Week 2 of FMP

Week 2 of our Final Major Project and it's been busy, but really fun despite the boring admin work.

Last week I had started on my first character/creature design. I was really excited to get started on this character as it's really weird and that intrigues me.

Following my project plan, I had given myself two days for this character, although I had startd a little early.

Firstly I wanted to explore the different breeds that are native to Japan, so I did some quick sketches to decide really the body type that would work for this creature.

I also experimented with merging a dog and human face together as this creature is a mix, the result was pretty creepy, which to me is fabulous.

dog breed designs

facial studies

jinmenken final

On Tuesday I moved onto painting some studies on colour and pattern for the Jinmenken to have. A few of these totally didn't work as a Jinmenken is described and dark and scruffy. I felt like the black design is too dark and over the top for this creature, so finally I decided to take the grey design forward.

I finished the final painting of this creature on Tuesday as well. I used traditonal Japanese paintings like those by Utagawa Kuniyoshi and Hiroshige as reference to paint the Jinmenken.

I'm not overly pleased with the final painting and I plan to refine the painting over the next week as I want the final painting not to be rushed and look of a good quality.

The next character I was set to design is Gashadokuro, this in its simplest form is a giant skeleton made from the bones of the starved. I was looking forward to this character as I have a soft spot for drawing bones, it's one of my favourite things as lame as that is.

I started with biro sketches trying to display the size of Gashadokuro so I drew the character in surroundings with the main character which Georgia designed.

gashadokuro

On Wednesday I started exploring some final character designs like expressions and poses. I got to work on some simple colour palette designs too, however there aren't many because they're isn't much to add to a giant skeleton and still relate it to the folklore. After dicussing the designs with Georgia that evening she suggested adding some small items like swords embedded into the bones of Gashdokuro to emphasis the size of this character.

expression studies

pose design

colour design

colour iterations

I finshed the final painting on Thursday and I do really like the composition and character design however I do want to show my knowledge on colour theory more. I like the painterly style and outline that I use in a lot of my paintings, however I worry that my style isn't professional enough.

I started early on the next character as it's super cute and I love it! The Tanuki!

I got to work on some sketches to experiment with styles and pursue whether I want to work in realistic, semi stylised or highly stylised. I love to explore realistic because I learn a lot during the process however I'm leaning more towards stylised as I enjoy experimenting more with shapes and design.

style experiments

Next Monday I will complete the design for the Tanuki and move onto the next character following my time plan.