Crit Presentation - Secret Lairs

Crit Presentation - Secret Lairs - Volcanic Princess

Unfinished Secret Lair Render

My secret lair for the Volcanic Princess, it is unfinished and has its flaws but I think we can gain a general impression of what I had looked to accomplish in this task. I have altered my design three times in the duration of this project from a Throne room, Great hall and now a volcanic play pen. I managed to texture some elements in the scene but have skipped a few stages to achieve this look. Hopefully I can present this to reflect my work from this idea over the past two and a half weeks to appose the seven week duration.

Volcanic Princess Lair progress

More development of my maya scene, my attribute editor and outliner detailing my groups were complex due to a lack of tidiness, I was finding it hard to decipher the correct blinns and textures. Also the glow has been refined by the aid of Ayunie and Lisa, I have intensified the glow by tenfold and now I can notice it a whole lot more :)

Hero Prop Orthographics

My hero prop orthographics top side and front. A basic quick sketch illustrating my prop.

Hero Prop Concept Art

The Obelisk key is what the Volcanic Princess uses to activate her installation, upon placing it into the empty space provided, the key itself activates and glows from the middle to produce ambient lighting as the installation begins destroying her structures. Much like the buildings in her installation the Hero prop will be seen as a basic design, small handles for her to hold either side to equal the weight as she places it down.

Volcanic Princess - Secret Lair - Orthographics

Orthographic of my secret lair

Submission Disk Artwork - Volcanic Princess

Originally this artwork was going to push my project forward before receiving feedback in my second OGR. The dining room scene could be where the king, queen and princess feast, I didn't want to waste the time I spent on this art and I think it relates with my project and is suitable for a submission disc

Volcanic Princess Lair Lighting development

 Once I formed the Obsidian bars revolving round the lair, I began fiddling with the lighting.

 I begun to add lights equally around the lair highlighting the inner bars .

 I faced additional lights outward to catch the heat rising on the bars via to the exposure of the intense lava flow. In this image the bars appear to be quite bright, perhaps to overexposing them to the intensity of the area light, so i lowered this and added shades of light reds.

Im finding problems making my Lava blinns all glow together in a single render as it seems once i select one the other disappears once the render is complete. I need to fix this before I finish my modelling and extra point lights.

Volcanic Princess Lair Progress

Maya managed to crash again whilst i was forming the obsidian bar formations around my lair, these were the screenshots i managed to save before i lost my progress. There have been some changes since my concept art and I didn't realise how different my design would look. I decided to extend the lava flow to surround the volcanic installation, started to extrude in the bowl to add more lava as well.

Unfinished Concept Art - Volcanic Princess

The unfinished concept art for my lair, I'm having trouble with the lighting with this piece, I would like the lighting to come from only the lava instead of offscreen. But this artwork can give us a general impression of what I'm looking to head towards

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New character biography - Volcanic Princess

Deep within the obsidian rock under the mountain there lies an ancient secret, another dimensional plane of existence where the fire deities find sanctuary from the poisoning world of the humans. A kingdom resides here, led by a malicious King and Queen who rule the destructive elements of magma with an iron fist. They demonstrate their destructive power upon the humans whenever they are in need of being taught a lesson by the true rulers of the Earth. Pompeii, Krakatoa these were just examples of the horrifying destruction they are capable of committing without remorse.  Ages have passed and the kingdom requires a new heir to the throne, one to continue the reign of the malevolent rulers that have forever existed since the dawn of fire. The King and Queen have conceived a child, a cruel and vile princess that is destined for greatness from the prophecies of the ancients, perhaps to overthrow the dominance of humans who plague the land above. The Volcanic Princess is rejoiced as a new change upon the kingdom and a dawn of a new age.

But all Princess’s must grow in both age and discipline and the Volcanic Princess is endanger of never grasping control of her intolerable temper displayed when she doesn’t receive what she wants. She has laid waste of her hand servants reducing them to ash during one of her temper tantrums. Now she resides in her playpen in a sort of a solitary confinement until she does what she’s told, but she has daddy’s newest toy to fiddle with. A voodoo pen where she replicate her father’s triumph’s on the world above, placing the building blocks center and placing the Obsidian fire stone within the keyhole she can unleash the element of rage and destroy her creation. Some would say that the confinement would be good for the young child but others disagree that one day she could burn the entire world and she would engulf us all with her volcanic rage.  The Obsidian pen has slowly grown small for her, perhaps she is too small for this space and it’s time for her to really play!

Post OGR 2 Influence Map and revised concept

Following the feedback I gathered from my last OGR I have re-scripted my character biography, concept and hero prop. It was true that the previous idea was derived to create a depiction from the origins of the volcanic princess and not her actual lair. So re evaluating once more is crucial so that I go into Maya with a stronger concept.

I have decided to follow Phil's advice and incorporate a Playpen environment with an Obsidian texture, and contained within this space would be the toys of the Princess, she would this time be depicted as a spoilt little brat that would have temper tantrums and destroy her toys. Unbeknown to her that her destruction actually occurs on the surface world, almost like a voodoo effect. I hope to have a strong concept before this weeks end and jump into Maya and begin scripting the scene.

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Artist Toolkit - Life Drawing Prt3

Session three of Life drawing with Vicky and today was my first attempt of drawing a Male life model. I found the experience enlightening as it was the first time I have ever drawn a man and we were instructed to incorporate the background within the design. I am most proud of the first 4 quick 1 minute sketches and I believe they hint the overall stance of the model. I must better my tonal techniques.

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Volcanic Princess Environment Influence Maps Revised

I have begun to notice that my thumbnails detailing the environment of the secret lair of the Volcanic Princess are beginning to lack incentive and becoming more and more generic in presentation. After recieving my feedback after the initial OGR of this project I decided to revise the space of the lair and to find a new reference of information to fund my ideas from. After looking at Hepheastus and Pele I decided to continue with these Greek columns and detailed alcoves to base my designs from. And as for the Volcanic aspects of the design I looked at conceptual artwork and some game design. This is because the space I am looking to achieve is going to be something impossible in real-life standards, so to refer to media where in a sense we are the creators. My great fear of this project is replicating Lava correctly for my audience but after a brief chat with Simon and Jordan I believe I am more confident in proceeding ahead but to finialize a set perspective and composition I must implore the use of pipetting almost key design elements into my own work.

Lighting and Rendering 1 - Night Ex Lighting

I had numerous problems when I followed Alan's tutorial with the final step of the Whimsy House's exterior lighting. I took notice and followed his instructions like I always do but the right window had a hotspot and I couldn't get it to resemble his. It was tedious to figure out how far to place the light and the intensity. My other fault is the white outline that has been created, from the Photoshop part I did selection, inverse then expanded like he says but this outline seems demeaning to the overall effect. What does people think? Comment away :)

Lighting and Rendering 1 - Romantic Ex Lighting

Third Lighting and Rendering session with small alterations to the lights and the ambient occlusion node. It really hints a warm feeling and sets the mood this is an emotional environment. I should experiment with my coloured lights when working on my own work.

Lighting and Rendering 1 - Sunset Ex Lighting

Next tutorial was pretty basic following on from the first, it was just adjusting the effects I had already made in the previous tutorial as well as creating a new light source located at the front axis.

Lighting and Rendering 1 - Midday Ex Lighting

The first of the Whimsy House tutorials regarding the Lighting and Rendering to give the audience the illusion of Midday. I found following the tutorial easy and it has given me experience to take into my current Maya projects for the Secret Lairs project.

MEL Robot Animation

Artist Toolkit Drawing - Life Drawing Prt2

Second of the Life Drawing sessions today and it basically follows on from last week but this time I have become a lot more loose with my tones in these pictures. Charcoal studies are really starting to improve and the proportion studies feel more accurate the more I experiment.

Artist Toolkit Drawing - Life Drawing

The very first life drawing session of the course involved the group performing multiple different timed studies of our life model. Trying to keep in proportion with each drawing and if I ran out of time use small hints to illustrate details that were not yet finished.