creative design

snake85027

While I was trying to come up with a concept design for my spy drone a question came up for me. What thought process do artist use when they come up with their creature or prop designs before and during their project? I see many unique and cool characters and assets from this site but no one really explains their design thought process. So basically what Im asking for people to post a past or current project and break down the influences of the final product.

Jesse Moody

i get mad drunk hop in my car and drive through large crowds of people. Take photos of the carnage and then concept off those. Odd though that I would use this process since I really only make environments.

Guess I am just a bad person.



OK serious note... You may want to ask this at conceptart.org Those guys are insane. Some people just start drawing. Some people take shapes and objects that already exist and go off those.

I don't think there is any right answer.

Mongrelman

A good idea with creature is to think about their character, and from their work out their physiology. Is it carniverous or herbiverous, as those reflect in many ways, what sort of enviornment does it live in and so how did it evolve to cope. What does it eat, what sort of culture is it from.

Study some anatomy and evolution and this will help greatly, I had already done a fair bit of this before going to a workshop with an anatomist called Stuart Sumida who has worked on a lot of films, and I filled about half a notepad. Very insightful.

Jesse Moody

also pick up some art books. I don't know how many guys here like the Art of Star Wars ones but the ones i have show a lot of the designs that didn't make it. Some of the artists talk about the design they were going for.

Lupus gave some pretty good advice for characters. Environments is the same in so many ways. Who lives there? What happens every day? What is the weather like? Is it war torn? Peaceful? Poor and under-developed? Rich and populas.

dom

I go for the contrast in shapes first and foremost. Difference between hard and soft outlines. and lastly, difference between complexity and simplicity or detail and lack thereof.

And once i have something nice visually, a good story will pop up along the way, and sometimes this story might affect the final look but i tend to stay with the original "spur" of that visual idea.

snake85027

Thanks for the replies, I was just wanting to know if you guys can post a piece of art work that you created and explain a little on what influence the design of it. Like your futuristic piller JESSY, on your shape and texture design,what did you look at to come up with that? Lupus your LICTOR creature is beautiful man, it looks like to have some real life species that he was influenced from. Can you explain a little about that? And Dom I went to your site and you have kill zone as something you worked on. Is there a way you can post something futuristic, like an asset, could be a lamp or whatever and just give a background on what references were apart in making it. This all would truly help me with my thinking process while trying to come up with a design concept for this spy drone that im working on. These responses dont have to be anything long if you dont want to but the more info the better.

Tully

The Skilful Huntsman. You go buy. Best book evar.

... for answering your question that is. Best rundown of the process of visual development for concepts I've ever seen. It's helped me immeasurably.

Mongrelman

Thanks, but I'm afraid I can't take credit for the Lictor design, it's a Tyranid from the Warhammer 40,000 universe by Games Workshop , I use went by a couple of drawings I found ont he net.

snake85027

thats what I usually do as well.

Cthogua

Ditto on The Skillful Huntsman. It's a fantastic book I never get tired of looking at, and is really good at showing the variety of approaches to visual concept design.

ChaosEidolon

Look look look at art. lots of art. Make it a hobby.


go to www.conceptart.org and go through the "best of CA" thread, and look at everything there. Try and identify what you like, what strikes your creative sensibility and start collecting any image that really jumps out at you in a folder.
Refer back to it often, and try to analyze what it is that the artist did to create the successful composition. Try to apply the little things you learn to you own drawing/3d. Immerse yourself in it as much as possible.

Sooner or later you will find your own style emerging from all the influences around you. While you're learning, be careful about being too sacred about what you think your style is. It will evolve, and become more your own, but it can be helpful to copy different styles at first to find what fits for you. Just dont steal a style, take from it and make it your own, then move on to something entirely different.

Also, do not dwell too much in one medium. Design circles can become very incestuous, so try something entirely different if you're feeling stumped. One of my favourites is www.style.com for char design. Could be anything though. Automobile assembly manuals etc.

There is definitely a certain language to design, but it's not very easy to convey. You hear things like rhythm, hormony etc and hear the definitions and say, ok, makes sense, but to really "get it" and actually apply it, you just have to keep looking for examples around you until you've built up enough of a dictionary in your head that you can concept on the fly.

Good topic, hope some more people will throw in on their ideas/process because this is something ive been exploring a lot as well.

snake85027

thats awesome chaos,Ill check style.com out. I just was hoping people could post a concept or a model or something and explain what influenced it. If its a character or a prop, what decision was used for that type of skin or pattern, ect.


This is a model from a concept drawing that I dont have any more. This computer is suppose to be set in the future. I just figured that in the future there would be less space and more people and I wanted a very tight work space. I choose the color based on the computers from half life 2. And old computers that I found on the web is what influenced me for the microwave look(some people said it looked like, not what i was shooting for) and the lights on the side was suppose to be an S shape.
Im not good at describing my reasoning but here is my example. I hope more will join in.

mvelasquez

sups David
Well this usually depends on how much freedom I have for the final product. If I'm just doing something for myself I usually start out with a tiny scribble/silhouette and basically just start picking out shapes while I'm keeping the pencil moving. For instance if some shape starts taking the look of an arm, id go in that direction and keep building it up. I think the most important thing is to keep the pencil moving and just focus on the shapes rather than detailing early on.

Once I've done 10-15 of those I scan the ones I like and blow it up in photoshop for some line and value work. Basically at this point I just make all the large shapes make sense for what its supposed to be. Its a good idea to have a bunch of refs at this point so you can draw what you see rather than what you think something looks like.

If I had to do something more specific I would rely more on real life refs and less on the unique shapes you get with the silhouette.

snake85027

something i found when i was searching robots

www.paperblue.net

check it out, these painting are amazing