[HellSpawn]

Hey Gang,

I'm planning on doing a series of character concepts for my portfolio. This here is just a test. My goal would be to have 5 characters on a page and have them evolve from basic to super character. I was thinking of doing this for three differnt time periods with 3-4 characters per time period? Any thoughts?

I tried to keep the lines clean and purposely didn't add any shading cause the idea is to pass these sketches onto a modeler.

I would really appreciate to hear from anyone who works in the gaming industry about my ideas for my portfolio.

Thanks

- Shawn



[ May 10, 2002: Message edited by: HellSpawn ]

[Light]

I'm a modeler. =0

But, take my advice from someone who doesnt work in game industry as for some reason the top games companies keep fighting over me.

1. As a modeler I want 3-4 views of a character. I want the lines clean and simple because I will trace over them. But, it is also helpful to have some shaded views because a flat line drawing is hard to work over. I prefer for the characters to be in straight arms. Front and side views are most important. Top and bottom views are helpful.

2. The key to getting a job in the game industry or any job revolves around 2 important strategies. Specialization and leverage. Look at all of the great artist here -- you cant get a game art job without having something that makes you "special".

You will notice that a lot of artist without jobs are in many cases as good or better then ones with jobs. This is because the ones with jobs used "specialization" to offer something to the company that those without jobs were not able to convince of the company.

Leverage is the ability to use some "magical bs" to get jobs when other better artist do not get them. Specialization is one form of leverage, experience another, and education a third.

--

These look pretty good but you'll need to show more then this to convince me (if I were an ad at a game company).

[HellSpawn]

Thanks for your input Light

Yeah, I totally forgot to mention that I plan on taking one of the five characters and doing a front, back, and side profile.

I definently understand what your saying about specialization and leverage. I think my nitch would be my texturing and coloring abilities. But I feel I can pull off some sketch/concept work as well and I would like to include a portion of it in my portfolio.

If it doesn't pan out I'll axe it. I plan on letting everyone here rip it apart when I get it ready.

Thanks again for your insight light it was very helpful.

Cheers,

- Shawn

[black_fish]

If you want my advice (and I'm working in the game industry), don't do concept if you're not using it as astep to create your own models. The game industry hires very few concept artists and they have to be extremely good (Feng Zhu level).
If you want to work on games, learn your 3D and textures.

[Light]

I agree with black fish some but maybe not entirely.. =0

If you go to work for a small company then having some really impressive character sketches would help a lot as they could probably use you on several jobs.

But, you need to learn the modeling too. There is an excellent book on low poly modeling you can buy for 3dsmax but it is applicable to Maya and other applications (probably even milkshake).

It didnt really cover texturing enough.

But, yeah you need modeling too that way you can understand the process yourself.

[bellie]

hey hellspawn
where'd you get the idea ? im not trying to be offensive if that sounds but someone posted before (i think it was 'duck') something very similar to what your trying ot do.. if you search for his name im pretty sure you can find his pictures.. there were two in the post if i can remember he coloured his though... just my 2cents.. keep working on it.

[samdragon]

Listen to Black_Fish!
If you do work at a smaller game company, then you MUST be multifaceted, because the process in a smaller company is way different than the larger, or big budget companies.
IF you get into a smaller company as a concept artist, you'll find yourself having to learn how to model and texture. If you're open to it, thats good.
The compitition for concept artists is very high, for the good ones.

On a side note, no matter what you do, modeling/animation/concept art, you can't have an ego. Be humble and learn, just like you're doing now. NO matter what industry your in, you're going to always be learning, and if you have an ego, and always think your right and that your art is better than everyone else, you'll sink like a rock. Look at the big guys in the industry, Mullins, Feng, D.Chaing, these guys are laid back, no big ego's.

sorry for the rant, now about your work.

IN your spare time, study drafting, I know it sounds silly, but it will show some skills that will help when doing modeling sheets. Learn what makes an isometric view flat, and how that effects your drawings. This will be important when the modeler try's to model your character, if the front pose doesn't match up to the side pose, you're leaving it up to the modeler to guess, and this may result in something you didn't want in your character.

Learning what's required to make a character model will help alot. Doesn't mean you should go out and buy a big package and start modeling. GEt with a friend who wants to model things and see how he/she works. Or download a freebie package.

The easiest solution for a model sheet, front, side, back and 3/4 view of the character. If you have to do anymore than that, the modeler is blind.

IT maybe easier to pose your character as if he/she is standing flat against the wall, with thier shoulders and head touching the wall. Any slumping, or slouching will be done when the animation Rig is added. Keep the feet in a natural position with both feet pointing forward.
The position of the arms will varry,some like them down at a 45 angle, some like them straight out from the shoulder with the palms down.
If you look at the head from the front and from the side views. the forhead slopes back in space, easy to see from the side view right? In the front view, in an isometric form, it looks very strange, because you're having to represent depth in a flat space. You'll run into areas like this and you'll see what I mean. When I get back in town and to my home computer I'll draw you an example, unless someone here wants to donate a good example of a model sheet? hint hint hint

You want to make the modeling process as easy as possible, that way, you can get the character you wanted,and not what the modeler is having to guess at.

There is more too it than just drawing a character in pose. You're halfway there. Keep at it. the more you do the better you become.

Some other things to concider, if you character is perfectly symetrical, it's ok not to show the other half, if the character isn't symetrical, then you're going to need to show all the views, front, side and back, maybe two sides if it fits.

The more information you can show, the better the result will be when it's modeled.

[samdragon]

something else that may help you out.

Try doing a different pose, are you really concentraiting on the character, or his clothing? Be more dynamic with your poses, these are good for the basic "here i am, look at me poses" but if this is to be a character, then he needs some..."character"

what if he was running, then jumped in the air and landed. You could show a progression like that, or maybe he could be fighting someone, or something, and as he moved across the page he went from one time period to the next. Be creative with it, experiment more. Look at this page, see all the different poses for the characters, how thier pose says something about them? The dynamic pose really helps sell the character.

http://www.teamgt.com/ft-port.htm

[jayjay]

isnt the guy in the middle from "Berserk" manga?

[HellSpawn]

Greetings,

I would like to thank everyone for replying. Your insight has been a real eye opener thank you for you honesty.

Bellie: I believe Duck did do some characters sketchs like that. My Goal is to have a series of characters 3-4 in 3 differnt time periods. Example:

Midevil: Male Warrior, Female Mage, Male Elven Ranger, Female Druid

Turn of the centruy / present: Male Cowboy, Male Military Soldier, Female computer hacker

Future: Female Hi-tech Bounty Hunter, Male Human Cy-borg.


So that was my plan. Just from looking at differnt artist websites and other game artists that post here and at other sites I wrote down everything I like and disliked about there work. I thought about what I could 'pull off' as an artist. I thought if I could come up with a series of solid character sketchs that it would go good with my overall portfolio.

I never intended to lead my portfolio with these character sketchs. I've been told by several people in the industry to stick with coloring/painting and dont go into 3D till I'm in a good gaming company. Then work on it then. I do 3D in Maya but I'm not the greatest modler. And I know that untill I can model with the best of them that I should keep that out of my portfolio. No gaming company wants to hire an average modeler...

Maybe after this rant I should just trash the character sketchs and just stick with the digital painting/coloring. Which I'm averave with... but have been told It's the better out of my averages.

jay jay: I was inspired by it. along with other characters. Lodoss War and Midevil spawn.

This drawing was just a test for myself. I would never put this character in my portfolio. If I was to do so I would have research the hell out of the time period more and rent DVD's of old fanasty movies (Willow, Dragon Heart, Lord of the Rings, Excaliber, Lady hawk, Robin Hood, to name o few) and sketch out the pieces of armor they wore and see what direction I want to go with my research.

For this sketch I just took what was in reach of my drawing table to see "how I could evolve" a character. More I look at it the less I think I succeded. 5 maybe 7 characters would be best.


I feel that I keep going around in circles...

I'm an average colorist/painter, an average modeler, and an average drawer/penciler.

Thanks for your crits. I'm going to go back to my average drwaing table and storyboard out my portfolio plans some more, hehehe...


Cheers,

- Shawn

[HellSpawn]

And to top it off a friend of mine told me the last character looks like Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtels.... Some days you just want to crawl under your drawing table, hehehe. Oh well....

What pisses me off is, now that he said it I can see it LOL!

[Light]

===

I never intended to lead my portfolio with these character sketchs. I've been told by several people in the industry to stick with coloring/painting and dont go into 3D till I'm in a good gaming company. Then work on it then. I do 3D in Maya but I'm not the greatest modler. And I know that untill I can model with the best of them that I should keep that out of my portfolio. No gaming company wants to hire an average modeler...

DUDE.. whoever told you this is for lack of a better word MISINFORMED!!

Man they told you wrong.

There are two types of art. Concept and production. Game companies need a ton more production then concept.

You see the difference? Production.

Concept is from my knowledge far harder. Plus, 3d is a COMPLEX SKILL SET that NOBODY knows naturally. So when you learn it then you boost yourself right above the competition.

If you trying to get in on concept only you will have to be EXTREMELY good.

Large companies will generally be more likely to hire someone with awesome skills.

Small companies will be more likely to let a good well rounded artist do a lot of the concepts and therefore skip or at least cut back on any one concept artist.

Most of the art for a game is the production art so this is far more important then the concept art.


Game companies generally want to see a low polygon character modeled, skinned, and animated. If this is good you got a good chance of being heard.

It is best if you can do this in a high and low poly versions and make a nice demo reel but its not absolute necesary to have all of that before applying.

One other thing they wont train you. Think how non logical it would be for them to hire you and EXPECT to train you if they will only hire the best modelers... See.

[ May 12, 2002: Message edited by: Light ]

[MadLinx]

i'm also a modeler and i'd have to agree, if you gave me these drawings, i'd be like, "cool drawings." and hand them back to you. if you really want these to be production sheets, you should have front, back and side orthographic drawings (not a forshortened shot) and maybe even a top view. modelers see in x, y, and z. although, i think that these would look better as portfolio pieces than what i just described. at this point, you shouldn't have to "emulate" production drawings. just have fun.
light, can i see some of your stuff?