Collin Searls

Sunday, April 7, 2013

More Louis

More visual development for Louis.

Some development of the ship, Arm's Reach.

I felt that the first few designs for Louis were too skinny/thin/pipe-ish. I decided to try adding a bit more bulk to his design.

I'll admit, it's almost impossible to have a completely original idea anymore. Just about all of my ideas/designs draw some inspiration from somewhere. (Louis = Portal, Light of the Pole = The Secret of Kells). One of my recent film ideas draws a lot of inspiration from Dishonored, though I do not remember how the idea even started.

The basic idea is the setting is this world that looks post-apocalyptic; the land has been devastated by a war fought between two empires, one of which being led by a cruel emperor. After the war, and after the cruel emperor passed away, the emperor's son took the throne to face a world that was angry at his empire. A terrorist group forms from the other empire and starts attacking (I'm just gonna call it-) The Golden Empire. Cutting an explanation short, the Emperor dawns a mask and becomes an assassin (in secret) to take out the key targets of the terrorist group. But his lack of professional-assassination skills and responsibility of The Golden Empire are the least of his worries, as he starts to become haunted by the targets he eliminates.

I've been putting quite a bit of thought into this story, even though I do not think I'll be able to work on it for a long time, if at all. Of course, I took this as a good chance to practice some visual development.

I got a lot of inspiration for his helmet from the album cover of Woodkid's new album The Golden Age, which I've been listening to while pondering the story, since it seems to fit the feel I imagine it having.

I haven't done a whole lot yet, since it's a fairly new idea.

Light of the Pole

During my disappearance from this blog I saw a film called The Secret of Kells and absolutely loved it. The story, the art, the music, all so beautiful. After seeing it I had an idea for a film that was sort of a mix of The Secret of Kells, Maus and something Tim Burton-esque.

I'll admit that I do not have a definite story for Light of the Pole other than it is all symbolically the Holocaust. I had the idea to have it based off of one of my relatives that was in the Holocaust. I found out that there are video interviews of my great great aunt and two of my great great uncles about their experience. Unfortunately they cost money, which I don't have, so the story development will have to wait a little bit. Meanwhile I worked on the visual development.

These first couple were drawings done almost right after getting the idea. I, right at the start, thought the Nazi's/Antagonists should be dark eagles, much like the one on Nazi Germany's flag, with long sharp claws that literally rip the souls out of creatures. The idea of the Poles/Jews/Protagonists being these simple, childish kind of characters seemed like a good idea at the time, but lately I've been in a bit of a pickle for their appearance.

Some development for a picture for a Visual Storytelling class I'm taking online being taught by Daniel Gonzales.

Most of the development was on the dark eagles, because I knew right away what I wanted their general look to be like. Dark and sharp. As I said before, the eagle on one of the Nazi Germany flags was a huge inspiration.

Oh, nearly forgot you were there. Sorry.

With the business of school stuff and working on the pledge process of a film-making fraternity, I've forgotten about the blog. A couple instances where someone asked if I had a collection of my work online reminded me that this blog has been sort of my... How would you say it... Portfolio? Show case? A way to show others my abilities. How I work. What I do. etc. I have done quite a few sketches in my sketchbook since my last blog and I figured I should chose now to start uploading some of it. I also have some drawings I did in my drawing class that will be uploaded in a different post.

This post will mainly have my random drawings (the other's will have a "theme") I apologize again for the phone-camera quality. Until I figure out how to scan the pages without ripping them out of the sketchbook I'm just taking them from my phone =/

I started by trying to do a storyboard-like thing (probably should've thought of a story first, lol) but for some reason ended up making the last picture take up much of the page. (Must've wanted to show off more planets)

Since my last blog post I went through another Titanic-phase (yes, I get those often. Maybe 5 times a year). For as long as I can remember I've drawn side-views of the Titanic. I decided to go beyond what I've been doing and try drawing the Titanic from different angles. (Working on a replica in Minecraft really helped)

Just some practice with facial expressions. I've found that ones that require extra lines are interesting to do (such as the grouch face)

Wheres the theme in these doodles? Lol. Top one I tried something I remember my aunt telling me about one time where she'd draw the skeleton then the skin over it. The face is quite random (I was mostly just practicing shading). And then the bottom one I tried imitating Connor's pose on the cover of Assassin's Creed III

Other than the knees, I was proud of how the figure turned out on the bottom. That's the result of practice practice practice.

Practicing with more animated poses and faces... again...

After a quick look through my sketchbook I realized I have a lot of heads, and not many bodies. I played around with heads + bodies and found that I struggle a bit with the neck/shoulder area =/

Really proud of how the girl in the top right turned out. That is what I'm practicing practicing practicing for. Although her head could be a bit smaller...