Character dev: tests

Homework for the learnsquared class of Maciej Kuciara. Lots could have been done better, but I was submissive to test the software and workflow the teacher provided instead of using the toolset within my comfort zone. I don't regret it.

The details on the face are too small, I totally ignored the thick to thin, big to small rule in compositions. I took some time to make the eyewear, then the arm, then everything else, separately, it was a big mistake. Most of the details got lost in the bigger picture, which is something I will have to have a better handling in my next works. You know what they say, if you're not failing you're not learning, and I failed big time on this one, at least for me. The previous work had all this points nailed down correctly, probably because I was very deliberate and took long breaks before continuing the work.
This was a spoiled fruit I collected from not being patient to finish this image. I'm also not that pleased with the selling of urban subculture as a fast track to content.

I was not that much motivated during the course too, which further crippled me and my judgement skills towards my own work.
A wonderful study to keep in mind later on and remind me of this mistakes, which I hopefully never ever do again.

Headhunter Sculpture

First sculpture test that I've finished in clay. After a great class I've taken. Still lots to learn and lots to polish. I need to work on my patience the most.

Teaser shot of WIP

Teaser shot of one of my works in progress

augmented nunchaku

Augmented nunchaku

Halloween - Art bots

Allowing myself the pleasure to wander aimlessly and post pone criticism, during the halloween

Halloween character design!

Since I have a mentored class coming up soon, I decided to hold on unmentored training that I'm taking online. 

As such, I'm practicing more ZBrush stuff from my last class in the meantime.

On this I allowed myself the privilege to wander aimlessly, but I had a purpose and story on my mind from the start. I'm mostly exploring adjacencies. There's a lot of question marks on this, somedays I hated it, some days I loved it. Mostly because it's a joke of a pikachu dressed robber, heavily inspired by some news I read about heisters who take funny masks to do their job, like spongebob's, mickey mouse, etc... as well as Die Antwoord's short film. I ended up censoring the pikachu features and adding a shout to halloween season.

I'm not sure if this is good enough to go to portfolio in the end, but I try to remind myself to forget about good, and have growth instead, which is not necessarily good, just an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to the research and work. But I rather have real growth than really good work, when I'm experimenting with personal work anyway.

WIP Bot

A WIP of a secondary project I'm running on the background
I'm trying to get multiple things running at once.

Character sketches

Some sketching done for a new class. 
I'm exploring a little of urban sided futurism, I admit a bit of a Tarantino vibe in some of these. (Which I am thankful for my family to feeding me his movies while I was a 10y old kid)
I'm not as inspired in this course, as I already had a tackle at lesson 2's homework and got my ass handed to me, even though I already did client work and personal work with some success, resembling the same exercise asked, it still came out unsuccessful. At least I did the homework, it just didn't come out that good mostly because I'm always over-ambitious and I want to get different kind of work in my portfolio than what everyone else does for the class...




But some friends are kinda nudging me to take an old sketch of mine for class:

Last test frame

I notice now that the background pack of photos I purchased and the teacher used is very good and well shot, but it limited me somewhat to the compositions I could produce, a new thing to improve on my work is to just look beyond what I can use as background and not stick to just the material the teacher is using.
I don't hate it though.

Reloading

Hey all. I hope I don’t bore anyone to death with my extensive ‘development notes’, they just help me to nail what went good and bad.

As planned, I’ve been trying to finish my course at Learnsquared, here’s another piece, routing towards a more cinematic approach and a less product-like 360 turn around shot, like the other one I posted. It’s tricky to pull off this 1 point perspective, because it’s something I do not like to have in a composition, unless the storytelling is some sort of foreign concept to the viewer. I think I’ve settled to present a shot like this and shrug it off, because I’m imagining a pursuit of the mech to someone, and then have her pause in time to reload and use her wits for the next move... or that’s the way I like to think, to get away with the 1 point perspective and mold it into a fitting theme! It’s also tricky because the image can get flat pretty quickly.

I experimented a lot with curves adjustments in photoshop, which I never liked to use much, as they quickly get out of hand. I’m more of a guy to use levels instead... but you know, homework is about experimentation, breaking barriers, and I think I was surprised at the end with the result, since I was skeptical that curves would work to balance values just as good as levels. I got out of my comfort zone, and that alone is great, regardless the quality of the end result.

Subcultures / Cyberpunk medic design

Hey ya'll. I really meant to post this online early, like, waaaay early, but life has been chaotic. I switched studios in the start of August and it was very complicated to adapt to a new pipeline, at least in the first few weeks, but I got the ball rolling, and I hope that nothing can stop it now!

I didn't stop thinking and using the techniques I learned at Learnsquared and employ them in my client work as well, it worked flawlessly,  even though I didn't finish this homework, (no time!) I found an immense value in employing these techniques for prototyping concept art, I don't know how many concepts I've done so far using Alex Figini's techniques, but it was a blast. Both the art director and me are happy with the results, so I'll keep on using them for a while, build on top, hybrid the process, and until I research on something else.

About the concept, I'll produce a few more later, I hope! Not sure when, but I'm excited to finish this course and pick a new one! I had so much trouble with setting the environment settings right, it was insane, but after countless renders of smaller concepts for work, I got the hang of material graph and other keyshot settings, came back to this homework and re-rendered everything.. so many render nights gone to the trash can! Practice makes perfect, I guess!

Overall I'm experiencing a bit of introducing subcultures and other life experiences I had to my work. Dreadlocks was a mark in my teenage years, so here's to those.

There are still issues with it, issues that I wouldn't have done if I was going to start over again or went back in time, but I love my experiments, as I would an ugly child. The wrong answer is the right answer in a different context, and I feel this in this work.

Mech Arm WIP

About the concept... to be honest, I restarted around 3 or 4 times, I just wasn't getting the sculpt right, the process was messy and bruteforced, so I reset the sculpt until I got it to a stage that it sucked less.

All the time while working I was cursing myself for not doing this in Maya, which is the software I'm more comfortable on, but I did it, powered through and used only Zbrush for this... the reason being that process is more important than outcome, (for a creative anyway, not a client), if you rely on outcome, you already know where you'll get at, but if you focus on process, you may not know where it'll take you, but you know you want to be there!

Here's an arm.

It's also another part of the mech that I'm not shy to show, but it's still gonna get improved later on. There are somethings in it still bugging me.

Sculpting prototypes!

Here are some WIPs!
I'm sadly not able to commit to these as much as I'd like, (time-wise) because I've gotten a job as concept artist in May, my time is limited when it comes to personal work. :(

Nonetheless, I am pushing it as far as I can and not having that as an excuse not to keep shooting at it.I'm learning a ton off the record, I had to learn how to model hair with fibermesh, cards, Xgen, so much stuff, that I doubt that I will use in a regular base, but knowledge is power, right?

For now, here is a rough sculpt, I was going to show the rest of the body, but it's not as showable as the bust, there is a lot of details that I need to pinch together from the neck down, a lot of frankensteining to do before I show it all... I just wish a day had more than 24 hours... And I think I must have started over like 3 or 4 times on this sculpt all the while cursing Zbrush and everything that is digital...Anyway, after this chick is done, I'm hoping to do a couple of faster ones, with what I learned so far and turn them into a case study, as with this one I'm focusing more of design language, while the next I intend to explore other things, like storytelling, and really go home with the storytelling, as I feel that a image that tells a great story will always overshadow one that is synthetical well made, with all design theories there.
We'll see.

I feel there is a long way to go until this is done, but sharing WIPs is crucial for me, it helps me get a sense of what I'm doing, who I am exposing myself to.

Scifi Class designs Part2

Here are a few more sketches that I did on my free time. I've recently started a new job as concept artist but I draw totally different stuff, I like it nonetheless!

These are for a assassin/scout class. Once again, inspired by subculture tribes.
I intend to take these up to a better render, sculpt in Zbrush, do some paintovers, experiment with workflows I had from 3D design to prototype textures quickly.
Inspired by Open bionics, Darpa and other robotics I've been following for a while.

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Thanks for looking, have an awesome week, everyone.

Fragments of the research are included, I definitely need to make a graphic design template, I don't like this layout.
Overall, I'm happy with these art workouts, I broke my fear from drawing on the pen tablet, as before all this I was working traditional, but I'm able to work much faster now! So that's one little victory! Many more to go.

Cyberpunk Shooter Class designs

I've recently started to try to breath a bit more of me into my character design and other designs.
When I was younger, I had dreadlocks at some point, skateboarded with punks, then runned with ravers, and many others. I always liked the subcultures and small urban societies, hippies, punks, grunge, metalheads... I think there is a lot of graphic power in these and a lot of variety to draw from. I'm mixing what I lived with what I like, so I thought about making a cyber+punk set of character designs that could go in a Scifi shooter.

It's ultimately a change of pace, as ever since I got into concept art I've been drawing what other people think it's good, our job is to please and to be marketable, however, I rather appeal to a smaller and stylized audience and show I'm having fun doing these than being a corporate wolf, if that was my thing, I'd would rather take a job as banker instead. I guess I just don't want to be like everyone else, and I don't have to.

So, yes, there is a lot of me in these

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Ultimately I'll have to revisit the graphic design of some of these, presentation could be better, I guess, but hey, I'm putting the 'sketch' in book.

Neuromancer: Thumbnails

Here are a few thumbnails. Looking back to the first vehicle thumbnails I did a year ago, I see how laughable they were back then, they had a lot of function errors and process mistakes too... but I was learning perspective at that time, so I was trying to solve multiple problems at once. (that's so me.)I did these while experimenting new processes. If it was for a client, I wouldn't start flat out 2D, but maybe trace and draw/photo manipulate on top of a base car.. however, since these are personal and experimental workflows, I it doesn't hurt to take the longer route, as long as I'm growing my skill-set.

This time I took some time looking at real cars, car advancements, DARPA and Lexus Int for reference both on aestethics side and the function side. I was inspired by Lexus hover skateboard for the tech at first, but I really liked the wheel car the best. I hope I have time to continue this project.

Main inspirations:
https://www.lexus-int.com/slide
http://www.darpa.mil
http://asimo.honda.com
And a lot of BMW vs McLaren collaborative designs.

Infected units - thumbs

Yet again, I return, to bring something that I've done before.
I thought it'd be interesting though to revisit a topic I've explored before but do it better than what I did last time.
So zombie thumbnails were the subject of exploration, I took the same method of approach, I've started with the same principles but at the end, I tried to make shape language, story details more interesting than what I did around September.
I think I was successful in doing something better, as even though these don't have many values in them, I liked the design a lot better.

Moodboard:

Since this is personal stuff, I did draw everything by hand, instead of using 3D or tracing apps.
Nothing really amazing, but I liked the exercise nonetheless. It's nothing more than that though. In the future, I will try to deviate less from my reference, there's plenty of stuff I could of drawn from more.

Re-warming the cryotank

I have been neglecting this blog as of late. Looking back I see how I've slacked to keep this up to date, I just had more important things on my mind, it felt like I was explaining and writing more than working on the actual product.

I mean to re-polish this pillar of my online work, but for now, here's my web-site: www.miguel-nogueira.com