closer to her head. Then I went to work on sculpting out some texture. Below is the final result:

Now I just want to point out that the hair is just a placeholder just like the body. This will help me do the final layout of the hair when I model the low poly version of the hair, saving me quite a bit of time. In addition, since I shaped everything similarly to how one would use planes for hair anyway, it will make it even easier later.

Now that I am at this point, I can finally concentrate on sculpting the clothes. I am hoping that the next time I post about Aphrael, the entire sculpt (not including props) will be complete. I hope all of you are having as much fun following this work in progress as I am building the character. Stay tuned for more!

WIP: Aphrael Sculpt 1 and #morefemaleheroesplz

Greetings and salutations! I have been hard at work trying to sculpt a high resolution model of Aphrael. Be warned that mild nudity is in the following images; however, I wanted to show off my progress so far. Take a look:

I think this is the best body I have modeled so far, but it is only the high resolution sculpt, not the low resolution one that I will eventually make. In addition, I haven't added clothes yet which is what I will do next once I add Aphrael's hair. I was thinking of using Blender's version of Dynamesh and use a sphere to extract and shape the hair strands. It will be hard work but it will pay off later because I can shape the polygonal planes of the low resolution hair around the high resolution shapes, saving time.

There were two areas that took me quite a bit of time to get right and that was her legs and her hands. The legs I had to make sure they looked right since they are a key component of her design and you can see the musculature through the hose she will be wearing in the final 3D render. So I worked them over and over, changing length, thickness, and the like until I reached a shape I was satisfied with. It helps to work off of tons of reference as well. The hands took much longer because the shape of the fingers were distorted from my stretching the length of her arms so it took me quite a bit to get her fingers to look right. I even modeled some lines into her palms and sculpted her nails.

Overall, I like her shape. Her back and buttocks I think came out particularly well. At the same time though, I think I may lengthen her neck a little bit because right now I think her neck might be too short. I will have to make sure her head stays proportionate when I do this though. Notice that I left the feet alone. That is because I only need the silhouette of the shape of her feet to model her shoes around.

Next post I will show off Aphrael with hair before I begin work on the clothes so stay tuned!

#morefemaleheroesplz

If you have been following my Twitter, you may have noticed that I have a few tweets with the #morefemaleheroesplz label. Read this article here first then continue on below.

Okay, things like what is in that article you just read make me mad. Not toward the writer, but towards the culture that pervades the game industry. This is one of the reasons why the game industry in my opinion has a perception problem. The game industry is not a boys only club; 48% of all gamers are women and the 18 to 35 year old bracket make up more than the entire younger than 18 year old boys bracket per 2014 statistics released by the Entertainment Software Association. The industry is missing a potential market here by not developing more diverse protagonists in their games. Not every person wants to play a white male skinhead (this type of protagonist is the current fad and in my opinion quite generic and annoying). So I have made it my mission to start a new hashtag on Twitter called #morefemaleheroesplz. Please spread the word and lets get more female main characters in our games (and not the sex object kind like Noriko from Heavenly Sword or Lara Croft from Tomb Raider if anyone needs clarification).

I will admit right now that a main factor for me buying a game nowadays is can I have a female protagonist and does the character design make them interesting? It is not my only criteria but it is a frequent one that I use. Please ask game developers to make games with more female protagonists and spread the #morefemaleheroesplz hashtag around. Maybe we can start making a dent into developers' and marketers' attitudes toward female protagonists and finally dispense with this "boys club" mentality that has infected the industry for decades.

Now On DeviantArt and Twitter!

Greetings and salutations! I have great news for everyone. I have finally signed up for an account on DeviantArt and have started a Twitter feed for my blog. I will be posting completed art pieces on DeviantArt as they become available and posting blog updates on Twitter. I can be found on DeviantArt at redvermillion-us.deviantart.com and on Twitter by searching @RedVermillionUS. So follow me if you can and I hope we all enjoy my new online experience together!

For those of you coming from DeviantArt or Twitter, I bid you all welcome! I am going to do a bit of copy-paste here so I can tell you all what the blog is about. I will be graduating in about a year so I thought it would be a good idea to start this blog so I can show my work and my workflow for potential employers and to build my online presence. Therefore, blog posts on this site will be mainly demonstrating my finished pieces and on the production workflow of current works in progress. While I may have many posts during a week, I plan to at least keep a minimum of two posts a week. My current work in progress is the character Aphrael Red for my "Four Heroes" project. Check out previous posts for details.

Thank you everyone who has chosen to follow me in this adventure online. Stay tuned for my next update as I have been working on my hi-res sculpt for Aphrael!

Sculpting is Fun!

Greetings and salutations! So I had a little bit of time sculpting over the weekend and the first thing I did was change the base mesh proportions. The original mesh was modeled from somebody with short legs. However, Aphrael has long legs so I had to change things accordingly. Compare these images to the ones in the previous post and you will see what I mean:

New front view

New side view

New back view

It's quite rough right now but I am happy with it at the moment because I will sculpt in details like muscle forms later. There are corrections that need made but I wanted an overall shape first before going into more detail. Aphrael is supposed to be around nine heads tall and the original model was only around seven I believe; and yes, she has a big butt to go with her long legs. In addition, I had to change the shape of her feet a bit because she is supposed to be in platform like shoes. Looking at the images at the moment, I may have to lengthen her arms a bit. The wrist should come down and be level with the crotch when at rest on her sides so I need to make sure her arms are long enough.

After I was done shaping the body for the moment, I actually started sculpting her face. As I said before, Aphrael's facial features are based upon Audrey Hepburn, so I am looking at lots of reference to make sure I get a good shape for her face. Here is what I have so far:

The start of Aphrael's face

Aphrael's face from a three-quarters view

Profile view of Aphrael

I am actually quite happy with the results so far. I have a good definition of her bone structure already in place now. The lips are being a bit more difficult and I may reshape them into a more pleasing shape. The next main part of her face I will start to bring out though is her ears and then start really sculpting her eyes. The eyes will probably be the hardest part because they are the part that defines the character the most so I have to pay special attention to them. Once I have the main forms blocked in with the correct shapes I want, I will go into further detail. Once the face is at a satisfactory level of detail, I will go do the same with the rest of her body; defining the surface anatomy of her bones and muscles. I will probably go back and forth with this until her body is done (no textures yet though) and then I will start creating the clothes. As I said before, you must create the body first, whether drawing in 2D or sculpting in 3D so the clothes can rest on the body in the correct fashion. Otherwise, it is going to look quite weird and incorrect.

In my next post, I will announcing some future plans I will be doing for the blog and my art so stay tuned!

Aphrael: 3D Base Mesh

Greetings and salutations! I have completed the base mesh for sculpting. Here is what it looks like:

Front View

Side View

Back View

It took me about four hours to get this done, but that was partially because I was watching a tutorial at the same time. I wanted to make sure I got the basic shapes down in as little polygons as possible because I am kind of bad with keeping poly counts low. My goal for the final character render is for 10,000 quads or less. Hence the importance of normal maps to bring out the details. The base mesh has 848 quads, which is very good so I was successful in keeping the poly count low on the base.

What is good about having a base mesh is I can use this as a base for all of my future character concepts. That is one of the most awesome things that I love about working in 3D is that you only need one model of a particular asset completed. Once you have that model, you can create multiple instances of the same object or use that object as a base for several new objects. Very useful and quite a time saver.

Next is the actual sculpting stage. I have never actually done a full digital sculpt before, just minor ones where I had a full hi-res model already and sculpted muscle forms and stuff on it. This time I will actually be starting from scratch so this will be a big learning experience for me. I have taken a physical sculpture class (one in real life, not digital sculpting) and I have watched countless tutorials on the subject so I am hoping to apply that knowledge to the task laid out before me. However, first I have to adjust the proportions of the model to Aphrael's proportions. Next time I post about Aphrael, it will be in regards to matching the base mesh to those proportions that I have outlined in the model sheets I created so stay tuned!

Aphrael Model Sheet for 3D Art

Greetings and salutations! Today I will show the model sheet that I will use for building the 3D model for Aphrael. Here is what it looks like:

Aphrael's model sheet with material selection plotted

As you can see, I have the front, back and side views; all necessary for when doing a character model in 3D. Note that this sheet is mostly reference for Aphrael's outfit, not for her physique. I will be using photographic reference for her body when I start sculpting. Like I said, her facial features were based on Audrew Hepburn and she has strong, large legs with a dancer's musculature. That and her finished 2D piece will be what I base her final model on.

You may have noticed that I have added something unusual to this particular model sheet and that is the materials I am going to use when texturing. Again, research is very important and I thought it would be prudent to know what materials I am going to simulate on the model before I actually start. This will help during the sculpting phase for when I sculpt in all the little details. In addition, I can build a normal map with the correct look to the materials to really bring out the realism of the piece. The materials I will be attempting to replicate and where they will be used at are as follows:

RED SATIN: Outer Bolero Jacket, Upper Necktie
BLACK SATIN: Inner Bolero Jacket, Ruffles, Bows, Lower Necktie
BLACK LEATHER: Black Shirt, Gloves, Belt
BLACK PATENT LEATHER: Shoe heel and tip
BLACK STEEL: Sword handle and grip, Pistol
STAINLESS STEEL: Shoes, Belt Cap
WHITE COTTON: Inner Shirt, Collar

Unfortunately, I could not find a good reference for black, dark, sheer hose for Aphrael's legs. I don't know any woman or have a girlfriend that I can ask to take a look at their hosiery so I can take a picture of the texture of the material on their leg. So I am going to have to guess the texture myself and hope to replicate it the best I could.

Next time I show Aphrael, I hope to have a high quality 3D sculpt ready to show so stay tuned!

Aphrael Red!

Greetings and salutations! Today I present you with a finished 2D drawing of my first hero and leader of the Four Heroes, Aphrael Red!

Aphrael Red 2D art

Here is a close up of her face so everyone can see her clearly:

Close up of Aphrael

I would say it probably took me around twenty hours off and on over the weekend to complete this. I am quite happy with the results and I believe it is far superior over my Beloved Heroine piece that I showcased last week. Now that the 2D concept (or is it promo?) art is done, let me explain a little bit about my process.

The majority of artists as far as I can tell usually block in all of the colors on the entire character first before getting into the details. I have worked this way before but I do not find it very productive for a finished piece. The reason for this is because I am quite lazy. I hate having to work super hard and only get a minimum amount of work or miss details when focusing on the overall image. Therefore, to make my work more manageable so I don't get overwhelmed, I divide a piece into smaller pieces so I only need to focus on that part of the whole image. This makes doing large works far more enjoyable. In addition, this allows me to evaluate each individual piece as part of a whole when I complete each one so I can determine if it fits with the rest of the image I am trying to convey. If I don't like it, I can go in and edit the piece separately until it matches the rest of the image. This method gives me far more control and allows a more tighter finish to the overall work. To provide an example, let me show some of the stages this piece took to get to the final image:

The head and jacket with the overdrawing

I always start with the face first because it is the most difficult to get right. Everything about a character whether it is their emotions or their history is shown in the face. First I block in the main base color, usually a medium tone and then start painting in shadows and highlights. Of course before I even do this, I take a moment to plot out where the light source is coming from so I'll know where to paint shadows and highlights. Once the shadows and highlights are done, I start to paint in more detailed shapes like the mouth, the nose, and so on. The eyes I have on a separate layer group so that they do not interfere with the painting on the face. Once I am satisfied with the face, I can move on to her collar and jacket. I do this with all of the other layer groups and when one layer group is done, I zoom out and check the whole piece to ensure everything looks right. If it does, then I move to the next piece and so on.

Ruffles and the main shirt added

The ruffles on her skirt took an incredible amount of concentration to get done correctly. The shapes of ruffles are complex because they are many, many folds in a small space. Painting that is difficult but I think I succeeded there in the end. I also enjoy the detail on her belt. I don't usually go too detailed on belts but here I felt it was necessary to provide a bit more authenticity to the outfit.

The base color block for the legs

Here is an example of blocking in the base color of a piece, specifically here it is her legs. As with the rest of the image, I used quite a bit of reference to get the color of the material correct, to capture the faint transparency of very dark hosiery, and to capture the shape of Aphrael's musculature through the hose. Her legs are an important part of the piece, so I had to pay extra attention to make sure I got it correct.

The completed sword

I am very happy with how her sword came out in the end. I changed a few minor details on the design, but overall it came out extremely beautiful. The very minimalist but slender design of her sword really gives it a nice, pleasing aesthetic. In addition, to break up the monotony of the black metal, I placed a lighter gray stripe on the quillions and added some random symbol and simulated text to give it a look as if the weapon is mass produced. In addition, I painted in the off-on switch similarly to how it is shown in my sketches to give the weapon more character. Finally, the energy blade itself is red to draw attention to it and to add more symbolism to the hot fiery heart that Aphrael possesses.

One thing that I want to direct attention to is the Layers panel. Notice that I have every layer and layer group named. Every digital artist that uses a program that allows the use of layers should do this as it keeps everything organized and it allows one to know what they are working on or where to find something they are looking for. In addition, it also allows one to lock a specific part of an image so you don't accidentally paint over it later.

I hope people like the design. I know I do. However, after I showed it to my brother, he brought up an interesting point: the outfit that Aphrael wears is more suited for someone much shorter. As everyone is aware, I designed her with heroic proportions in mind (9 to 10 heads tall). My brother thought it was a little odd because a tall person probably wouldn't wear an outfit like the one Aphrael wears. I'm glad he mentioned this because now that I think about it, it actually makes the character even more unusual and quite appealing. Can you imagine a young twenty-something who is almost six feet tall prancing around like a graceful dancer in a frilly outfit like the one Aphrael wears and swinging her sword around in beautiful long red arcs? Quite the sight I would say. Of course there was a more practical reason why I designed her this way which I had explained before and that was so I can highlight her legs along with the physical strength she possesses in them while she prances around swinging her sword. She is supposed to move with a dancer's gracefulness and designing her this way I think helps emphasize this.

Now that the final concept for Aphrael is complete, it is almost time for actual production. The first thing I need to do now is creating the model sheets for the 3D model. After that, production itself can actually begin. My workflow for this stage is the following: I will sculpt a hi-res mesh using either Sculptris or Blender then create a lo-res model in Blender as well. After the lo-res is done with the correct topology, I will UV map it in Maya and then bake the normal maps in Blender. The reason I am using different programs for some of this is because I just prefer one software's methods of doing things over the other. The Four Heroes is not intended for commercial use so I can use Maya for my UV mapping. In addition, I do not have the funds to purchase Zbrush at this time so I have to use what I have available to me at this time.

Anyway, once the baking of normal maps is complete, I can go ahead and bake a color map and then create the textures in Mudbox and Photoshop. Once texturing is complete, I will create an IK rig driven by an FK setup and then create a facial rig so I can create expressions and emotions. Finally, I can set up a light rig in either Unreal Engine 4 or in Marmoset Toolbag and create a final render in one of those programs. The reason for this is because all of this work is for my portfolio which will be completed by the time I graduate. If I can demonstrate my ability to create the best graphics available in realtime rendering engines which is what modern games use anymore, then that will show my competency and my understanding of pipelines for any game studio wishing to hire me.

Next time, the last stage of my pre-production will be highlighted: the model sheet. Then actual production for my 3D character can begin!

Stephanie Valentin

Before I end this post today, I just want to post a shout out to Stephanie Valentin. Her YouTube tutorials have been a godsend for me over the last few years and have really helped me to improve my art tenfold along with the techniques I have learned at The Art Institute. For any artist seriously wanting to reach photographic levels of excellence in their digital paintings, watch her tutorials. They are easy to understand and the techniques employed can be incorporated into your own style of work. Her channel is here at https://www.youtube.com/user/StephanieValentin. Thank you Ms. Valentin!

Cartoony or Hyper-realism?

Greetings and salutations. I am still currently painting Aphrael so I do not have anything to show yet. However, I did want to bring up something interesting that I had noticed while I was having a conversation with my younger brother this morning (yes, I have a younger brother, two in fact). This has to do with the evolution of my art style. You see, when I first started to draw back in the day (we are talking about the 90's here) I was heavily influenced by anime. I still am actually. I've been drawing since I was 8 years old and I started by drawing airplanes and my take on Garfield comic strips. However, my love for art truly started when I first saw the advertisements for a role playing game on the Mega CD (the Sega CD as it is known in the States) called Lunar. I was totally enraptured by the art style because it was so clean and beautiful and it was something I haven't seen before. I mean I have seen anime before like Robotech but there was something about Lunar and it's design that really spoke with me. I soon started to emulate the style in my drawings and this started to pave the way to my love of creating characters to populate my own worlds like the one in Lunar.

Now throughout the nineties, my style was very anime-like, but drawn more like pretty bad fan art. My dad pushed me to improve by giving me advice on shading and he even got me my first drawing book. I started to become obsessed with getting better but I could never seem to draw realistic looking characters, so I continued to draw anime-like characters that I enjoyed to make, all inspired by the anime and manga that I consumed. The majority of them were original characters of my own design, colored with only colored pencils. While I loved the works of artists such as Boris Vallejo, Frank Frazetta, Jim Burns and others, I was more interested in anime and it's potential as a base for my developing style. However, 1999 came and a single video game changed my interest.

Soul Edge was an arcade game that had a home console port called Soul Blade on the original Sony PlayStation. I played that game to death and enjoyed every minute of it, including the characters. Therefore, I was quite excited when a new entry to the series was announced and it was a launch title for the very awesome Sega Dreamcast. This was Soul Calibur and when I first saw the 3D renders for the characters, I was hooked. I knew that this is what I wanted to do; create my characters that look like the ones in Soul Calibur. Well, not literally but I wanted to make 3D versions of the characters I was always drawing. I was especially enraptured by the realism of the renders. These weren't 1996 Reboot computer graphics. This was the next wave in a new revolution of computer graphics. Ever since then, I have been striving to reach realism in my work even though I haven't gotten near that level until just recently (training at The Art Institute has helped).

This leads into my point: my brother asked me if I could still stay satisfied with the anime-like work that I had done in the past compared to my more recent work which is leagues better. He asked me this because we were debating about which style of art that we liked better: cartoony or hyper-realism. I was more into hyper-realism while he still liked the simpler but more expressive style of anime. I still like anime, but much of the modern stuff is more like mass produced anime than true classics like Vampire Hunter D or Record of Lodoss War. I still like some modern anime, but it is usually niche stuff like Elfen Leid or Mezzo Forte. I watched Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children but I only liked the CG, not the actual plot. Nowadays I almost don't watch anime at all. That doesn't mean I don't like it. I like some of the Tales series of games (my favorite is still Tales of Vesperia which in my opinion is still the pinnacle of the anime-style JRPG) and I am highly interested in Guilty Gear Xrd: Sign. What Arc System Works was able to get out of the Unreal Engine 3 is just simply amazing. I don't know if they realize this, but I think Arc System Works has really risen the bar when it comes to graphics for anime in any medium, be it television or video games.

At the same time though, I really love hyper-realism, especially in video games. I remember the blocky polygon models of Virtua Fighter and to see video games' graphical capability improve in the two decades since is just mind boggling. Games like Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Rise, and Heavy Rain set the bar for hyper-realism. Now we have game engines that simulate hyper-realism like the Crysis 3 engine. The environments that can be built is astonishing. However, at the same time, I've noticed that many western-designed games that go for a good amount of realism suffer from the same problem as many modern anime do: they seem forced, bland and mass produced. I think the term I am looking for is that they have no soul poured into them. Many of these characters or anime are a product of their marketing department and not of someone actually wanting to tell an awesome story with epic and memorable characters. Sometimes the story is memorable but the characters seem to be missing a spark of life to them. Maybe that's why I like Kim Hyung-tae's work so much because it is highly stylized full of heart.

In answer to my brother's question, I answered that I probably do not like my old style anymore. There are a few exceptions, but generally my past art looks bad to me and quite unprofessional. After thinking about this issue some more, I probably like my new style more because I like the direction my take on hyper-realism has gone. I think this is important because I want to add my anime influence into my version of hyper-realism, developing my style even further into something that is wholly unique. Not many hyper-realistic depictions of characters have style to them even though Final Fantasy and Metal Gear characters are some of the few exceptions. Maybe one day I can match Tetsuya Nomura's realistic but anime-influenced 3D characters. I don't ever plan on completely abandoning the anime style, but I want to take everything that I have ever learned from anime and other sources, including classical western art and its theories, and incorporate them into a unifying, beautiful harmony for my characters while still maintaining a fresh feel for these characters. I hope Aphrael will be the first of these new characters for my professional style. We will have to wait and see for the final result though so stay tuned.

WIP: Prop Design for Aphrael

Greetings and salutations! Inspiration sometimes comes from the strangest places. I was trying to come up with a design for Aphrael's sword which was supposed to be slender and more elegant. Inspiration suddenly hit me when I was just doing some random browsing on the web and saw a photo of the Shanghai World Financial Center. I decided to research the shape of the building some more and then decided that yep, this is the base shape I want for Aphrael's sword: simple and elegant but still sci-fi. Once I had an idea, I got to work drawing some sketches:

Aphrael's weapons designs

The original design was to have a flat top, but I kept thinking it looked like a spatula or frying pan so I tapered the tip of the blade. The blade is pure energy and is a bright reddish-pink while the physical part of the sword is a matte, metallic black or dark gray. The grip is supposed to be made of a rubber-like substance so it doesn't slide in her hand. A small switch above the hilt and just below where the quillions would be on a more traditional sword controls the activation of the blade. This sword is Aphrael's signature prop and will be featured in the final piece.

In addition, I decided to add a secondary weapon for Aphrael in the form of a pistol as you can see in the sketches above. I was partly inspired for this from a character in the new Guilty Gear Xrd game that has just recently come out. I was also thinking about what Aphrael would do if she somehow lost hold of her sword for some reason. Therefore, I thought it prudent that she would carry a smaller backup weapon in case of such an eventuality. The pistol design itself was inspired from several different sources, including the Beretta M9 and the Varista handcannon in Phantasy Star Online. I also placed a similar design element from the sword around the barrel of the pistol to act as a unifying design element. Like many guns, this one is in a matte gray or black steel color due to its material and fine quality build.

Finally, I had to decide how Aphrael carried her weapons when they are not in use. This was probably the longest and hardest step for me and I eventually decided that Aphrael's jacket has a sleeve on the back to hold her sword while her pistol is held at her waist by a holster on her wide belt. I made these decisions because Aphrael is right handed. She doesn't use both her sword and pistol at the same time; it is either one or the other. In addition, when she uses her pistol, Aphrael takes the proper form of a true marksman: legs apart with both hands holding the grip, her left supporting her right. I figured that if she didn't do this, she would probably strain her wrist pretty quickly if not outright break it which would be bad since she uses that same hand to wield her sword. While Aphrael has a strong upper body to wield her weapons with relative ease, the majority of her strength is in her legs; thus she has to be careful when using her pistol.

I've noticed that many video games do not take into account where characters actually store their weapons when not in use and just use in my opinion lazy workarounds. For example, Electronic Arts' Dragon Age series just have characters' weapons floating behind their backs and not actually being held by anything. JRPGs can be worse. In those you just usually see the characters reach around their backs and "pop!" their weapons just magically appear and disappear. Sega's Phantasy Star Universe tried to explain this by saying they were stored in a characters specialized nanospace but I don't buy it. I still feel its lazy design.

Now that the weapon designs are done, I redrew some of the concept sketch I had shown previously to highlight Aphrael's sword since that is her signature weapon. I am not highlighting the pistol because it is only a secondary weapon and doesn't add to the image, hence it is still in its holster.

The final concept sketch

With the sketch finally finished, I can move on to actually painting the concept. The next time we see Aphrael, I will have a full color concept using this as the underdrawing. This concept will be the base I will use when I build the model sheets for the final 3D version. Since painting takes quite a bit of time, I don't know what the topic will be in the next post. I'm sure it will be interesting though so stay tuned!

WIP: The Four Heroes

Greetings and salutations! Today I will show everyone some of the progress I have made with a project I have started for my school's portfolio show. At The Art Institute that I attend, graduates must participate in a Portfolio Show. Pretty much it is a minor convention of sorts for graduating students to show off their very best work in their portfolio. Students get their own booth and have the final say in the design of the booth. While I won't be graduating for about another year, it is always a good idea to get your best work ready early so that you can have awesome stuff for the show. My focus is on 3D character art and design so that's what my booth will focus on when I graduate.

For my booth, I will be reviving one of my old ideas I had several years ago before I came to The Art Institute. The project is called The Four Heroes and was inspired by an old magazine article on what type of characters the editors and readers would like to see if they made their own Final Fantasy type of game. I always liked Final Fantasy VII, but not so much the newer versions, particularly twelve which I felt was very uninspiring, bland, and had unnecessary characters (looking at you Vaan!). I remember reading somewhere that the original Final Fantasy had four warriors of light so I went ahead and designed four characters that I would probably use in an RPG. The result was this:

The original Four Heroes

I was happy with the result at the time but now it just looks plain terrible to me because I believe my art has improved substantially. However, I thought that making four new characters individually and then combining them into a new image in 3D would be perfect material for my portfolio. So I started coming up with ideas and today I will show off some of my preliminary work for the first character, Aphrael Red.

Aphrael's design was inspired from Shidou Hikaru of Magic Knight Rayearth and the red mages of Final Fantasy XI. I already had an idea what she was going to look like: a tall tomboyish woman wearing a red bolero jacket with a black ruffled mini-skirt, long strong legs and of course, short red hair. I started doing some quick thumbnail sketches of her doing different things to get a feel for the character:

As you can see, one of the things I was trying to get in these sketches is that she kind of moves with the gracefulness of a strong dancer such as a ballerina. Thus a lot of emphasis is on her legs to show her physical strength. The frilly outfit she wears is to help create a stronger contrast between the long lines of her legs and the more complex shapes of her upper body. In addition, I was also thinking of her personality like what kind of woman wears an outfit like this or why does she wear an outfit like this? I was thinking that even though she is kind of a tomboy, she is still quite girly or enjoys looking rather feminine so she favors ruffles, lace and ribbons. She is also quite flamboyant. Therefore her sleeves are flared for when she swings her arms in exaggerated movements so that you get large flowing shapes of red to draw attention to herself. Then as a nice little quirk, I gave her a small red beret as well because maybe she likes small quirky hats.

Her facial features were originally based off of Audrey Hepburn (who in my opinion was probably the most beautiful woman who has ever lived, period). I then tweaked my sketch around to give her a little bit more individuality as well as giving her the cliched beauty mark. Aphrael is supposed to have freckles but I thought it would be interesting to combine freckles with a beauty mark. I also did a color sketch with emphasis on her skin tone so I can get an idea of how to paint her textures later as shown below:

A color sketch of Aphrael

I wanted Aphrael to have red hair, but I am not too satisfied with the more orange tone to her hair and eyes that she currently has even though it is more natural. I am considering taming her messy hair just a bit and making it more coppery red to a berry red to match her jacket. Her eyes I was also thinking of making them darker as well.

Now while I was thinking about her hair and hair color, I also drew up a quick silhouette because I wanted to determine if a frilly skirt would really be the right choice for her design. I showed the following concepts to some of my classmates and instructors to get some feedback.

Character silhouettes of Aphrael

I was playing around with the concept of her not wearing a skirt and instead just having a bodysuit instead. However, as I had suspected, from the feedback that I had gotten, giving her the ruffled skirt and the bolero jacket would be a better and more interesting design choice.

Now that I had confirmation on which design would be better, I went ahead made a more detailed sketch of Aphrael; first her physique and then her clothes. I might want to warn those who have more delicate eyes that there is very mild nudity in the first image.

 

In art, especially figure drawing, it is better to draw the figure beneath the clothes first so that way you know what the forms and solids of the clothes are going to look like when you get to the clothing stage of the concept. I also drew Aphrael nude first because I wanted to make sure she had the physique that I wanted her to have. Special attention was given to her legs and I had to rely on some reference to make sure the musculature and the mass of her legs were correct. I wanted her to have big thighs, but not so big that they resembled speed skaters. I also wanted her to have dancers' legs, but not the skinny type but the strong, shapely type with nice, flowing curves.

Since her legs were going to be a signature part of her design, I felt it prudent that the hose or whatever material it was going to be have at least a vertical seam in front so that the viewer's eyes are guided along the shape of her legs in whatever pose she will be in within the final image. There is supposed to be a futuristic-like feel to her design as well, so I combined her shoes into the leg material for a more seamless line to follow and made her bolero more geometric. In the end, the design has three major elements: the long sweeping lines of her legs, the curvy and frilly shapes of her skirt, and the sharp geometric designs of her jacket. I think these contrasting themes in her outfit bring a unique harmony to the outfit as a whole and give Aphrael a feminine charm that I think is quite cute and sexy. While I disagree with how many female characters and their designs in the industry are nothing more than sex objects, I don't see anything wrong with adding a little sex appeal to a character as long as it's in reason and realistic. You don't have to design a woman practically naked to make her sexy and attractive. The same goes for male character designs even though in their case the designs are usually more like male power fantasies than the more slender but ripped swimmer physiques that are more preferred by women. I think many western character designers and game developers could learn a thing or two from Japanese and Korean character design for their male characters. There's a reason many of their games have a large female following.

Now that I have solidified the outfit for Aphrael, there is one more thing missing: a prop. As you can see in the silhouettes, I planned on having Aphrael using a slender sword of some type. I am also considering adding a secondary prop like a firearm or two. In my next post, I will cover the design process of creating Aphrael's weapons that she uses to fight her enemies so stay tuned!

Award Winning Artist!

Greetings and salutations! Today I want to show that I am an actual award-winning artist. The award I received was the Best Use of Computer Graphics for the 2013 8x10 Student Gallery Show! It was for the piece below:

The Beloved Heroine, Li Mingxia

This piece was entirely done in Adobe Photoshop CS1. I had based some of her design on orange lilies. This character was an idea for a main protagonist in a fighting game concept that I had developed the characters and plot for. However, her concept was really the only one I had a chance to finish. This piece is kind of old now (by my standards that is!) and I am certain I can improve upon it now ten-fold.

I've noticed that there aren't really any female protagonists or main characters in fighting games. The only one that I know of is the Dead or Alive series where Kasumi, a redheaded ninja, is the main character. Most female characters in fighting games are just support characters or eye candy for male players (Kasumi is not immune to this and I believe she is one of the biggest sex symbols in Japan). The ones that are supporting characters usually only play minor roles or drive the plot, sometimes in rather cliched ways like being a damsel in distress (wait, why is she in a fighting game again if she can't defend herself?) or a super nice person who turns out to be a destroyer of worlds/not really a villain and so on. There are plenty of female villains in fighting games, but main female protagonists are practically non-existent.

I have always preferred female protagonists over male ones, even when I was a kid. While there are plenty of male protagonists out there that I like (Son Goku of Dragon Ball and Yuri Lowell of Tales of Vesperia come to mind), I prefer female protagonists. Well, at least ones that aren't cliched that is. I don't mind the tough as nails ones as seen in many movies, but I think they are too cliched. My favorite character is probably the tomboyish Shidou Hikaru from Magic Knight Rayearth. She is the cheerful but emotional leader of the Magic Knights. One of my works in progress that I will show in coming posts is inspired by her.

Now moving on from heroines, I wanted to show a more recent piece that I had finished for a class project a few weeks ago. This one is entirely 3D and probably the first image I have made that I feel is on a truly professional level. Here is what it looks like:

My first professional-feeling piece.

The design for the kachina doll was much harder than I expected it to be. It was difficult to find reference materials on authentic kachina dolls and the clothes and symbols that adorn them. In the end, I based the design off of one I saw online and created original patterns and symbols that I felt fit with the subject matter. So I don't think my piece is really that authentic, but I don't think that was the point. I wanted it to look good and in the end it did. I modeled it in Autodesk Maya and painted the textures in Autodesk Mudbox and Adobe Photoshop. The two materials of the wood and cloth came out very well I think (especially in the hi-res print version).

So there is two of my pieces that I am quite happy with. Next time, I will show one of my works in progress. That one I will probably chronicle over the next several posts so stay tuned!

Welcome Everybody!

Greetings and salutations! My name is Jeremy Tarwater, an aspiring 3D character artist. I am going to school at The Art Institute so I can get my Bachelor's degree and get into the video game industry as a 3D character artist and eventually a creative director of a current studio or my own. I like to design original characters and it is probably my most fulfilling hobby. I am trying to turn that hobby into a career and I have a year left at school before I graduate. Since I will be graduating soon, I thought it would be a good idea to start this blog so I can show my work and my workflow. Therefore, blog posts on this site will be mainly demonstrating my finished pieces and on the production workflow of current works in progress. While I may have many posts during a week, I plan to at least keep a minimum of two posts a week.

So now that you know what to expect, today I will start with the design of the logo itself. The logo was a design that was to replace an earlier design that I was using. Here is what the old logo looked like:

The old RedVermillion logo.

As you can see, the original logo was quite busy. The inspiration was from the works of Mark Rothko's minimalist paintings. The many different shades and tints of reds in the rectangles were supposed to represent the many facets of my personality, of my being, my ideas and so-forth. The red color was to represent my passion for everything I do. I am a very temperamental person, even if it doesn't seem like it in the real world. That passion is directed into my art and I hope to learn how to channel it more to create very emotional and realistic characters. Finally, the red also represents my love for the color red. It is my favorite color. Anything that has red is almost a guarantee that I will like it or at least get a +1 from me like red cars, red fruit like cherries or strawberries (I especially love cherries), red lightsabers, red packaging, red clothing, and definitely red hair. As you may notice as I start to post more images on the blog, you may see many of my characters (or at least female characters) have red hair. It's not that I don't know how to do other hair colors, it's just that I love red hair because it's well... red!

As you can see, red is very central to who I am, hence the name RedVermillion. Vermilion itself is actually a shade of red-orange but many people associate it with red. In addition, I added an extra "L" to the spelling as a play on "million" to represent quality and richness to my works.

After I showed the logo to several of my peers at the school and some professionals, it became clear that there were some issues with the design. The biggest one was that it was too busy. Therefore, I made it a priority to simplify the design. I still wanted the facets of my personality concept but it needed to be simpler. Thus I came up with the gem like shape with less squares. At the same time, those shades of red now go from light to dark inside the gem. The text itself changed as well from Century Gothic font to the bold professional lines of Gill Sans. That font is the same used by many companies around the world, most prominently the BBC; thus I thought it prudent to use this font to exude a level of professionalism from my logo that was not previously present.

The final result is what you see at the top of the site. Far more simpler but still captures the original idea behind me and who I am.

So that's the story behind the logo and the name. My next post will start getting into my art and what my current works of progress are so stay tuned!