Concept Art Drawings

Some of the drawings ive done over the easter break.



Aterno Pescara, the protagonist and main character of the game. He was the King of the New Generations Realm until he was put on a spell by the Dark Magicians which turned him back into a 17year old kid.



Adria Pescara, the anatagonist of the game. He is the younger brother of Aterno. He and queen had an affair and the queen gave birth to Dark. Adria took over the kingdom when Aterno was pronounced dead towards public (but he was actually put on a spell).



Some concept art of the guardians of the New Generations.



Concept art of the spirit tree





Just some drafts of the hair style of characters.

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So basically, for this game, the characters will have their realistic images displayed for the openings, endings and the movies in between, but during battles and ingame movement, the characters will be in a cartoonish-look.

influence from Fantasia Sago series

Self-Brief - Concept Art

After much thought about the story behind the concept art, i've came to a conclusion of using the idea that im about to present. But first, let me go through with some of my previous ideas, inspiration, and research.

Idea 1 - Story based in a small town in Italy.

How this idea came about was that one day while i was reading hte newspaper online, i came upon an article about the earthquake in Italy. Some cities name came up, such as L'Aquila and Pescara. I found the name quite interesting, mainly because i cant read Italian XD lol. BUt yeah, it caught my attention, so ive decided to look it up on wikipedia.
Then i found out that all the rivers near there all end up at the Adriatic Sea, so i had this idea of having a family with a Big Brother (named, Adria) and 12 younger brothers (the 12 smaller river that leads to the Adriatic Sea) - Soca/Isanzo, Centina, Reno, Po, Adige, Brenta, Piave, Zrmarja, Drin, and Neretva.
This is gona be a game based on this family, a feud. The protagonist however, is not Adria, rather, it is a young boy, named "Aterno". He is the son of Reno and has a younger sister, Emilia (theyre both smaller rivers of Reno actually). Adria is the big antagonist of the game =P

So with this, the style of the characters will be like the Final Fantasy XII

example of character styles are as follows:




Idea 2 - Atlantis

Atlantis has always been a topic i like to explore upon. Mainly because it was a myth that many researchers tried to prove it to be true. While i was thinking about my second idea, i remember what Troy said about choosing something you want to do...so then i thought to myself, since i wanted to research about Atlantis so much in the past few years, why not take this opportunity to do so?

So then i started my research, looked up on monash's libary resource, found nothing =.=""" then went to amazon and found this Atlantic Encyclopedia book. Unfortunately, both borders and dymocks dont have em, and if i was to order them, they wont get here till Mid May =.=""" that ruled out my idea.

Ofcourse, i did look into other websites about Atlantis, but they werent really helpful.

Idea 3 - Summarizes both Idea 1 and 2 and some other influence.

Well, this idea came up after i went to watch the movie "17 Again". The movie was about a middle-aged man regretting about his decision of gettin married with his gf when he got her pregnant back when he was 17. SO then he had a chance to relive his life as a 17yr old again and ultimately, he faces the decision to choose again between teh girl and his life.

Taking from Idea 1, the names of the river will be incorporated into this idea, and as for idea 2, the development of technologies in teh Atlantis city will be taken into account.

So finally, the official idea ive decided to use for my concept art background is this:

Set 10million years in the future, the old earth has died and a new earth is created. The world is divided into four kingdoms - New Generations, Magicians, Monsters and the humans. The New Generations (NGs) are the new humans with supernatural powers. Their history dates back to 10million years ago when the first artificial created human being was introduced. Since then, they have rapidly developed themselves and have gained reputations and respect among humans. Their rule above all four kingdom was recognized since their creation of the new earth. The Magicians comes down to two categorize - Light and Dark. The Light magicians deals with the healing side of magics while the Dark magicians deals with the damaging side of magics. Among the four kingdoms, they are the most neutral and are respected as the second highest. The Monsters however, are not satisfied with their position as the third among the four kingdoms. They have in the past years had many battles towards the NGs and have been suspected of allying with the dark magicians to go against the NG Kingdom. It is noted that the Monsters have great ambition of conquering the four lands and become the strongest kingdom in the new world. Among the four kingdoms, the humans are the weakest. Humans, once were the creater of both the New Generations and the Monsters have now made themselves slaves of these two Kingdoms. Though they have their parts of the New World, but this has happened all because the NGs respected them and thus, willingly to spare some land and protection for them.

The story revolves around the King's family of the New Generation Kingdom. The King, Aterno and his Queen (to be named) has three children - Light (eldest son), ToBeNamed (middle daughter), and Dark (youngest son). The King is loved by his Kingdom and family, but a sudden illness strikes and he was pronounced dead towards public. His brother, Adria, takes over the throne and took the Queen as his wife. Everyone thought the King had died but the real story behind isnt like this. The King did not catch a severe sickness, rather, he was put on a spell by the Dark Magicians. Adria allied with the Dark Magicians inorder to overthrow the Kingdom and took it as his. The King was transformed into a 17year old and when he tried to approach his queen about this, the queen denied him and forced him out of the kingdom. After much dismay, the King was able to reach his children. Unfortunately, among the three, only two believed his story. The King then sets off a journey with two of his children as a 17yr old to find allies across kingdoms to prepare for war to regain his kingdom in the land of the New Generations. Besides the battle between Aterno and Adria, the battles among the kingdoms persists. In the end, the King and Aterno both dies and the Kingdom of New Generation is passed towards Light. Dark, on the other hand, finds out that he wasnt the son of Aterno, rather, was a bastard son of Adria and the queen. A dark secret between the Queen and Adria was revealed and Dark goes all crazy and runs off out of the country into the land of Magicians...coming back someday to take the kingdom off the hands of Light like his father did.

Some background stuff about the New Earth.

New Earth : powered by mechanics developed by the NGs. Everything on it are artifically created, whether its oxygen, water, or trees. The only natural thing in this earth is the Thousand Years Tree (to be renamed). It was teh only living resource taken from the old earth. This tree however, is the main source of energy to power this Earth. Therefore, many from various kingdoms tries to take it away from the land of the NGs.


Inspirations


Movies
- Wall.E
- 17 Again

Games
- Final Fantasy Series
- Kingdom Hearts
- Ark of Napishtim
- Dynasty Warriors (KOEI)
- Fantasia Sago (UJ)
- ZWEI2 (falcom)

Character designs

- Tetsuya Nomura's artworks
- Yoshitaka Amano's artworks
- Fantasia Sago
- Dynasty Warriors
- ZWEI2


Animes

- Final Fantasy VII Advent Children
- D.N.Angel
- Gundam Seed Series
- Inuyasha
- Naruto
- Hunter x Hunter

Books & etc

- Atlantis
- Italy cities and rivers
- Atlantis Encyclopedia
- Atlantis: Insights from a lost civilization
- Edgar Caye on Atlantis
- Aztec Pyramids

References to project 1

Finally have the time to update this blog a bit. Gona post up the references i had for this project before i forget.



That was the Matrix raining tutorial i found online. I tried to follow it, but it was too complicated for me due to my lack of understanding in After Effects. So in the end i had my own way of making the matrix effect. Though in the end im not plannin to use it, but still, it was worth the time to figure things out.

Ive also been lookin into the Matrix Triology movies and reading about them on Wikipedia. I wanted to look into A.I (Artificial Intelligence) movie, but i couldnt find it in the libary and the VDO Ezy near my place doesnt have it T^T

Matrix is kinda communicating a posthuman idea aswell, as Neo and the others are depending on machinese to take them into the matrix world and do all kinds of things. Though it was a story of machine against human, but the human also had to depend on the machines to destroy the machines, and the machines depends on the humans in the cask to provide them energy. So kinda like my idea of how machines and human are interdependent on each other.

smoke brush link

That was the smoke brushes i used in my animatics and rough cut.



I was plannin on using techno for sounds, but im rethinkin about this. BUt yeah, i looked into Daft Punk's music a bit for reference.

for my sounds, i went to Flash Kit for them.

Besides these references, my previous entries also stated that i had looked into the anime, Lain, and Ghost in the Shell.

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Haha, a reli cool vdo on youtube that Helen recommended



and a vdo that one of the master student recommended me to take a look at.



see, if only my 3D was THAT good, i wouldve done that too XD hahaha, just kidding.

animatic draft

The clip doesnt have sounds yet, im still tryin to look for suitable sounds for it. But please let me know what you think, thanks!

Concept Update!

After discussing with Troy, ive decided to go forth with my second concept (All-In-One), where posthuman is both illusional and real. The animation will focus on how Human (the "form") and techonology are interdependent on each other inorder to stay alive (ex, a computer itself is dead if there are no users using it, and a posthuman relies on technologies to get through his/her day). The illusional and real part of the idea comes in place when the "form" imagines an object (ex, a car) and the object becomes a real item for the "form" to use. Once the "form" uses the item, it then merges with it and thus, communicates the idea i mentioned in previous entry:

"we morph........ into the system"
"we merge.........with the system"
"we become a part of the system"

Im now conducting my character sketches, trying very hard to avoid directly using a human figure to represent the human form. Rather, i wanna try to use abstract elements to bring out the idea im tryin to communicate.

For characters, im going to incorporate the Taoism idea of Yin and Yang. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_yang), Yin and Yang are opposing forces that are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, giving rise to each other in turn. Thus, my "form" will be represented by Yin and Yang to communicate the interdependent idea in a metaphoric way.

Now i just have to figure out the colors of the bkg and characters.


Im hoping by friday, ill have everything ready and start animating some clips to present on monday. Most likely, ill be working with illustrator, photoshop and aftereffects. Though Julz suggested tht i can use Flash and do what japanese animes always does (draw one image and pan it over to other layers and keyframes so that when you need to move, you only move small parts like the mouth), but i dont wanna use flash anymore T^T

Now im looking into some aftereffect tutorials, but i think for the effect im lookin to create, i better ask ppl instead, since i duno what its called.
Creative Cow


Some movies im looking into are Spirited Away, Lain, Ghost in the Shell.




For Lain, im lookin into the effects it has in the opening animation above; Like the computerized stuff that makes everything look liek its there but not really there.

PostHuman Project Unleashed!

OK, so first day back and we're introduced to our first project, ANIMATING THE POSTHUMAN (Posthuman: are ppl that relies on technologies to get through the day; how technologies affects our daily lives).

Though i havent really thought about how ill be going through with this project, but ive came up with two concepts that i might be working through with.

Concept 1 - Helen's day to day routines

Basically, this idea portrays myself as a posthuman, telling the story in a first person's perspective. It begins with Helen waking up with an electronic alarm clock (displaying reliance), getting herself ready to go out. When it comes to transportation, Helen drives her car (car, another form of technological development). She then heads to the store to grab some neccessities, which she will then do a self checkout (reliance on technology) before she heads home.

During the time, Helen will perform other forms of reliance like using her mobile for instant messaging and calling her friends. When she arrives back to her house, you'll see how her house is operated by a block of computer: the garage is operated by a computer (senses when the car arrives and closes when the car is parked inside), the lights and temperature regulator is switched on once Helen steps inside the house, the stove automatically switches on and starts cookin meals when Helen presses a few buttons for choosing cuisines, and the shower turns on with temperatures set by the detection of body temp when Helen steps into the shower (if youre cold, the shower becomes warmer, vice versa). After all this, Helen gets into bed and turns on her computer to check her emails, msn, facebook etc (just to show some daily things that people seem to MUST do before they sleep nowadays).

Once Helen is done with everythign and falls asleep, it goes into the ending of the animation, where electricity (in the animation, it is displayed as the main source of power to function all these "powerful" technology) fails and Helen's world goes into chaos because she cant do anything without these technologies (displaying what happens when we over-rely on technology); Helen cant cook cause she relies on the electronic stove to prepare her meals, Helen cant shower, cause it was all electrical, Helen cant even get out of her own house cuz shes locked in. Basically, Helen cant do jack and ends with her crying out loud.

What this concept is trying to communicate to its audience is that, though techonology is powerful and can do almost everything for us. In the end it is still just a machine, and when we rely on it too much, we cant do anything once they fail.

This is a more literal and direct approach towards teh project. For a more abstractive approach, i have here another concept to propose.

Concept 2 - All-in-One

This concept merges the idea of posthuman being just an illusion and posthuman as reality. Im not too sure whether my idea can communicate this idea thoroughly but what im planning to do is to display a form representing a human being (so...not exactly a human) doing some random things like getting into car or operating a computer. But what will be emphazised in this idea is how the "form" operates these equipments.

What i was thinkin was that the form will press a button, or "thinks" about the "item" and then the iteam (ex, the car) appears. This represents the illusional part of the idea because the car for example, is not really a real item in the world, it was only a "thought"(made-up) by the "form". Illusional, yet real, because the form will then be operating it (rides the car to certain places).

Then it shows how the "form" opperates a computer. Computers are no longer seperate objects from us, it becomes a part of us, or...we become a part of it.

"we morph........ into the system"
"we merge.........with the system"
"we become a part of the system"

So in the end of the animation, it shows how the "form" is just a million bits of data flowing in an empty space.

Quite abstractive, but duno yet whether it communicates teh idea effectively enough.


So yea, those are my two ideas, now im gona begin my reasearch and further develop them and see which one is more suitable for this project, or i might end up using something totally different. Feel free to comment =)