Wednesday 21 October 2009

Little by little...

The greatest thing about 3D work is how meticulous you have to be in order to get something done. Maybe it's just me, maybe I have 3D OCD, but something this time consuming deserves to be perfect. At least, perfect in your eyes. Little by little, you tweak points, vertices and faces. The rough, wide sculpting phase doesn't last for long, but in retrospect it's a lovely stage where nothing is solid and you have no views or preconceptions about the work. The body shape, proportions or details hardly matter.

Then the detailing section comes in, which is also a lot of fun, but it's the most time consuming part. Thank god for Zbrush though, it certainly makes things a lot more manageable. 3D work no longer has to be purely about technical skill, it's a lot more artistic. Doing everything in Maya was depressingly slow. But nothing about 3D work is quick, unless you suck at it. Which I guess you can apply to everything.



So I spent a while modifying the body. The stuff I last posted sucks. Don't look at that anymore, it's uhh, not relevant anymore. As you can see I rotated the arms, brought the legs in and increased the size of the body (so the head isn't massive). So after that, I worked on the head (Ok, I lie, I did most of the work on the face and then the body - but who needs a timeline?!)

Front
1/4
Side

If these GIFs don't work then I'll kill something. Probably the first chav I see one the way to class tomorrow. Anyway, if they do work, they show my progress on the face from stage 1 to.. uhh, 9? As you can see, I'm glad I didn't stick with the first face that technically worked. Most of the work was done on the eyes, later on I worked on the nose and face shape a little. This took me most of yesterday to do. Which was a long god damn time of slowly moving stuff around. TV helps, so do drugs.


This is the stuff I did today. Most of the focus was on the body (because the head was generally complete). So for now I'm done with it and now I focus on retopologizing (say that 3 times fast - haha, you can't) and finally putting some clothes on her. Tomorrow I will figure out the specifics of how I do this, including how I join parts to her and cloth her.

TL;DR 3D is long.

Monday 19 October 2009

In commemoration of...

Since I tend to go off on tangents a lot when posting (I can't help it, my mind is a mess), I decided to do this post in the style of Squall Leonhart.

...


.....


.......


...Whatever. It's still a work in progress. I don't care what you think.

Friday 16 October 2009

Haruka Sató Cont.

Well, my last post ended rather abruptly, but it was late and well... do you really need an explanation? No? Good, moving on. Today was a pretty productive day. I expected it to suck because my PSP was low on battery and I left my charger at home. No music + nothing to do during the lecture = blow my brains out now.

So as I sat down, ready to pop the cyanide pill into my mouth and perhaps get out of the lecture via ambulance. I took out my drawing pad (my last refuge) and started scribbling more pictures of Sató Haruka. I wasn't exactly happy with my stylized drawings in the last post, so when I decided to try a new concept out I found it worked great. After that I scribbled more and I can say with satisfaction that I'm ready design and style wise.

So thank you, great American fashion hero lecturer. Thank you for forcing me so deep into boredom that I did something productive! Seriously though, it was pretty boring. But the optomistic thing would be to try relate it to games (or character) design. I guess the easy connection is characters wear clothes (though some don't wear many), so in a way, relating the clothes to the personality is important. Especially if you're trying to sell a persona in a picture.

Ugh, I hate getting side tracked. It's worse when you get side tracked in text, cause not only is it a waste of time to read but it's a waste of time to write... Crap, I'm doing it again. Yet, here I am, not pressing backspace. So, that Haruka person. I wrote about her history and personality, but to go a bit more into her character. As you know (or not), Haruka carries around the bodies and souls of people around with her. This is represented in the form of a large backpack that no one can really see. Let's get on with the sketches. Oh yeah, ignore the filenames, Steve named them *coughbastardcough*

This was the first set of sketches I did for Haruka, before the digital sketches. I know the time line is messed up, but whatever.


After the face, I did some rough costumes (can you see my general process? Face > body type/costume > refine etc). I also messed with proportions a little, since the stylized one would be a different size and even look a different age.

(These outfits came after the digital ones, this is pretty much where I settled down with a modern look, although I think a futuristic twist would have been interesting. But then the bag would need to be futuristic and I doubt that would look good.)


After that, I decided to work out the details of the bag. The pictures of the clothes are the final (or what I think is final) designs for Haruka. The bag with the face is for the stylized Haruka. Since Haruka can't see the bag's evilness(?!) until it attacks. So it kind of hangs onto Haruka by wrapping it's arms around her and holding onto itself, pulling faces every now and again. This bag concept is meant to be more physical than the realistic Haruka. In that way the player can hope to beat up the bag and free Haruka from wandering aimlessly. Realistic Haruka's bag is more hidden and... metaphorical? You can't attack it or directly interact with it, it just sort of represents her grief and burden. I wanted players to see the chains attached to the souls, and the faces of anguish that kind of run across the bag's surface. There's also a lot of blood and (?!) at the bottom of the bag, so when Haruka walks she leaves a trail of blood akin to a snail (which is another influence, which also influenced the spiral look).


This is when I start the new style for Haruka. It looks a lot different than the other drawings, which was great for me. I managed to draw all 3 styles I wanted on the same page, as well as another feel pic for the previous Haruka style. I just wanted to draw Haruka and the bag, perhaps after she's seen what it really is?



Well, that's all I got for Haruka's concept for now. Now it's just working on Haruka's 3D model. Expect a lot of bitching when I get to do real Maya work. Oh Maya, I love to hate to love you.

Thursday 15 October 2009

Style Vs Style - Haruka Sato

Well finally, some damn design. I'll have more to post sooner or later, so I figured I would just post whatever I have now and save the rest for later. Anyway, my first real project (one that actually counts, unlike the goddamn Preston brief which can kiss my ass) for the term, actually the whole year in fact is character design. 10 points if you guessed that correctly, -10 points for it being painfully obvious. If you're at -10, shame on you, nothing can save your soul.

Back on topic, since my projects are about character design, I figured I needed some way to design characters, model them in 3D and actual get something out of this academic man-trap. Lo-and-behold! I had a revelation, well, nothing that profound but I was pretty happy when I figured out how I wanted to do things my way and still get the marks. In the end, I decided that designing the same character in different ways was how I would go about that. The same character might look different when the style changes (indicated by my last post), the same character might look different across genres and the same character might look different between platforms (ie, PS3 vs Wii vs DS).

If you don't understand the last point, basically different platforms allow characters to have different levels of details. PS3/360/PC allow for the highest. Character's can be very detailed and complex. The Wii allows for a good amount of detail, but the maps used are limited. The DS/PSP can't handle a lot of detail in the model, so most of the details have to be painted in the textures. The same character looks a lot different because you have to make changes to accommodate the lower levels of detail. This part I'm not too sure about, but hell, I'll let future me deal with it.

Looking back over the last 3 paragraphs, it feels like I haven't said a damn thing. I blame it on how late it is, say what you will about making excuses but they exist for a reason. So for this part of the project (I'll give it a cool name later on, like Operation Takedown), the character I'm designing is called Haruka Sato. Yes, it's a small Japanese girl. But hey, you gotta get started somehow, right? Moving forward!

(Note: This sculpt is very uhh, early. I have no real reference for her face right now.)


Profile: Haruka Sató

Haruka is a wandering spirit who was killed in a brutal accident on her way home from school with her friends. Because Haruka was killed before she could reach home, she never could find the way. Her sense of direction wasn't great and she relied on her friends and family to guide her back home. In death, Haruka wanders around the world looking for her way home, but she can never find it as it no longer exists. Being young and naive, Haruka doesn't realise that her family and home is gone and continues to look for it. On her journey she meets a lot of different people who get sucked into her plight and try to help Haruka look for her home. Because of the futile nature of this quest, most of Haruka's companions die on the way, unable to break away from Haruka for unknown reasons. The burden of their deaths weighs heavily on Haruka, and over the years she has become more introverted and shut in. Yet something about Haruka draws people in, and try as she might, she can never turn someone away. Especially after being alone for so long. The bodies and souls of the dead follow Haruka around, chained to her and also unable to escape. The souls soon became violent and malicious, making the lives of those who follow Haruka end sooner.

Most people (including Haruka) can't see the countless bodies and souls attached to Haruka, so they're unaware of the danger that awaits them. Over the years, rumours of Haruka began to spread and she soon became a symbol of death and aimlessness. It's said that Haruka attracts the type of people who don't have a goal in life, or are just running away from their problems looking for the quick fix. Haruka isn't a malicious spirit, but the circumstances surrounding her death and afterlife make it seem so.

Haruka's character is innocent looking, alluring and helpless. These traits are visually meant to draw in people to her dilemma. When she was alive, Haruka was upbeat, energetic, childish and stubborn, traits that have mostly vanished. She insists that she doesn't need any help getting home, which seems to make those she meets want to help her all the more. Despite her often abrasive and cold initial demeanor, she is kind hearted and sincere. Beneath her forced smile lies a lot of anguish and loneliness.

So, finally here are some pics to go with this description. So far I'm only uploading pics I did directly in photoshop. Tomorrow I'll add some pics I did in my sketchbook to go along with more of the character's description.

These are some of the first faces I drew for Haruka. I wasn't aiming for anything in particular (aimless just like Haruka, coincidence?!), so the style bounces and the drawings kind of suck, but that's OK, since I'm still trying to get the feel of the character.

These drawings were done to help me with the more serious side of Haruka's story. The character would be more realistic, but true realism is boring and ultimately it's not why I draw. So most of the time I go for what looks good to me. I can afford such a thing for now. I really like these drawings, but somehow the style of the eyes gets lost when I do a full size picture. I need to reference this page a lot more. Thankfully the main image I have in my head is no where near complete, so there's still time to fix it.


This side shows the more light hearted style I had in mind for Haruka. This is where I decided what Haruka's hair would look like. I had spirals in mind when I drew these faces, so the hair in this picture and the last tends to curl around a lot. It was based on the idea of a circle, since I imagined Haruka's journey would ultimately be a circle. From the circle I went into a spiral, since those are visually more interesting to me. I quite like the look, but I figure everyone will say "oh, anime!" like they always do no matter what I draw. Not that I mind, I love anime, but when you look around at different styles you find a lot of them look like anime/manga. As I write this, I discovered that I could probably do something in a Timesplitters style and break away from that. But we'll see how those drawings turn out later.

After getting to a nice place with the faces, I decided that I would work out what Haruka would wear. Since she's coming from school, that kind of makes the job easy. But I still played around with some variations. Classic/old school, casual and something kind of futuristic. The clothes had to fit with Haruka's personality, but also a few design choices were done because ultimately, I plan to model Haruka in 3D. And certain things become easier to do if you design things a certain way. Example; Haruka wears two bracelets and her collar goes up quite high. If you were to look at Haruka's neck, you could see there would be two different materials. I designed it like that so I could make Haruka's head and body flow into each other despite having different topology and density. Same with the hands, it's easier to connect parts like this.


After that, came a few "feel" pictures. I'm not sure what to say about these, except I like to draw them to understand the character more. Not just in the way they look (justify the outfit/style from different angles), but possible how they would feel or act in a situation. Usually I do most of this in my head, but every now and again it's nice to get it all out there.


(Note: 25% COMPLETE!)

I wondered if Haruka would be antagonistic to the main character (if this was a game, or something)? Would she be a soul to save or just escape from? I figured in a more light hearted game, Haruka would be someone you save. You end up putting her at peace, along with the souls she carries. But in a darker/more serious game, Haruka might be someone you have to eliminate or escape from, meaning that she can never be at peace.

Whew, that was long. I have nothing witty to say in closing, so...

Thursday 8 October 2009

In between Styles

Well, I was at a bit of a loss here. It's not that I don't do research, and when it comes to games it's not like I can't. But something about the direction here had been bugging me, so I suppose it's good I got it nailed down. With a little help from a friend I managed to get some direction. Woohoo. So let's get this boring introduction stuff out of the way so I can start actually designing characters. My main focus was on characters/games that have changed between styles. I said before I would talk about some characters, so here's me making good on that promise.

The Legend of Zelda

The Legend of Zelda is the best example of a character changing dramatically because of style. Until the Gamecube came out, LoZ had a pretty solid 3D style. The older games were 2D and had a style of their own, but for the most part the style that Ocarina of Time set was the style LoZ set. Majora's Mask solidified this style even more.


So when the first LoZ game was announced on the Gamecube, people were shocked to see the style had changed dramatically to this...


Now this was a pretty significant change. Link's (if you thought his name was Zelda...welcome to 10 years ago) look changed so drastically along with the style of the game, it almost felt like it was something new. Despite the game play being essentially the same, the fresh new look brought new eyes upon LoZ. Just look at the concept art.


Holy crap! That's a pretty big difference. Not much design wise has changed, yet things had to change in order to accomodate the new style. Now, comparing Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker together isn't all that fair. Or at least, that interesting, the latest LoZ game, Twilight Princess changed the style again. While Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask and Wind Waker were relatively bright games (in visual style, more than content), Twilight Princess is a much darker game, mostly during the twilight sections. While these parts aren't the main areas they have such a strong impact that you can't help but feel how dark this game is. Even the concept art takes a change in style...


Link's design changes slightly as well. So ultimately The Legend of Zelda is my prime example for what to expect when taking a character through different styles. Link has evolved (Darwin would be so proud) from a simple 2D sprite to a strong 3D model. So you can clearly see the link between the games and the styles and you can see how the visual styles have changed.

Did you know: Link was left handed, but because of the Wii (and how most users are right handed) Link was made to be right handed. Would you believe this actually made people angry?

Batman

You might be a fresh onlooker to Batman's fame. Let me remind you that Batman was originally a comic book, a campy TV show (Oh Adam West, how I love thee), a dark cartoon and then a series of movies. Now, since I'm on a game's design course I'm going to be talking about the games primarily. But the movies and TV shows as well can be used in this example. Let's quickly look at the games.

Here is a PS2 game called Batman: The Rise and Sin Tzu and the newest game, Batman: Arkham Asylum.


Now, the styles here are pretty different. Arkham Asylum is gritty, dark and serious while the Rise of Sin Tzu is a lot brighter. Arkham seems like the designs were based more on the movies while the Rise of Sin Tzu were clearly based more on the cartoons (despite Arkham Asylum using the same voice actors from the cartoon). Batman as a character is very easy to translate to different styles and mediums, his original suit has a lot of wiggle room for the design to make it their own.

This is made even more obvious by the Lego games. You see, Lego likes money. They found out that Batman can make them money (even more so after the success of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight), so what did they do? They made a Lego Batman game. You might think me cynical (and you'd be right), but in all truth, Lego games are actually quite good. They have solid mechanics (well, they got better, we can ignore certain ones...) and a lot of charm. You see Batman here as a lego character, which exemplifies my rantings on how the style of the game can change the character's looks.


The movies made a very clear change to Batman's design.


The Dark Knight makes Batman into an armour clad superhero, while Batman Returns does similiar but certainly less intimidating (not a personal attack on Batman). Both are a departure to the Batman of old, with his skin tight tights and briefs (alcohol and gambling lead to stupid outfits, right Superman?) While things generally stay the same in terms of design (the bat symbol, pointy ears, cape etc), you can see between the pictures how much a design can change as the style changes.

Did you know: DC stands for Detective Comics, guess what Batman is?

So, I guess I could go on and on about this style bit. But writing makes me sleepy, and good lord I could sleep like the dead right now. I suppose if it warrants I could write more examples, but uhh, for now this will do.

Wednesday 7 October 2009

Commitment TBD

Research, research, research. How I hate you, let me count the ways.
  1. You're obscure
  2. You're long-winded
  3. You're complicated
  4. You often say things that lead to other things that have nothing to do with the thing you originally said
  5. You're boring
  6. You've been done already and done better
I realise that it sounds like I'm complaining about a girl fiend, but you can break up with those. Leave 'em in a ditch somewhere and never call them again. But research is like a cold, it won't go away until it has finished having its way with you. It's never a productive subject for me, so that's how I feel about it. It's one of those things you need to get out of the way so you can have fun. Like washing the dishes so you can make food or doing the laundry so you can wear clothes or foreplay.

So when we were told about this group project I wasn't exactly enthusiastic. Most of the time when you read these briefs they don't actually tell you any thing. They spend a whole page, a lot of ink and some fancy dictionary/thesaurus work on telling you something you could sum up in a couple of lines. So after a boring and mostly pointless lecture ( [Russian Accent] can you Internet? No? I show you how to Internet [/Russian Accent] ), we finally got assigned groups and met the people we would be working with. The most noticeable members were Peter Beare (Graphics) and John Cooke (Ceramics). Other members included Julie Clark (Surface Patterns), Benjamin Hill (Games Design, ex-animation), Linda Johnston (Children's Book Illustration), Buffee (Games Design) and Andrew Plaskett (Animation).

So between us we had a pretty diverse team (ruined by those pesky Games Designers). We talked about a few different topics, including the docks, churches and an impressions about the town. After some discussion we arrived at some common themes and ideas - in the end we chose to expose the hidden/find hidden gems. So after selecting a theme, we all went away with a topic within our topic. Mine was about buildings and renovations, which was brought on by me ogling churches.

But what is "renovation"? Improving structures? Sure, but don't most, if not all structures go through improvements at some point? So narrowing that down, I decided to just look at buildings that had been rebuilt for a new purpose. Like how St. Walburge's church used to be near a leper colony (or it used to be a leper colony, most likely near it though). It was named after Saint Walburge who was renowned for healing miracles, so I think it's appropriate that this church was named after her. Especially considering the leper problem. But the history is only a part of my fascination with this place (being a strong use of words). It's also famous for having one of the tallest spires in Lancashire, as well as some beautiful architecture.



I guess on that note, my focus was less on hidden structures and more about architecture. I found a lot of churches and places. I looked at the church near the University Library. Would you believe that was a mass burial site for victims of the plague? I certainly didn't, so they certainly did a good job of hiding it. Some how, a church there is more than appropriate. There's also a church like building near St Walburge's church that seems to have been rebuilt into a bunch of flats or houses. That was certainly surprising the first time I walked past. It was like a group of houses that were disguised as a church. I think it took me 10 minutes to walk past it just because I wanted to make sure people actually lived there. Which probably justified the strange looks I got...



The other place I was interested in was the light house. I mean, I never realized it was an actual light house. There's a hairdressers underneath it... it's called the light house hairdressers! So one often wonders "why?", or "whatever, it's a hairdressers." So while it's very obvious, it's also well hidden, let's not forget that the docks used to be fully functioning. I really wanted to climb up to the top of the light house and take a look, but I couldn't. Safety hazards and all that, how boring. If they had told me the place was dirty and full of spiders, I wouldn't have went up anyway. I feared it would be like that anyway, but I was prepared to be brave enough to at least take a look. I'm not the type to suffer for art, so suffering for research is out of the question - yet, I was prepared for this. Oh well, at least I tried right?

I have a lot more videos than the ones I posted. I would post more but it takes ages for them to be uploaded, so when I composite the entire thing I'll post that...probably. I wondered what I could do that would be considered research, but I'm afraid that finding information is slim, or just not relevant. I'm much more of a practical person, so when the task switches from "find out this" to "do that like this" or something. I'll have more to write about, so while research isn't my strongest forte, I'm hoping my team is more competent about it than I am.

Monday 5 October 2009

Character Design.

You see, the key difference between this entry and the last entry is a mere squiggly line. Profound don't you think? No? Well, moving on. I decided on a theme or... a goal? Something at least that told people what I want to do for my MA. This happens to be character design across platforms, styles and genres. My original intention was to design characters and model them in 3D. I fancy myself a designer as well, but displaying good design is like trying to show someone you have a good liver. It's messy and ineffective as it stands. So I decided to go with a path that's slightly easier to judge - art. My folly in this is that there are so many amazing artists around, I'm never satisfied with my own work. Give me a week or two and I'll start hating on my previous entry.

Moving away from that tangent, my goal was to get a character and see the differences between art styles (realistic vs cartoony), genres (platformer vs action game vs FPS etc), platforms (360/PS3 vs Wii vs DS vs PSP) and perhaps culture (east vs north vs south vs west or more generally, east vs west).

This is when my tutors the lovely Mr. Jim Thompson and Josh Tailor (god I hope that's right, if not I'm screwed), started making things more complicated and actually got me to start thinking. A practice I absolutely abhor, even more so when it comes to research. Ew, research. That's like asking me to touch a scab or a leper. The research was about what makes a good character, or generally what makes them appealing. I posted these thoughts on Game Artisans - the reason being that these people are in the same position as me, so it would be interesting to see their thoughts on the matter. It started off slow but eventually I got some discussion going, the thread is ever growing so there might be more responses when (hah, more like if) you check it compared to when I typed this.

What makes a good character?


Crazyfool posted this very enlightening picture about character design across a variety of platforms, genres and styles. I would love to say that with a straight face, but most of these are just bald headed, muscle bound space marines (note: they aren't all space marines).


Josh asked me to look at what makes a character appealing and posed a series of questions that I answered terribly. I'd like to blame it on a lack of sleep, but it was the wrong day to do so. Now don't get me wrong, this is just satire, a few of these characters are actually well designed in both look and personality (Kratos, Altair, Sheppard). I think the main reason studios go for this look is accessibility and possibly "cool factor." Maybe even technical reasons. I reckon brogamers (Xbox 360 FPS/Halo/Madden...fans) find it easier to connect with these blank slate characters and find them less embarrassing to talk about with other brogamers than say...


A cute little JRPG girl (I googled that exact phrase, and Tidus, amongst other JRPG heroes showed up...) Which, while not exactly a sad state of affairs, is a little close minded. The comparison is kind of an east vs west thing. The west prefers dull, muted colours and more realism than the east, which prefers a more colourful and vibrant palette with a more surreal style. In terms of game play styles, the west is all for FPS and sports games, while the east is for RPGs and other weird games (understatement, but don't you feel more enlightened having watched that?)

When cultures cross pollinate, you get something called Metal Gear Solid, which is the best example of east meets west. Hideo Kojima has always been more inspired by American movies, TV and comics, so as a director you can see the influence in his games. The story, characters and dialogue are all very "Americanized", while there are clear influences of eastern styles in the game (namely the Metal Gears - Japan loves giant robots).


The art style of Metal Gear Solid is also very eastern, as well as some of the OTT action sequences that Japanese movies tend to have (along with some Michael Bay explosions). I think this influenced the game a lot. This has a lot to do with their main character and vehicle designer - Yoji Shinkawa


These no doubt are key images for Metal Gear Solid's success (as a whole). Would these characters have been the same if drawn by an American? Would Metal Gear Solid be the same game if Kojima was born in the US of A? I wonder how the style helps people to relate. You see, Japanese people prefer young looking, colourful people so to speak. While MGS's main character is a rugged man with a mullet and a cigarette. This sort of alienates the Japanese people and more caters to western tastes, which is why in MGS 2, Kojima made Raiden the main character - because he's more in-tune with Japanese tastes. I remember reading an article where Kojima talked about his decision to make Raiden the main character in MGS 2, and one of the quotes was "Why do we play as this creepy old guy?"

Thankfully Kojima learned his lesson. Of course, design is just a starting point, something to get you to look at a character or a game. The real test is personality and backstory, which I think is much more important (or at least just as important) than design. There's also environment and the world the characters are set in as well. I guess the main points and focus of my research into good characters are:

  • Design
  • Culture
  • Style
  • Story and Background
  • Environment (or Canvas, as Josh said)

I'm not sure how well I'll do, but this is a starting point after all. I guess the character's I'm interested in looking at are, Sonic, Mario, Samus, Ryu, Link/Zelda, Kirby and Master Chief (aka the Halo Dude). A lot of these characters have appeared across genres, platforms and styles (Mario has done it all, at least once).

Friday 2 October 2009

Character Design?

Well, the first entry on this newly created bobblog happens to be about character design. That's probably going to be a recurring thing, which is good because that happens to be what I love doing. That and ... other things that shouldn't be named.

Anyway, the first project my class got was to design a character with a message as complex or silly as you wanted. When I first get asked to design or do anything I tend to think about context. Is it a game, movie, comic, cartoon or tv show? I'm on a games design course, so one of those mediums is an obvious choice (should I tell you and make this sentence pointless?)

I think a lot about genre and setting, how does the world look and how should things around it look? Colourful, dull and gritty (next gen-ish), realistic or ca
rtoony? I also think about the character's personality and history, perhaps even how they relate to the world and how they see it. Then I think about abilities, powers and all that fun stuff. Then the actual art comes and I draw concepts, sometimes a lot, sometimes one or two. Most of the time I'll stop when I find a design I like rather than push it further and experiment more. It's a flaw I'll rectify eventually, but I think it's a waste of time to go past a design that works to find a few more that don't. I'll only ever change something if people think it doesn't work or looks stupid.

Anyway, for this project I did absolutely none of the above. Which is probably why you're thinking "What was the point of that then?" Well, because you've been fooled. Ha ha ha. Moving on, it's not that I didn't do it, I just did it out of order (so out of order that I may have skipped parts completely). Inspired by freaky things like cirque du soleil, movies like The Prestige and The Illusionist and other little things like a dance or Donnie Darko (it's a movie, but what the hell), I decided to come up with a character based on an idea. Later I would work around that to create a concept and possibly a game idea.

The idea was to create a rabbit who wanted to take vengeance on magicians (and humanity - or anything that hurts rabbits) who killed rabbits during their magic shows. It was a homage or memorial for rabbits that died in the hands or careless, incompetent or cruel magicians. I wanted this rabbit to take revenge in an ironic (situational) way by using magic tricks to cause pain. The rabbit was to be playful, sadistic and distrustful.

My first few concepts were basically thumbnail imag
es I did to create a scene and personality. The first concept was the rabbit pulling a magician out of a hat, the second had the rabbit looking very crazy and evil, the third was a joint magic trick in which the rabbit(s) would crush the magician in a little cage and the last was a rabbit sawing a man in half.



After drawing those, I decided that he didn't look much like a rabbit, but that was fine since I was going to do a few drawings to get into the look and perhaps the style.




Around that time, I was messing with his clothes and actual look as well.




The name for these particular set of pictures happened to be Karma Rabbit, which is another theme I was looking at when drawing these. Eventually, I came up with a name and look I liked. The Rabbit's name is Domitius, which means "had been tamed" or... something along those lines. It was perfect, because it sort of told you what you needed to know. This rabbit had been tamed, but now he isn't.



Then finally came the quote or message. You can read what it says easily, but in the top corner of the picture is something else which reads "Die, v.: To suddenly stop sinning", which is the title I gave my picture (and the project).



So there it is, was that as boring for you as it was for me? Maybe, I don't expect many people to read this (or care). When was the last time you remember someone asking you to read their blog and you did it? I certainly don't remember, so I can't expect much else. This bitterness of blogging will definitely be edited out by the time anyone important reads it. Would you believe that I'm being shoe-horned into a social networking site as well? God, I prided myself on rejecting faceblab and mylifesucks, but you can't win them all, right?