Trying to make sense of my final iteration

 Since doing the iteration is a very quick process, you don't really have time to think about how your designs would translate into the final product. So after I picked my favorite one, I had to make sense of each element that I have previously drawn. To help me with that I have decided to fee my brain more and look for some more references. Considering the nature of my vehicle, the tv series Snowpierces popped into my head, so I looked more into that. On top of that, Craig advised me to look more into the train designs of Raymond Loewy, which were very helpful and had many elements that could fit with my design. 

I have also started to think more about the nature of my train. How does it move? Is it magnetic? If so how would that work on a tube? That wouldn't make any sense, since this way there wouldn't be anything keeping the train from flying off the tube itself. That's when I realized that my design idea was closer to a monorail than an actual train. I will explore both ideas and see what ends up having more sense. 

I also need to think more about the backstory and plot of the whole thing. Where is the train going? What is it transporting? Where is it coming from?

I will do a more detailed sketch soon that hopefully will make everything come together in a more plausible matter. 

Week 8- Plaster Head

I have never drawn a plaster head before., but since it is a head afterall, I decided to approach it just like I would a regular portrait, with the exception of not adding that much surface detail.

After making a quick preparatory sketch, I started building the head. Something that I have noticed straight away was that one side of the face was more angular and geometrical, most probably to teach the students the planes of the face, so I decided to retain that in my drawing, Having a side with very visible differences in planes, and one softer and with more details, 

After getting the general shapes, i went back and refined the features of the face, in orfer to get a more accurate representation of the real thing.

The next step was adding the graphite powder and erasing the highlights while also brightening up the whole paster head, since it is supposed to be a white object.

 While shading, I tried to be mindful to not darken the plaster head too much. I have also used a more geometrical approach, using hatching most of the time. 

Looking at the final result, I can say that I like it, but I am noticing some mistakes straight away. The most obvious one is that the head looks a bit deformed, having some issues regarding the perspective.

Another one is that the tonal value of the plaster head is way too dark, which lead me to do a very dark background, to make it look lighter. 

Week 7- The Human Skull

Last year, we had a task in which we had to draw an animal skull, but other than that I have never drawn a human one. One particular thing that I remember thinking about working on my last drawing is that measurements were very important, having to approach it as seriously as I would approach a regular portrait. Another important aspect while drawing a skull is retaining the surface detail. We want it to look real, not like a plastic one.

Starting the drawing in the studio, I made a quick thumbnail sketch to figure out the placement and sizing.

After that, I started working on the final one, making a quick sketch, while also being mindful of the proportions and measurements.

Having the base of the drawing done, I went back and polished it, fixing some proportions issues and contouring the shapes better, in order to get a more accurate look.

As for all of my black and white drawings, I have used graphite powder to help me with the tonal value. I made sure to erase the highlights, which helped me a lot at the shading stage as well.

 

Starting the shading process, I decided to add the dark background from early on, in order to make the skull pop more and induce that it's quite light in colour.

Adding detail such as cracks and places with different values was very important since the skull is meant to look old and damaged.

A common mistake that I have seen in other drawings of skulls is not so detailed teeth, nor in shape or shading, which I made sure to not do. Teeth are a focal point in a skull drawing, and I don't want them to look flat, those being as 3D as the skull itself. 

I am very pleased with how this drawing turned out, having the background and the box that is sitting on bringing everything together, and making it look like a completed drawing, rather than just a simple study.

 To achieve this I have used pencils such as F, HB, B, 2B, and 3B for the skull, and 4B, 6B, and 8b for the background.

Developing the iterations more

 Having extracted the iterations that caught my attention previously, I have tried to develop more and make them more interesting. 

While doing that, I have ended up using very angular shape patter, making them look more futuristic. At this stage, I have reached the peak of art block. I just couldn't come up with any more ideas, and nothing looked right, so i decided to snap myself out of it. I felt that the car base that I have previously used for my first iterations was actually holding me back, instead of helping me be more creative, so I ditched it completely and I let my hand do its own thing. Any crazy idea that came to my mind, I approached it. After more feedback from Craig, I have been told that I could also approach other vehicle types, so I decided to focus on trains. But not regular trains, futuristic ones. That led me to create soe crazy designs, number 13 being the one that I liked the best. When I was making the iterations, I thought of making this train travel on something else and not just regular rails, so I chose a metallic tube. How would that work? No idea, but it is a question that I will have to answer when I develop this further. 

Making the first iterations for the vehicle.

 After looking at tons of references, I have decided it was time to put my ideas on paper and make sense of them all. To help me out with the process I have used the method that has been shown in class, which consisted of saving a document of a 3D model in Zbrush and importing it to substance to add textures and also render it, while still acting like a 3D model. The next step was importing the rendered image in photoshop and drawing on top of it, already having the base of the car settled down. 

At this stage, I have started to refine the backstory as well while doing the iterations. What were the creatures that the horde consisted of? What are their weaknesses? How could these be used back by humans in order to survive the apocalypse? These were all questions that needed to be answered by my design choices. Since I have previously chosen an environment that is really cold, and the reasoning of that being the death of the sun, their weakness could be light, that making perfect sense considering the lack of sunlight.

I tried feeding as many of the elements that caught my attention from my references into my drawings, while also thinking about the backstory and how I could translate it into my design.  Thinking more about the creatures, I tried to keep an open mind and explore more ways that they could be defeated. Are they terrestrial? Do they fly? If so, would light be enough to defeat them, or should I add some additional weapons, like spikes and things of that sort? 

After further feedback from Craig, we agreed that the iterations 4, 5, and 7 were the most interesting and worth developing more. A thing that I need to keep an eye on while doing is practicality. For example, iteration number 7 has a snowplow that would project the snow right onto the windshield.

Week 6- Virtual Tour: Chernobyl - Pripyat

After taking the virtual tour, one particular building stood up to me, and decided to use it in my composition. 

The first step was making a quick sketch, adding some mountains and plants to the scene.

After that, It was time to add the colors. For the colour palette, I decided to combine warm and colours, suggesting that there is a change going on, an explosion for example. 

As for the process, I started with some watercolor to get the main values in.

On top of that, I drew with some color pencils and added some black pencil to the outlines, to give it a more comic book appearence.

Looking back at the final result, I find lots of areas that need improvement and things I could have done differently. I should have been more cautious with my colour palette, it ending up looking all over the place. Also, I think the comic book approach did not match the theme as I thought it would. A more realistic stle would have worked better for this type of composition.

For this drawing, I have used watercolors, colored pencils, and a black marker.

 

Week 5- Urban Exploration – Lighting, Colour, and Mood

After having a talk with my professor Teodora, I decided to approach the outside preparatory sketch, since it fitted the theme "Jack the Ripper" quite nicely. 

Having it on the side, I started working on my final drawing. The first thing that I had to take care of was the perspective. I have identified the vanishing points, since this was 3 point perspective landscape, and started rebuilding the environment.

 

After having the sketch done, I added some graphite powder to the paper and with a rubber erased the lighter values and where the lights were going to be. This was a very important step since I decided that this was going to be a nighttime environment, darkening the picture quite heavily, which spared so much time from having to actually shade those values.

The shading process took a small while since there were lots of surface details to the objects that I had in the scene. My process was starting from the back of the drawing and making my way to the closest objects, which helped a lot with the overlapping.

Something that I had to keep in mind while adding the details was that they had to be right regarding the perspective as well, one of the examples being the bricks on the walls.

Another aspect that I had to be mindful of was how the streetlight that I decided to add to the scene would impact the lighting and the environment around it. 

After some final touches, like the puddles and the light rays, the drawing was finished.

I really love how this came together, and I can notice straight away the improvement that I have made regarding the environment.

For this drawing, I have used a range of pencils, starting from B and all the way to 8B , since the environment was very dark.

Start of the post-apocalyptic vehicle project

 This term's project is going to be designing a vehicle that would fit realistically in a post-apocalyptic environment, with various enemies. As much as I am excited, I am also a bit stressed. I have never designed a vehicle, never being a fan of cars or anything related to them. Even with that in mind, I am aware that as a future designer, I will be assigned tasks that I will not always like, and it is important that I will not let that affect the quality of my work. 

To help me achieve that for this particular project, I will try to make the backstory as interesting as I can, in order to make the time spent working on it as enjoyable as I can.

After some brainstorming and looking at how other people approached this theme in the past, I have come up with an idea that is not as generic as a zombie apocalypse is. I was thinking about pursuing an extremely cold environment seting. For how that has come to be, I was thinking that the death of the sun would de a plausible explanation. That would also mean that the environment would be really dark. 

As Craig had told us, feeding our brain with information is the most important step at the start of any project. The more we see, the clearer the idea gets. Even though the concept is a bit far from being established, I started looking up snow vehicles and also cars with lots of lights attached, that being necessary.

I am still trying to figure out what type of vehicle this is going to be, so I am trying to keep an open mind and explore as many ideas as I can. It is also necessary to think about this in a practical matter. After all, the final result needs to fit in the world in a believable matter, and also make sense from a technical standpoint.

I will try to find more references, think more about the backstory, and start working on some iterations.