Character Fixes

Friday we have discussed designs and if they work from the side and front views , for the wolves. Also, it was clear that the previous soul design was to distinctive where a more general design would suggest easier identification with it.





The wolf’s nose wasn’t following design language of the body that was changed. Also, in the front view, had various issues with legs, width, and head. Hopefully overall, now it is working much better. However, front view often tends to look strange, cause we are missing back legs and all.

 

For the good one, only little changes in leg positioning ( so it doesn’t feel like falling over) and tail proportions.

Soul Representation Concept

Discussions lead to development of soul representation concept. This one combines ideas from three other dolls. Also, in Leo's concept I noticed he'd draw it white so I gave it a go and this prooved  to diminish the sinister qualities  "soul " designs  had before.

 

It was guided, as always, by the reference sheet of native american dolls

Wolves Orthograph Views

I've used basic orthograph views to resolve the design further and make any changes after discussions with Leo and Justin Wyatt. Also, I should be thanking Justin, Andriana and Dom for their feedback, when I stopped seeing designs objectively. So, hopefully character fronts are as interesting as the concepts themselves. If these will be 'approved', I'll move to fully resolve them ( back views, 3/4 view for the good wolf, and details) and move to modeling stage.

The bad wolf.

tied with black matter his shield-like body moves lucely, by parts separating and coming together as he moves. When solving his front and side designs, bulky, sharp and mean qualities were kept as he represents Anger, hate, and greed.

The good wolf.

Changes to this one were in legs, referring back to dogs anatomy. It should be expressing that he is peace, hope and serenity.

Soul Designs

I quite like the one which is formed of floaty cloth. It keeps the idea of using a doll to represent the soul but pushes it at the same time to suggest a less obvious nature of it. I see it working quite charmingly with the light stream idea

Character Fix

Tuesday was a day of feedback on wolf Characters. After discussion with Leo and Phil, I also talked to Justin Wyatt. In short, it was obvious designs needed some problem solving and revisiting.

 For the good one things seemed to go over the top:  decorativeness  and saturated in complimentary colours  were obfuscating the shapes. I've added some mass to his neck and change the 'face make-up' .A little nice touch, suggested by Leo, was to get rid of eye pupils.

In contrast , the bad wolf , presented other set of problems. Mainly regarding shapes of the back  part of the body and how it would work in animation. He was looking stiff as a statue figure. The challange was to figure out how he'd work. So I've come up with this idea, which was kind of evident in the design already, that the bad wolf is tied with an anti-matter/black matter which is holding him in place. So when he moves parts come together and distance away.

I added tail ( finally :D ) and fixed the spine line.

I came across this truly useful video when understanding wolf movement:

Will  sure be used again

The Black and White Wolves

Last week I have chosen two wolves for each, bad and good one. For the bad one there was a debate, both seemed to have their own strengths.

Therefore I tried to compromise the design and came up with this third wolf. I believe it is nicely encompassing ideas of both of the previous wolves.

Friday , we both with Leo have discussed the visual development and approach for character resolution in terms of colour and texture .  So these are close to resolved character designs for both of the wolves .

 

The dark one was developing quickly and soon I realized it will be quite a challenge to make the good one‘s design as interesting. The idea to make it purely white with only accents of other colours soon proved to be insufficient. Because his also less saturated in shapes in regard to the bad one, so it seemed like he would loose  0:2 if shapes and colour don’t  come across as “complicated” as the bad ones. 

These designs doo capture how I’ve imagined them to look like. However at this stage I’m still ready to change/redo designs if our further discussions would ask to do so.

Initial Environment/Character Designs

Playing around with some environment ideas with a few thumbnails. Mainly experimenting with the use of colour and effects of the good/evil wolf area, as well as the final goal of the human spirit.



Some initial sketches of wolf designs, contrasting the two wolves with different emphasis on the spine eg. tall and proud vs a hunching feral stance. They may be a little generic at the moment which I hope to resolve with further development.

The Selection of 4 Wolf Designs

Discussions of the past 2 weeks have directed development of wolves design to these 4, selected out of.. so far 22 different design ideas for both of the wolves. I hope we could select one of each and I could start concentrating on them two. To solve how they  work together and so on.

Wolves might have 'features' of other animals, for example, a bat. They informed these designs as native Americans have a assigned meanings and signs to almost every common animal. For example, Owl being a bad omen, wolf being a symbol for moral teaching, polar bear being a good omen. It was also very common in their culture to give names of an animal to a person, that he deserved. These reasons lead to considering such other-animal incorporation in to the personalities of two wolves.

It would be very appreciated if you could express your preferences now.

Wolves Design

Having received loads of feedback from both, tutors and classmates I went in to refine some of the more successful examples . Mainly clarifying the construction. I believe by this point It will be clear weather these can be taken further or I should try and come up with some new ideas for wolves' designs.

I had an opportunity to speak to Justin today. He gave some really usefull advice considering the take on designing. Just how to start and think i different approach to mine. So I managed to pull some new shapes quite quickly. So here is new set of designs for both evil and good wolves.

Design Ideas for The Bad and Good Wolves

Today I had a chance to sketch out some ideas I had for both of the wolves. These are the sheets of variations in shape and structure ( I left other aspects like surface texture, colouring out of consideration). The main references while creating these, were wolf anatomy, of course, and native American carvings. Influence of their culture will be even better pronounced when we select particular designs and work on their better resolution.

Well, now its time to ask for your opinion. If you have any preference or comments over any of the wolves, drop a line :]

Character and Environment idea sketches

For our discussion when we meet, I upload some more in-shape sketches. This is only the very first ideas I tried capturing and serve more as guidelines on which the design would rely.
In my honest opinion, and also from Bob's and Godwins feedback, it seems this can be pushe way much further. The anatomy studies are playing here a lot, but maybe the boldess should instead.

And these fairly vague thumbnails aim to explore directions for environment. However, lots more, for sure, will come.