AIP Game Art: Speed Art Challenges
This thread will serve as a place for Game Art & Design students from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh to post and receive feedback for their results of our weekly speed art challenges.
Each week, we will make something based on the given topic (usually a single word or short phrase) in order to improve at our chosen disciplines.
Submissions can be Zbrush sculpts, low poly models, tiling textures, animations, particle systems, digital/traditional paintings, or anything else that you could think of that could be defined as "videogame art."
The challenge topics will be posted on Sundays around 5:00pm EST and the recommended time for the challenge is to spend no more than 4 hours (with 2 hours being optimal). If you miss the "official" 5:00pm start time, you can begin the challenge any time during the following week, before the next challenge is posted.
C&C greatly appreciated.
CURRENT CHALLENGE (9/23--9/29)
"Circus"
CHALLENGE GUIDELINES
-Feel free to be as literal or non-literal as you want with your entries. Using a rather generic example: if the topic is "container," you don't have to make a shipping container or sci-fi crate. You could make an original character/creature designed to hold things or a hazardous waste tank. It could be very loosely related, as long as you justify in your post why your entry fits the topic.
-Post the time that it took to complete your entry.
-This is more of a recommendation than a guideline, but use free association when thinking of what you're going to make. For example, if the topic is "fire," I might think "gun" and then "bullet" and then "bullet holes" before deciding to make a particle effect for when a gun hits a wall. This goes along with the first guideline.
PREVIOUS CHALLENGES
8/5--8/11
"Deity"
Deities are defined as supreme beings, natural, supernatural or preternatural, with magical or superhuman powers or qualities, and who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred. Believers may consider that they can communicate with deities, who can respond supernaturally to their entreaties, and that deities' myths are true.
8/12--8/18
"Hollow"
1. Having a space or cavity inside; not solid; empty
2. (of sound) not resonant; dull, muffled, or deep
3. Without real or significant worth; meaningless
8/19--8/25
"Gnawing, biting, breaking, hacking, burning!"
8/26--9/01
"Solitary"
Done or existing alone: "I live a pretty solitary life"; "tigers are essentially solitary".
9/16--9/22
"Arid"
Being without moisture; extremely dry; parched: arid land; an arid climate.
Synonyms: barren, thirsty, parched, waterless, moistureless, dusty.
Each week, we will make something based on the given topic (usually a single word or short phrase) in order to improve at our chosen disciplines.
Submissions can be Zbrush sculpts, low poly models, tiling textures, animations, particle systems, digital/traditional paintings, or anything else that you could think of that could be defined as "videogame art."
The challenge topics will be posted on Sundays around 5:00pm EST and the recommended time for the challenge is to spend no more than 4 hours (with 2 hours being optimal). If you miss the "official" 5:00pm start time, you can begin the challenge any time during the following week, before the next challenge is posted.
C&C greatly appreciated.
CURRENT CHALLENGE (9/23--9/29)
"Circus"
CHALLENGE GUIDELINES
-Feel free to be as literal or non-literal as you want with your entries. Using a rather generic example: if the topic is "container," you don't have to make a shipping container or sci-fi crate. You could make an original character/creature designed to hold things or a hazardous waste tank. It could be very loosely related, as long as you justify in your post why your entry fits the topic.
-Post the time that it took to complete your entry.
-This is more of a recommendation than a guideline, but use free association when thinking of what you're going to make. For example, if the topic is "fire," I might think "gun" and then "bullet" and then "bullet holes" before deciding to make a particle effect for when a gun hits a wall. This goes along with the first guideline.
PREVIOUS CHALLENGES
8/5--8/11
"Deity"
Deities are defined as supreme beings, natural, supernatural or preternatural, with magical or superhuman powers or qualities, and who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred. Believers may consider that they can communicate with deities, who can respond supernaturally to their entreaties, and that deities' myths are true.
8/12--8/18
"Hollow"
1. Having a space or cavity inside; not solid; empty
2. (of sound) not resonant; dull, muffled, or deep
3. Without real or significant worth; meaningless
8/19--8/25
"Gnawing, biting, breaking, hacking, burning!"
8/26--9/01
"Solitary"
Done or existing alone: "I live a pretty solitary life"; "tigers are essentially solitary".
9/16--9/22
"Arid"
Being without moisture; extremely dry; parched: arid land; an arid climate.
Synonyms: barren, thirsty, parched, waterless, moistureless, dusty.
Replies
Deities are defined as supreme beings, natural, supernatural or preternatural, with magical or superhuman powers or qualities, and who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred. Believers may consider that they can communicate with deities, who can respond supernaturally to their entreaties, and that deities' myths are true.
This is my deity, he's a god of the sea. He wrecks ships and over all not a nice person. Took me about 2 hours and 10 minutes.
Deities are defined as supreme beings, natural, supernatural or preternatural, with magical or superhuman powers or qualities, and who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred. Believers may consider that they can communicate with deities, who can respond supernaturally to their entreaties, and that deities' myths are true.
This is my deity, the Fire God Yagami. He used to be a mortal before being infused with the physical manifestation of the element of Fire. Took around 2 hours.
I was thinking of what sort of god early civilizations might have invented to explain the discovery of dinosaur fossils. Took me an hour 30 minutes to sculpt.
Smite me, oh mighty smiter!
Took me about 2 hours.
Here's the texture I used:
@SandmanSeven: I like the whole sea-creature vibe, but he could really benefit from some less human looking eyes. Something like this:
@AsterBTT: I think this guy needs to be more "awesome." You might think I'm being facetious, but he's a god; he should fill those who see him with a sense of awe. Put him in a more dynamic pose and look at some reference for flowing hair. He needs a bit more personality
Not saying he should be a rockstar, but these are the best examples I could find. You can tell that they're more energetic and excited just by their stances and facial expressions.
@Prosthetix: I would've like to see you spend more time on the sculpt as opposed to the polypaint. His head and upper torso have the most interesting silhouette, but there's this disconnect between them and the rest of the body. Maybe just ignore the rest of the body and do a bust next time?
This goes for everyone, but it might be that what everyone wanted to do couldn't be worked on to the level of completion that we imagined it in the time allotted. Next time, we should concentrate on doing smaller projects. Or, don't be afraid to spend a little bit more time working; that extra half hour could really help you out.
Regardless, it was fun hanging out and working with you guys. I look forward to next week
one of the first things that poped up into my mind was some kind of spirit cather/eater took around 2-2 and a half hours
I like your shark a lot, especially the elongated silhouette, and the goblin-nose you've got going on. He's got a creepy vibe going on, and I agree with Lazurah, would be better with less loveable eyes.
I feel like, though, that as a creature, he's inconsistent. His skin comes off as loose and flabby around the entire body, even the dorsal and fin areas, where in normal aquatic creatures the leading profile is kept smooth and rigid. He does look like some sort of necrotic-shark deity, which is definitely cool in it's own way, but, I am unsure if that is where you were going with it.
@AsterBTT
I like the color scheme you went with, saving the hair, which I feel could do with a little more variation (darker strands here, highlights there).
There are some strange things going on with your shading, though.
- His sword is shaded like it is a cylinder. The gradaition is too smooth for the flat to have any hard edges, but if it is a cylinder how does it terminate at it's point?
- His left leg gets very dark. Usually, you want to lighten it up just at the edge, to simulate some sort of reflected light, and make the form more readable. Comparing how dark his pants gets, though, to his left shoulder, his left hand, or the side of his face shows some strong inconsistencies in lighting.
- Is his shoulder pad/guard a flat disc? Is it a rounded shield? Is it curved just front to back? It's shape isn't really sold by it's shading. Link follows with what I mean; look at the right shoulder and see how clearly the shape is defined by the light/dark areas. Left shoulder is kind of blown out for the photo, so just ignore that.
Most of those things you could remedy with a pass over the model using a low-opacity/flow brush set to black. I usually use just standard brush, Opacity~20, flow ~40, but I'm not a very good 2D artist, so take someone like Muckymuc's advice over mine.@Lazurah
I like your lightning! No real critique. Just, please, post a screenshot of Cascade? Maybe some annotations pointing out areas of interest?
(Illuminate me as to what lighting you lit your alighting lightning)
@Muckymuc
Nice! I like this, especially the spirit-tank thing on her back.
Only thing that sticks out is in her hair, where it goes from dark to light, it's extremely obvious that you used some sort of 'rake' brush (sorry, Zbrush on the brain), which really cheapens the effect of how cool her flowing hair could be. It also starts giving me a headache because I feel like I'm seeing double.
I really dig how you got her face. Illumination from the spirits she's (eating/breathing out) looks sweet, and the purple bounced light from her shoulder is pretty cool.
Thanks for any who have or will participate(d)! See you (later this week/next Sunday)!
Love that silly face
Thoughts?
Here ya go.
Awwww snap, Sunday is almost here. You guys ready?
"Hollow"
1. Having a space or cavity inside; not solid; empty
2. (of sound) not resonant; dull, muffled, or deep
3. Without real or significant worth; meaningless
Without real or significant worth: meaningless
I decided to sculpt a kid that lives on the streets and has to steal to survive. He has no real worth but also years of living on the street and stealing and seeing the true under bellow of the world has made him hollow inside.
I spent about an hour on this guy. I started a different model but scrapped it after and hour so then I had an hour to do this guy.
1. Having a space or cavity inside; not solid; empty
2. (of sound) not resonant; dull, muffled, or deep
3. Without real or significant worth; meaningless
Did a Dyson Shell-inspired planet, where the outside is scorched and the inside is full of life. Took around two and a half hours. I'm really impressed by this honestly.
184 faces, took me 2:10 hours.
I decided to make an airlock decompressing. ~2 hours.
Rawr.
@Ryan: Pretty cool! Let's see more stylized characters.
@Brendan: That looks really good, methinks. I'm digging your colors.
This is nice man, but I want to see some gnarled roots! Give that stump some character so it really sinks into the ground and holds on.
done it 2hrs
"Gnawing, biting, breaking, hacking, burning!"
I'm sort of a nub here, I didn't know the quote came from the Ents from Lord of the Rings, and somehow thought of Treants reading the quote. SO I did a Treant. It's burning so it still counts. I'm not so impressed with my execution of the idea, but I had fun so it doesn't matter. 2 hours.
Time: 1 hour, 15 min.
The key words made me think of a fortune cookie joke a made a while back. Enjoy. Comments and Critiques are welcome of course.
And because the .gif images are starting to lag the thread, here is a link to my UDK package.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/39680559/SpeedArt_Challenges/GnawingBiting/BitingBreaking.upk
"Solitary"
Done or existing alone: "I live a pretty solitary life"; "tigers are essentially solitary".
Time: 2 hours
Explanation: After watching Planet Earth I learned that a chameleon spends most of its life in solitude. I also wanted to link it with some school work I needed to get done so I turned it into a tribal mask.
Comments and Critiques are always welcome
Done or existing alone: "I live a pretty solitary life"; "tigers are essentially solitary".
Decided to do a wolf in a barren environment. Wolves are a stereotypical solitary creature already, so putting one in a lifeless environment would drive that a little further yeah? I like what I ended up with, but I don't think it really emphasizes well on the "Solitary" portion in the end, though. Two hours.
Roughly 1... 2...? Something? Hour and a half? In photoshop. Tried to use custom brushes, fell awkwardly on face.
@Jordan: Sweet, dude, glad to see you showing up here too!
@Brendan: It might just be the colors, but I think I dig this the most out of all your stuff.
CHALLENGE WEEK 5
9/16--9/22
"Arid"
Being without moisture; extremely dry; parched: arid land; an arid climate.
Synonyms: barren, thirsty, parched, waterless, moistureless, dusty.
~2 hours.
Oh yeah, forgot about the cool posting part.
Modeled, unwrapped, and a first pass at painting in roughly 2 to 3 hours.
9/23--9/29
"Circus"
http://youtu.be/cQIh98Xc3lk
Uploading will probably take a while. Check post time if link 404s.