Work Update: Texturing

Last couple of weeks were very quiet on our blog, because we were completely overwhelmed with work. This is a quick update of how far I am with the Harpy. I almost sorted out displacement and normal maps and halfway trough the texturing part. Recently I signed up for a month to a digital tutors site and learned lot's of new techniques and tricks that will help us to improve the final animation. One of those is 3d texturing in photoshop. It is quick, easy and I highly recomend everyone to try it out.

Harpy's Model So Far

Generic Mesh Turn-Arounds

Character Sheets: Final Harpy Head

Final Disguised Harpy Concept

Final Revealed Harpy Concept

This time I took the best bits out of every concept I've done before and I believe we have the best result so far.

Disguised Harpy In The Nest Concept

Harpy Head Design

When we started making our Harpy concepts we haven't been thinking enough about the transformation from beauty to horror. We tried to make some sort of "in between" character that becomes gradually more grotesque as we show different parts of it.

After conversation with Justin we realised that we really needed to work a lot harder on the transformation to make it more interesting. We decided to use white cornette symbolising innocence and transform it into beak.

More Harpy Sketches

Over the past few weeks I have drawn a number of sketches for the harpy character. They mainly focused of the idea of transformation from something beautiful into something horrible.

Influence Map: Theatrical Costumes

We decided that our harpy design could take on a more theatrical quality. This influence map shows various costumes and masks that we could somehow incorporate into our design. 

Harpy Concept 2

This time I tried hard to make our Harpy as grotesque as possible. I made the head more beak-like, but at the same time since I didn't wanted to keep it in a very generic shape added some abstract shapes. Similar patterns are repeating throughout the whole body to keep it consistant. If this concept works I still have some ideas where I could push it further.

Disguised Harpy Sketch

I have been experimenting with the idea that the Harpy is concealed in a guise of furtive beauty at first sight. However once it opens its wings its true grotesqueness is exposed.   

Harpy Concept

This concept was inspired by Gustav Klimt's paintings. I tried to combine Sam's sketches with something more stylised. Just like in Klimt's paintings I've been thinking to leave completely flat textures in some areas. It would help to integrate our charackters into highly stylised environment. This work still feels a bit unfinished, but it should be enough to explain what I have in my head.

Harpy Sketches

These sketches are based on the idea that harpies represent some sort of corruption of motherhood. The fact that harpies are exclusively female and possess a maternal quality seems to hint at 'the monstrous feminine'.  I took inspiration from Louise Bourgeois’s giant spider sculpture.  A combination of elements from storks, bats and spiders were used to create these creatures.

Influence

Dante Drawing

This is a warm up Drawing by Domantas that he drew whilst listening to an audio recording of Dante’s Inferno.