Portrait Piece
Figure and Motion Creation Comic
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BRIEF: Creation Story/ Comic
1) PROJECT NAME: Creation Story/Comic
How is the project in keeping with the course outcomes? Write this out.
How will this project be in keeping with the PSLOs? Write this out.
2) PROJECT SUMMARY
Read 3 other cultures’ creation stories. You are to choose one and research the culture’s creation story and their art across time. You are to create a five panel comic page that depicts a section of the story using newly acquired knowledge of their images and color palettes from your research.
Preliminary work: see below
Final Image: 1 hand drawn, 1 inked version, 1 colored version, 1 typed story with MLA documentation listed on paper.
3) Objective
· What is the problem to solve?
Read 3 other cultures’ creation stories. Choose one culture and research their art from their beginnings to current time. Research their art style, color palettes, and materials. Research their material goods (clothing, housing, and etc.) and the flora and fauna of their environment.
· Details of Tone, Message and Style
Write this out. This should be in keeping with the culture’s own style of art and design.
The final image is of your choice. Define what you hope to achieve before you start it:
What are your intentions, desires, and goals through the tone, message and style?
· You are to create a page with a minimum of five panels that depicts a section of the story. You are to filter and apply the culture’s art and design style to the illustration of their story.
· What will be your measures of success?
· Are there multiple levels of success?
4) Target Audience
Alfred State College, Ergo, classmates, sophomores, juniors and seniors, and faculty (we notice)
5) List Deliverables
· Brief
· Documented research MLA. Show where you obtained the images and information from which you worked.
§ Document:
§ Preliminary sketches that allowed you to draw with understanding
§ Preliminary images for the cumulative image
§ Design Process recorded (with all rough drafts, feedback and alterations)
§ Screen shots of file management pertinent to this project.
§ Final image(s) and a detail of final image,
§ Write up
§ All on WordPress before critique
6) Competition Identified
Yourself – how to exceed your own expectations. Write this out.
DO in class
7) Time Line
· Stages of the project listed with due dates.
· Design Process worked into timeline.
· Final presentation dates recorded: WordPress and in-class.
8) Budget
· Cost: time, money.
· What supplies are needed?
· What grade is needed?
9) Key Stake Holders
· These will be the people you have identified as resources for guidance and others to present work for their feedback before the final presentation.
· Get their contact information and set days and times to meet. (Time line)
Creation Comic
For my creation comic, I have decided to go with the story from Norse mythology as it is one of the earliest myths I invested into as a child. The story where the sons of Bor killed the first giant Ymir and created the world from all the components of his body. After reading this, I have decided to create a comic that depicts the giant’s dead body parts/components assembling to make the world.
Sketches
1. Instead of doing completely separate panels, I decided to split my “panels” into the different sections of the giant and have them flow together of each part of the earth’s formation. Along with using dashes instead of straight lines to come up with the inking of certain components as I felt it gave a grittier feel to the piece.
2. This project has allowed me to work on Photoshop to get better at the program and to better my skills as a digital artist. It may not look like an ideal comic, but it is my interpretation to what I see this story playing out as.
3. Growing as an artist, I am starting to sketch out my pieces of work first and then building up from there. Then adding layers of color to give depth and texture is something I am starting to do as well. Though not too much yet, don’t want to over do any part. Still, growing as an artist and going through some pretty hard challenges in my life right now. It is going to be a long journey.
Creation Comic Layout, Rough Draft
Character Canon
Read More:
Eldrin Silverthorne Backstory
Eldrin grew up in the bitter, cold North of Faerun at Silverthorne Citadel. Along with all the other children of his home began to train in the ways of the ranger, around the age of seven. Upon completing his training with the Great Hunt, he became the Citadel’s most talented ranger. He soon married his childhood love and they are expecting a son, However, while patrolling the boundaries of the Citadel; the rangers noticed there was a siege going on. Rushing back as fast as they can, Orcs, Tieflings, and Dragonborns stormed the massive fortress killing everyone in their path. While sneaking in, Eldrin noticed his wife was tied to a pillar with a tiefling performing some kind of ritual. He goes to save her but is stopped by a massive red dragonborn begins to fight Eldrin, about to finish off the scaly foe, he hears his wife’s cry and distracted for one second. Is stabbed in the chest by the dragonborn, and thrown against the ancient tree in the courtyard. As his vision begin to fade, Eldrin thought he was leaving this world. Then suddenly he woke up to the morning sight of the massacre. Everyone dead, including his wife with her heart missing from her corpse. Inspecting the knife wound from the night before, he realized he should be dead. Eldrin then knew that something or someone was keeping him alive, to exact his revenge.
Research
Celtic Art
Typically, Celtic art is ornamental, avoiding straight lines and only occasionally using symmetry, without the imitation of nature central to the classical tradition, often involving complex symbolism. Celtic art has used a variety of styles and has shown influences from other cultures in their knotwork, spirals, key patterns, lettering, zoomorphics, plant forms and human figures. As the archaeologist Catherine Johns put it: “Common to Celtic art over a wide chronological and geographical span is an exquisite sense of balance in the layout and development of patterns. Curvilinear forms are set out so that positive and negative, filled areas and spaces form a harmonious whole. Control and restraint were exercised in the use of surface texturing and relief. Very complex curvilinear patterns were designed to cover precisely the most awkward and irregularly shaped surfaces.
Scottish Art
The earliest examples of art from what is now Scotland are highly decorated carved stone balls from the Neolithic period. From the Bronze Age there are examples of carvings, including the first representations of objects, and cup and ring marks. More extensive Scottish examples of patterned objects and gold work are found the Iron Age. Elaborately carved Pictish stones and impressive metalwork emerged in Scotland the early Middle Ages. The development of a common style of Insular art across Great Britain and Ireland influenced elaborate jewellery and illuminated manuscripts such as the Book of Kells.
After my research, I have decided to go for styles of Pixar’s Brave tapestry features and character profiles of War for the game of Darksiders: Genesis.
BRAVE Tapestry concept art by Production Designer Steve Pilcher. 
| WHAT IS TO BE DONE | WHY IT IS TO BE DONE |
| PROJECT BRIEF: Canon Character | |
| PROJECT SUMMARY | |
| Research other canons from cultures across time to analyze their interpretation of beauty, physical attributes used to identify people and artifacts, attributed to those cultures. Sketch and note details. Look up character designs from other animations. Make sketches and take notes. A written story. Develop a character of your own. This character must evolve out of an environment and social situation, which has shaped who they are, both physically and emotionally/mentally. It may be based on a character you have started to develop already. You are to draw them in five poses: front; back; side; 3/4 front and 3/4 back on Bienfang. You have to draw or sculpt their face in four expressions: neutral and three others. For extra credit an action pose may be submitted: sketchbook or digital. (Know that it will only be accepted if it is of high quality (not rushed). A single digital image (8.5” x11”) of the ‘Canon’ with notations that would enable another to replicate your character. (Use the final front image of your character.) No Manga. | Study the differences of cultures; ask how they arose, and how environments impacted the progression and development of a culture and their people. To increase your sensitivity to the nuances and immediately recognized differences in cultures and even in people. Increase knowledge and understanding form having to sketch. Learn to draw upon your own experiences and feelings and reactions to transcribe into original characters of your own creation. Develop a more thorough understanding of the human form, no matter from which angle or movement. Develop a deeper understanding of the face and how the emotions alter the facial structure. How is the body able to move and hold a pose. Emphasize, exaggerate the power or force behind the movement. Being able to pass work off to another artist to reproduce. Develop original work. |
| OBJECTIVE | |
| What are the problems to be solved? List these. What are your goals? List these. Speaking about your work. The struggles and the successes and how process, knowledge and skills are interrelated. | No problem, no solution. Record your process. |
| List Deliverables: -Brief -Design Process recorded (with all rough drafts and feed back: ongoing and final), Preliminary sketches and notes that show you drew them with understanding and used preliminary images for the cumulative image. -Screen shots of file management pertinent to this project. -Final image(s) and a detail of final image. -Write up. -All on WordPress before critique. -Final image submitted to ERGO. Jpeg, 300dpi, CMYK day of critique. (+ .25 bonus points) -Written response to final critique added to WordPress post night of critique. | Professional Practice |
| Details of Tone, Message and Style -Write this out The final image is of your choice. Define what you hope to achieve before you start it. What are your intentions, desires, goals through the tone, message and style? | Creating a path, a direction for you to follow. This will help you evaluate how to you are doing along the way. It can also act as a starting point for your final, personalized write-up. |
| Time Line -Stages of the project listed with due dates. -Design Process worked into timeline. -Final presentation dates recoded: WordPress and in-class. Fall in love with your work, so working over break rises out of your love and curiosity of what you are creating. | Staying on task without missing any aspect. Make a calendar of due dates: All research; story and character’s bio and physical description; preliminary sketches (full body and faces); 1st feedback and refinement; 2nd feedback and refinement; layout on good paper; 3rd feedback and refinement; inked images; digital color images, canon, and action pose(?) Involve your family and friends at home for feedback. (Just make sure you did not use them as a blueprint for your character!!) |
| Budget Cost: time, money. What supplies are needed? What grade is desired and what grade is needed? | Prepared for all aspects. Professional behavior. Passion for your work. |
| Key Stake Holders -These will be the people you have identified as resources for guidance and others to present work to for feedback before the final presentation. -Get their contact information and set days and times to meet. (Time line) | Being prepared for the unexpected. |
Digital Journal Week [9]
Alan Lee
Alan Lee was born August 20th, 1947 and is a well-known English illustrator and film conceptual designer. Watercolor painting and pencil sketching are his most common mediums.
Not much is known of Lee’s early life, but he came into the spot light when he and John Howe were hired by Peter Jackson. Together, they became lead concept artists for Lord of the Rings in 1998. Ten years later, both Howe and Lee came back when Guillermo del Toro recruited them for The Hobbit adaptation. But when Toro stepped down as director and Jackson took over, they stayed on to do what they do best.
Lee also concept designed for films such as Legend, Erik the Viking, King Kong and Merlin just to name a few. He even released a book that was a collection of his conceptual art for the Lord the Rings trilogy.
One of his watercolor pieces deals with the story where two dragons, one red, one white will determine the outcome of a war in Northern Europe.
His use of very cool, bland colors gives it a spiritual feel to this and a lot of his pieces. I really like the feeling that I could probably see this as a dream sequence as everything seems to have a bright quality to them.
Digital Journal Week [8]
John Howe
Howe was born on August 21st, 1957 in Vancouver, British Columbia. He began drawing around the age when he was in pre-school. As he got older, his expectations of art had made him frustrated at himself and his mom. Who helped him with enhancing his drawing skills. When he graduated from high school, he attended college in Strasbourg, France at the Ecole des arts decoratifs.
His most well-known work involve with the work of J.R.R. Tolkien. His partner in crime Alan Lee worked Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy from 1999-2003. He has also done artwork for board games, card games (Magic the Gathering), books (Beowulf), and other works.
Some of his early commissions included political cartoons, magazines, comics, animated films, and advertising.
He has a very unique style of drawing. All his works have sense of sketches within the finished piece. Very organic feel to them, this is the style I like a lot to replicate or hopefully incorporate into my own style.
FILM
Art has its own sense of evolution, from paintings in caves of the primitive man to the height of pieces blasted on the sides of buildings. People have their own way to express their ideas and visions in art. Some draw, some write poetry, some paint, and some even create it through music. For me, I favorite way to communicate art is through film making.
There are many components that go into making any kind of film. It could be a narrative (science fiction, fantasy, war, romance, comedy), a documentary, visual art piece. There is a process, and one must know and understand the stages to become successful at making it into the film industry. Yet, most don’t know the history
In the early history of film making, we can look as far back as 1832, when the zoetrope a small optical toy that is a rotating drum and, on the inside, has successive phase drawings of things in motion. Eadweard Muybridge popularized this technique with his very famous “moving picture” reel of a horse at full gallop to see if horses did in fact have all four hooves completely off the ground at some point. This technique was used to settle a bet between two rich men, one saying that all four feet leave the ground while the other did not believe him.
Even when you understand the history behind film, knowing the five stages of processing is a whole other thing. There is development, pre-production, production, post-production, and distribution. However, when you are just talking about the building process, you only need to worry about the middle three.
Pre-Production: In this stage you work out your filmmaking idea and how you will tell your story. Before filming can begin, things have to be finalized. This is where the director, producers and the executives come together to figure out how to proceed with the story. Crew and Actors are hired, set building, location scouting, story building, and many more, its all done during here. Once all the legal steps are done, it is time for the fun to begin with filming!
Production: This is the stage where you go out on location or use a sound stage to film out your story. The director works with the actors and instructs them on how to portray their characters. While giving them creative control to be able to tell the characters story. Being able to tell the story over the course of a set number of months can have its own challenges. Within those challenges comes obstacles of things not going they way they are suppose to. But as the director, it is their job to come up with solutions and consult with others if they need help. Remember, this is meant to be a team effort. In the end, it is meant to be fun going out and shooting footage. Note to have, you should shoot a bit more than you need, but if you shoot hours of footage it’ll take you forever to sort through it to find the bits you want. For a one-minute drama film you might need to shoot between three and five minutes of video. Documentaries – where you can’t control what there is to film – will need much more than this.
Post-Production: This is where all the footage is brought back to the studio and lined up in a sequence to what the film is going to be like. Then the next stage is to add the effects to make the picture come to life. Making it the best film that it can be depending on the budget and the skill level of everyone involved. Do a ‘rough cut’ of the whole film (if it’s short) or individual sequence so you can get a sense of the bigger picture.
Sure, you can make your films on your own, but when your looking on getting into the industry. There are many avenues you can go and jobs you can take up to have a good career. Some of the most well known ones include and not limited to Editor, Cinematographer, Colorist, Director, Actor, Producer, 1st Assistant Director, and many others.
Research material
https://www.careersinfilm.com/
https://www.britannica.com/art/history-of-the-motion-picture
Digital Journal Week [7]
Digital Journal Week [6]
Bryan Schulte 2/27/20
Todd Lockwood
Todd Lockwood is an American artist who is well known for science fiction and high fantasy art. Most famous for Magic the Gathering and for the Forgotten Realms source material books. Along with many of the cover art for the Legend of Drizzt series.
Todd Lockwood was born in Boulder, Colorado on July 9th, 1957. Not much is known about his early life, but Lockwood went to The Art Institute of Colorado in Denver. Soon after he began his career in the design and advertising world. Though within a year and a half he had won numerous awards to the point where he got so bored of continuous work of satellite dishes (Satellite Orbit magazine) and beer cans (Coors).
However, one thing that was a huge part of Lockwood’s life was the great immersive story of Dungeons and Dragons. Being inspired by the art coming out of TSR, he decided to dip his toes into the world of science fiction and high fantasy. After many months and many conventions later. He got work for TSR, within a year it was absorb into Wizards of the Coast. From 1997 to 2002, Lockwood worked for Wizards. When it was purchased by Hasbro, Lockwood has returned back to freelancing for commissioned works along with running online art classes on the side.
This scene is one of Lockwood cover art pieces for the Legend of Drizzt. I have grown up with playing Dungeons and Dragons. My dad played it when he was young and into college, my older Peter played when he was in high school. I still love and play it whenever I get the chance. Ever since Critical Role became popular, my love of DnD has grown. I have also begun to read the Legend of Drizzt series. Whenever I get to the scenes depicted on the cover. I just imagine the art coming to life and playing out the scene as I read. I especially love the dark undertones and cool colors and realistic proportions of the characters. If I ever get to the film/tv industry, it would be my dream to bring this series to Television. There is so much lore and history and characters behind it that movies are not going to cut it. Lockwood was definitely the man to bring these amazing characters to life.
Digital Journal Week [5]
Digital Journal Week [4]
Todd McFarlane
Well known graphic/comic book artist/entrepreneur
Todd was born on March 16th, 1961 in Alberta, Canada. He began drawing at a very young age and he picked it up as a hobby. As Todd got older his interest of comics grew and he accumulated many of them. He then would replicate the drawings within and would grow his skill as an artist. His favorite comics came from the creators like Jack Kirby, John Byrne, Frank Miller and many others.
After High School, he attended Spokane Falls Community College for a 1 year then transferred to Eastern Washington University. He designed his own program to focus more on graphics and art. He worked as a janitor to fulfill part of his baseball in which he had to get an on-campus job. Unfortunately, due to multiple serious injuries, his pursuit of professional baseball had ended. Later that year, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree. When his hopes of playing baseball didn’t play out, he worked at a comic book store to help finance the rest of his college tuition.
When he first began his career, he would draw pencil/pen, and/or ink. As he got more and more commissions, he started to use early forms of computer programs to draw out his images for cover art and comic panels. Coming into the more recent present, he has evolved to the use of very, very, very expensive drawing tablets. He can get the basic shapes done of whatever character he has done, then quickly fill in the base colors and shading within a matter of minutes to then have the finished result done in less than an hour. With his skill and today’s technology, he can make some really amazing pieces.
He worked for both DC and Marvel comics with his most prevalent icons being Batman and Spiderman. Though, two of his most famous creations are the alien symbiote Venom and the supernatural solider of Hell, Spawn.
McFarlane created Spawn back when he was in high school, he established basic drawings then enhanced them over the years. The early versions of Spawn looked a lot like Spiderman, but McFarlane has since changed the color scheme, added more muscle, and the very iconic demonic cape.
In most recent times, he has started up a toy collection line that anybody can enjoy and has made many appearances at many Cons from San Diego to New York City.
Many versions of Spawn have been made, but this is one of my favorite pieces.
The use of lines and highlights to show movement of his symbiotic like cape, the build of Spawn’s stature along with the symbolism of the giant, metal cross on top of the cathedral where Spawn made his home.
