1st March

Civilized Dragon Project:

Today I worked on using more shapes to create dragons.The dragons also use features from other styles or dragons I like from shows or movies.

The next four dragons:

The first one I worked on today was a diamond shaped dragon,I also used Appa as a reference for the details.Though the toes and the idea of fur for a dragon were interesting it didn't work out as well as I had hoped.

Next I drew a right angled triangle to use as a base for a dragon.I used Acnologia from Fairytail as a reference for its features.I think the triangle shape worked quite well and even looks a bit bunyip like.I found the white circle eye quite interesting and I may use it later.

After that I used a flatter triangle as a base and had Mushu from Mulan as a detail reference.To me the silhouette is interesting but overall I don't like how it looks aside from that.

Finally I tried an upside down bean shape as a base and looked up a few  anatomy guides.

I think the neck and head posture has a nice civilized or proud feel to it.
Click here to see the dragons in more detail

I feel as though the two dragons below could be a mother and son/daughter walking through the street.

Below are reference images to what the original characters looked like. ( In order of appearance)

28th February

Civilized Dragon Project:

Today I gathered my drawings into a sketch dump of sorts.A couple of my peers also drew some ideas of how the dragons look in their mind. (Not sure if they want those images up so I wont add them for now)

The sketch dump of the dragons are also in the scraps of my DA here if you want to see closer

I was suggested to experiment with larger shapes as the base for the dragons and was given some examples of concepts with shapes.This is all to have a more appealing design overall starting from the silhouette.

I started with a triangle and put in smaller shapes around it to make arms,legs,head,and tail.Then for the details I looked at a dragon from Wakfu.I thought this would help me decide what things I like about the dragon that I use/develop onto my dragon race later on.

Then I used a circle along with Xiaolin Showdown's Dragon Dojo style to create a more eastern looking dragon.

Next with the square I tried something quite different.I used Vaporeon from Pokemon as a dragon reference.I think although the dragon as a whole doesn't look right there's something about it I could use later.I feel the whole water themed dragons have a certain elegance and serenity about them and that might help with my whole peaceful dragon idea.

Lastly for today I used the common bean shape and used a base similar to My Little Pony.

I think that this type of dragon could be the children dragon race and that the first two are quite elder looking.

Personal Projects:

Today I finished the forth part of my comic Rogues and Heroes.

Click here to check the comic from the start out on deviant art if you like

I've been slowly working on this part of the comic since course started and I had quite a bit of trouble with some perspective issues as well as story telling issues of how many panels I needed to get the ideas I wanted across.

27th February

Today I put all the images I found over the last few days into two mood boards,one for the Humans and one for the Dragon race.

I was suggested a short film by one of my peers to have a look at which helped a lot with figuring out potential storyboard composition.The knight's helmet in the top left looks a lot like a mask of sorts as well but I think I will stick will the caveman/tribal idea as it seems more animal-like and menacing.

I feel for a group project they could be a lot of potential to design different masks and have quite a lot of creativity.

There could be variety in the human build but I feel all of them should be hunched over somewhat and based on things like cavemen,gorillas and such.

Someone mentioned that the reason the more lanky ones could be hunched are that their masks could be huge and weigh them down,almost taking up their body in silhouette.

I've been having quite a lot of trouble with the dragon race as I've had many conflicting ideas from myself and my peers.Everyone I talk to imagines the civilized dragons differently.

First I tried changing the body from and "S" shape to a more separated neck, torso and tail.

 I also tried adding more contrast with straights and curves to make a more appealing silhouette.

I also tried a suggestion for the dragons to be quadrupeds with the ability to stand up on two legs,instead of just two legged dragons.

I was also suggested and given ideas on making the dragons cute and similar to My little pony in anatomy by a couple people but after some talking with someone it may not be the best idea as that style is quite watered down and overused in their opinion.

I will continue to experiment with shapes and try really exaggerate and escape my comfort zone more for the dragons.

Im not sure how I want the visual style  to look such as lineart and eye shapes/face shapes so I may need to just go with something.

I also submitted my story outlines and an extended version of my dragon story.

I settled on an ending with some feedback from my peers as I was not sure if the whole civilized dragons becoming vengeful and barbaric would subtract from the whole role reversal idea it started as.

Below is my three ideas I thought were strongest.

The lost toy idea came across as a bit creepy to some as a doll/toy following someone back home is quite weird.Though I was imagining a story like the ending in toy story where buzz and woody have to catch the moving truck.

Quite a few people went for an over active kid's imagination and I had a couple but they didn't go as deep or have any meaning behind them as the other ideas had.

I chose the dragon idea from a group vote and almost everyone I talked to either thought it was quite funny or interesting as a opposite of a known generic dragon story.

Tomorrow I will draw a bunch of varying humans based on the masked caveman as well as different dragons and shapes for them.

26th February

Today I started experimented with the civilized dragon like race .

I was going for a more elegant design to show them as the more civilized race.

I tried making the shape more sleek by making the body neck and tail one "S" shape.

I also experimented with variety in their body types to show them as more individuals in a society than a pack of animals that the humans would now be.

I also bounced the idea of the races being Dinosaurs and Cavemen off my peers as I thought civilized dinosaurs could also work and be more appealing.I drew a couple sketches of some generic dinosaurs which reminded me of "We're back a dinosaur story!" 

This idea didn't seem to work out for me as the dinosaurs would normally be much larger than humans as well as less elegant and harder to do things that people would normally be able to do due to their proportions like the dinosaur in Meet the Robinsons.

Then I started creating the look for the uncivilized humans,I wanted them to look brutish and less developed as well as more instinctual than their civilized dragon counterparts.

I looked in various sources and tried a few types of characters for the humans

First I went with a Caveman/Neanderthal like humans.

I took some reference of gorillas and hunched him over and practically on all fours to make them more animal like.

Second I tried lanky tribal humans hidden behind a mask and with a spear,I thought the mask would make the human more ambiguous and fear inducing for the civilized dragons.

After all this experimentation I decided to draw two characters to represent the two races I had.

A sleek dragon and a Human with a mix between the brutish cavemen and tribesman.

I think human character served his purpose as a menacing creature-like man but the dragon race wasn't quite working.

I talked with more peers and some old ideas kept coming back with the dragon's bodies being almost entirely human.

I had scrapped this idea earlier as I thought it looked quite weird for a dragon head to be on a human body but I believe it would help get my idea across better possibly.

So I talked with one of my tutors about this and got some reference on how I could go about the dragon race.

I think I will experiment with putting different dragon heads on human like bodies of different builds.

Setting:

 I'm thinking of the Dragons living in a city with stony cobble streets and being Victorian-like/1920's with technology as advanced as horse drawn carriages or possibly the first cars.

The humans on the other hand would be far behind in development with barely having huts or villages.

Story:

The original idea is that the peaceful civilized dragons living in their city would be terrorized and attacked by humans much like the dragons attacking humans in medieval stories.

The story starts with a bustling street of different build characters of the dragon race passing by.

An elderly dragon looks up toward the hills and see a faint figure in the distant.

He spots that its a human and is shocked.

He screams out "Humans!" and the once bustling city street is now in panic.

packs/hordes of humans rush down from over the hills and terrorize the city.

(I'm not sure whether to make the Humans carry torches to light the city on fire or if the humans can breathe fire like how dragons normally would)

One ending I thought of was that the city is destroyed leaving a few dragons in its ruins.The few remaining dragons become filled with rage and retreat into the mountains.Then the last dragons get their revenge on the humans hundreds of years later by becoming what they once feared and fight fire with fire (literally) and become the fearsome creatures the humans have stories about.

(This part would be set in medieval times,showing the generic stories about dragons coming to pass)

This ending would make the story cover many different ideas/morals.

Role reversal as the dragons and humans are in swapped roles.

Not judging a book by its cover as the stereotype of dragons and humans are broken and swapped.

Coming of age as the dragons become the mythical beasts we first expected.

The idea that the winners (the humans) of wars record history as they saw it.(the dragons being terrorizing beasts and dying out)

This ending however may water down the whole role reversal as they are put back into our expectations at the end.

Although it almost serves as a strange history of why dragons attack humans and why they were not developed as they were wiped out to practical extinction by the savage humans earlier in time.

I need to gather up my new images onto my moodboard so I will either post that in tomorrows blog or as a comment.

Edit: Dragon mood board added

I'm quite torn between cutesy and elegant dragon race and the elder chinese dragons

For my personal project I've been working on the forth part of my comic strip short story.

I'm extremely slow and I don't have too much time to work on it so I only got one background finished for it today.

Some of my other art I've been working on over the last holidays will be posted below,check out the link to my website or deviant art to see the rest.

My Deviantart

My Website

My personal best art I did in January.

The latest artwork I did (10th February)

25th February

Today I narrowed down my short film ideas down to four with a small group of peers

*1. Girl loses her toy in the city,Through the girls emotional attachment and love for the toy it comes to life
 and finds its way home.Obstacles in the toy's path would be the fact of how small it is.

Over active Imagination Idea:
*7. Fantasy battle scene in a snowy setting,In the end the whole fight is just the imagination of two children having a snow fight.
*20. Kid is doing daily chores and begins to imagine them as epic fights.(fighting dishes with cleaning products) (Hooded figures attacking are actually just bed sheets)
(Giant dust bunnies attack)

Zany character in a everyday situation:
*13. Space cat gets lost at the Supermarket.

Role Reversal Idea:
*18. Civilized and cultured dragons living peacefully in cities are attacked by barbaric humans.

In a larger group vote it was decided that they liked the idea of reversing the idea of dragons attacking humans to humans attacking a dragon/dinosaur race that are civilized and wear accessories like monocles and use canes etc.

I then moved onto testing character ideas for the dragons.
The first thing I thought when I thought of "civilized" was a stereotype of a man in a suit with a top hat/monocle/cane.
So I drew a basic silhouette of both a generic dragon like creature and a "civilized" man

After talking with my peers I discovered that the civilized dragon race may have to be bipedal to get the civilized message across so they would not seem as animal like on all fours.

After some experimentation I came up with a hunched over old dragon with a cane as a silhouette which I quite liked.

Other designs looked a bit too cutesy.

I also experimented with different build characters and genders for the civilized dragon race.
After talking with peers in another small group I realized I didn't need to fully cloth the dragons as the whole civilized idea can come through in their posture and how they act as well.

I'm now currently looking toward figuring out what I want the characters and film to be visually aka the style.
Drawing dragons is quite outside my comfort zone so I haven't thought of a visual look I think would work as of yet.

Shows/games that came to mind for me and my peers were:

Jake the american dragon
Spyro
How to train your dragon

The humans I want to be seen as barbaric and uncivilized and acting on instincts.
Looks that could represent that are cavemen,barbarians,vikings.
I even thought that the fire-breathing ability of the dragons could be reversed onto the humans,making them into a mythological creature instead.

The next things I need to do are to gather images of things that could help narrow down the look in a moodboard.

24th February

24th February 2015




Log lines:
(Possible *Spoilers* as these may give info on parts of shows plots)

Rozen maiden: 
A show about Dolls that fight each other to become a true real girl by defeating each other. (Sort of like Pinocchio I guess)

There she is!:
Short flash animation about a girl falling in love with a boy,the boy rejects the idea of a relationship over and over as they are not meant to be seen together in society.(Similar to Romeo and Juliet)

Wakfu: 
A french fantasy setting with multiple races,A team of a few of the races fight against a character who wants to absorb an entire races energy in order to travel back in time for his own personal goals.

Snowball fight:
Just an idea/objective that I thought would work as I created a storyboard for one last year.

Steven Universe:
A team of magical gem girls and Steven protect the world from monsters and such.

Over the Garden wall:
A story about two brother that get lost in the woods.

Soul Eater:
A Halloween themed city of humans that can turn into weapons fight witches and insanity itself.

Fairytail:
A story about Magicians and Dragon slayers that do odd jobs and bounties/missions for money as well as protecting  the world from devastation and disaster.

Black rock shooter:
A story about a parallel universe where a girl's troubles and anger/stress are manifested into a world of constant battle.Also its a big inspiration for me visually.

Magi Labyrinth of Magic: 
A reimagining of 1001 Arabian nights with Aladdin,Alibaba,Morgiana and genies.



Ideas for short films made from combining and mixing things I liked about the shows above.
The ones marked with an asterisk are the ones my peers liked.

*1. Girl loses her toy in the city,Through the girls emotional attachment and love for the toy it comes to life
 and finds its way home.Obstacles in the toy's path would be the fact of how small it is.

2. In a Medieval setting an Elf and a human fall in love but can not be together in the end.

3. Two characters fall in love but are separated as one of them is from another planet and is forced to leave.

4. People with strange magical powers are outcast-ed from society,which create their own sanctuary in which to live.

5. Character saves their friend from a coma as they sleep next to their hospital bed by entering their dreams accidentally and helps fight the friend's inner demons and imagination so she can wake up.

6. Toys come to life and have a mini toy war.

*7. Fantasy battle scene in a snowy setting,In the end the whole fight is just the imagination of two children having a snow fight.

8. A team of magical girls defeat an ice monster plaguing a city

9. Two witch kids have a magical snowball fight.

10. Character summons a frost persona to help her keep cool in the summer.

11. Dolls get lost in the back of a store,at night the toys lost in the back of the store come to life.

12. Two character are lost in a fantasy setting ,unsure of how they got there or how they will get home.

*13. Space cat gets lost at the Supermarket.

13 a. Magical beings are stranded on a planet and work together to escape to freedom.

14. Two characters get lost in the desert and find a witch that controls a cactus army.

15. Lost in a graveyard,fighting hordes of skeletons.

16. Magicians using puppets to fight each other.

17. Fantasy setting where a group of different classes/races fight a dragon.

*18. Civilized and cultured dragons living peacefully in cities are attacked by barbaric humans.

19. Magicians with enchanted impractical weapons have a duel.

*20. Kid is doing daily chores and begins to imagine them as epic fights.(fighting dishes with cleaning products) (Hooded figures attacking are actually just bed sheets)
(Giant dust bunnies attack)

21. Character is dying in the desert.They begin to see mirages of sand golems attacking him/her.(Symbolizing the desert slowly taking their life away and consuming them)


Personal project stories I'm currently working on:


A comic of two characters named Chera and Bandi traveling through a desert to Elfen city to deliver a package on time.
This comic strip is being submitted to Deviantart and Smackjeeves currently:
http://chinnaru.deviantart.com/art/Rogues-and-Heroes-Cover-510481084
http://roguesandheroes.smackjeeves.com/comics/2092120/rogues-and-heroes/

My next personal project:
A story of a giant rock elemental golem rampaging and destroying everything in its path.A small girl offers to be the elementals host in order to save her home which the golem is about to destroy.