New Assignment: Silhouette Overload!

While we all get around to sharing feedback about your Trolls, here's the next assignment:

Christopher Burdett

Johan Steen

Sean Bigham

In all concept art, churning out a bunch of ideas in a short amount of time is a key skill. And in creature design, this means being able to develop a large variety of very unique shapes without a second thought. One of the easiest techniques to get there is the humble silhouette. It takes a lot of sketching to get out of your familiar shapes and really start exploring, so let's get back to basics here by stretching our silhouette muscles and our imaginations

Assignment:

1 week 100 silhoettes (or more!)  Deadline August 1st.

Medium: This is probably easiest done either digital with a fairly big brush,  thick markers or brush with ink/ dark watercolor. Allow yourself to get some big abstract shapes- you don't want to get wrapped up in detail! You should be able to get these done in a few hours.

If you are having trouble getting started/making your silhouettes different enough, think of some interesting keywords to help some shapes emerge. For example: Sinuous, Solid, venomous, fluttery, lethal, deep sea, dominating etc.

 Arrange  in  800 x 1000px documents (landscape orientation) 72 dpi.

Greater Amazon Jungle Troll

I want to revisit these to touch them up after I work on something else for a bit to clear my brain, but I present to you the Amazon Jungle Troll!

1800's American Troll

I decided to do with a mid 1800's American troll for this one. With genres like steampunk, the industrial revolution is romanticized, and is heavily focused on high class citizens and fancy, decorative machinery. Since we're working with trolls, I thought it'd be a great opportunity to do something a lot more grungy.

These trolls are integrated into human society, hoping to make a better living. However, lower class working American's survived on very low pay and hard labor. Being a troll, this guy is incredibly strong, an ideal candidate for a job at a steel mill. He is intelligent by troll standards, but still not quite enough to realize he's not being paid as much as he should. His wife proudly holds their night's dinner, a tiny rabbit. As trolls started growing up in a more civilized society, they evolved to be much less aggressive than their wild, savage cousins, though still known to loose their temper occasionally.


I wish I could have done another illustration with one of these guys, but work has been less than pleasant these past few weeks. However, if I do find the time to do so, I will definitely share, even if its late :)

Stephen Green - Troll WIP

I decided to go with a Japanese Fire-God themed troll.  The fire god (or Kami) was brought about upon the creation of the world and thus began the death of the world.  The troll has a demonic presence.  This idea was fueled by goggling trolls and trying to decide what kind of influences I wanted the creature to have.

These creatures cause fear in any who come in contact with them.  They are top heavy creatures with short legs that somehow support a large bulk.  Their heads are tiny in proportion to such massive bodies.  With huge fists they smash their way through a cavernous volcanic habitat.

I need to make sure that it's feet properly support the weight of its body before moving onto another drawing.  Of course I want to do some more small silhouettes.  

The creature needs a scary pose to showcase it properly. Finally I need to work on using some reference to creature texture on the creature which my last pieces were lacking in.  I'm thinking that since the creature lives in a volcanic cavern (perhaps mountains around Japan) that it's bulk is made of scale like metal that would reflect volcanic light.

More soon!

Brittany WIP

Deadline is tomorrow and I'm frantically painting my day in the life of a troll!

This is just a little sliver of my workspace right now... Lots of horses, conquistadors and... the hulk. Good reference is good reference!

WIP- Brittany

I'm not quite as far along as I'd like to be this close to the deadline, but I do have the second view well on its way. I chose a female troll and a young one, to show a family bond as well as different colorations due to the diversity of the trees in the forest which they live in.

She is mending a piece of leaf-woven-fabric, holding a spear across her lap (not seen in this screenshot). Everyone in this troll's culture shares responsibilities for hunting as well as more mundane tasks.

As for the push yourself segment, I am going to do a rather out-of-the-ordinary day in these troll's lives, and hopefully I'll get a large portion of that done tomorrow morning while I'm at work.

Trolls WIP - Emily

I've done some silhouettes to find the general shape of these guys, and have the sketches and rough values placed down.

I decided to do with a mid 1800's American troll for this one. With genres like steampunk, the industrial revolution is romanticized, and is heavily focused on high class citizens and fancy, decorative machinery. Since we're working with trolls, I thought it'd be a great opportunity to do something a lot more grungy.

These trolls are integrated into human society, hoping to make a better living. However, lower class working American's survived on very low pay and hard labor. Being a troll, this guy is incredibly strong, an ideal candidate for a job at a steel mill. He is intelligent by troll standards, but still not quite enough to realize he's not being paid as much as he should. His wife proudly holds their night's dinner, a tiny rabbit. As trolls started growing up in a more civilized society, they evolved to be much less aggressive than their wild, savage cousins, though still known to loose their temper occasionally.


Thoughts and suggestions are greatly appreciated!

~Emily

Troll WIP-Britt

I decided to go with a South American jungle troll. I did research into many different tribes in South America but ultimately decided to fashion my trolls from the Jungle itself.

They're large, lumbering, peaceful creatures, sort of gentle giants of the jungle. (say that five times fast!) While I figure he doesn't have any natural predators, this rough-skinned troll prefers to stay concealed in the jungle's foliage, where it is safe from frightened or curious humans. Saplings are bent and shaped to form headdresses that blend their heads into the lower canopy; simple clothing is created from woven leaves.

The clothing decisions weren't quite locked down in my original sketches but his hulking body and wide base were refined from my silhouettes

I know everyone's summers are busy, but I can't wait to see what you guys come up with!

Idea Generating... The Troll-Roll

In the spirit of fantasy and game art (and challenging myself!) I wrote up a grab-bag list of world cultures, technology periods, and other options and broke out the 6, 10 and 20 sided dice. 

I know I have certain cultures and periods I lean toward, so I hope this will give me a fairly random selection of traits to work from. I rolled 10 different troll options so I could see a variety. (because I still like options)

I’m doing this D&D style kids... Get ready for the Troll Roll.

After 10 Troll-Rolls, I’m between Columbian, Dark Ages, Small Village troll with Average intelligence and a Mexican/Mayan/Inca/Aztec flavored tribes during the colonial era with very high intelligence.

I really like the idea (and texture set!) of a South American-ish Jungle Troll, and its an area that I haven’t researched much since 5^th grade history class, so I think it’ll be a good stepping stone. I remember really loving learning about the early Mexican cultures so my instincts are leaning in that direction.

For this project I want to push myself with the drawing, to make it as solid and believable as possible, and texture, which I still struggle with. 

I'll post my numbered lists in the comments if any of you would like to use it too. I thought it was a fun way to push myself out of my usual box!

~Britt

Mini Assignment Progress-Brittany

I've got a progress shot of the Mini assignment, working on fur direction like Kristina suggested. I'll start sketching trolls tonight and come back to this after, but any thoughts?

Next Assignment: The Troll

The Hobbit - Newline Cinema

The troll has appeared throughout history in myths, folktales, literature and film. Its stories are ripe with visual inspiration that and it can range from purely animalistic to nearly human in its portrayal. While the “proper” troll is Scandinavian in origin, many cultures have their versions from the Yeti to Bigfoot. More recently it has appeared in several popular franchises like Lord of the Rings, Hellboy, Harry Potter and Skyrim, Each version completely different. (Think of how diverse the Cave Troll from Fellowship is from the three trolls in the Hobbit! These are clearly different species)

John Bauer

The Details:

·         Choose a culture (Asiatic, European, American etc)
·         Choose a period (contemporary, ancient history, middle ages etc)
·         Choose a level of intelligence for the troll and personality. Choose a culture for the Troll. (solitary, tribe, small family unit, hunter/gatherer, animalistic survival etc) Make up a history for the troll that helps support its culture. The Troll’s culture may be related to the geographic culture but still different.
·         Minimum of 10 silhouette studies
·         Share sketches of any animals/human/clothing reference you may need to flesh out the details
·         Two versions. Either a completely different design, different gesture (like running and standing), portrait close-up from a different angle or clothing choice. Choose whatever you think will make you work on your weaknesses most.
·         Arrange your troll and any sketches/studies you want to share in  800 x 1000px documents (landscape orientation) 72 dpi.
·         Push yourself: Write a short story that details a day in the life tale of your Troll. Push yourself MORE: illustrate a scene from it.
·         Due Monday  June 24th

Frost Troll - Skyrim  (Bethesda)

A very incomplete list of Resources:

The works of JRR Tolkien

Three Billy Goat’s Gruff

Swedish Folk Tales- illustrated by John Bauer (ever wonder where Brian Froud got all his inspiration for his Dark Crystal Mystics? Look at some John Bauer trolls.)

Troll- a Love Story by Johanna Sinisalo (this is a beautiful contemporary novel and very different take on the  Troll)

Fellowship of the Ring - Newline Cinema

Catching up and mini assignment

Hey there- I'm getting around to everyone but splitting time between prepping for a show/deadlines and getting ready for a vacation this week. So while I catch up I want to leave you with some general feedback and a mini assignment:

I love that all of you wanted to do so much work in color and push yourselves with that. HOWEVER- your overall drawing suffered as a result of trying to do so much. I think you all need to take more time with the humble pencil and paper and just draw the s**t out of at least one of these. Especially as this was an exploratory assignment, the goal is to learn as much if not more from drawing the itty bitty details as well as getting the big flashy colors and shapes. Go look at some Wayne Barlow ans Allen Williams drawings, then go through your reference again and spend a few (or more) hours on just one drawing of the full animal. And then when you think you are done- spend another hour or two on it. 

Above all- concept artists must be able to draw like angels, so let's see what you can do with the basics. ;)

First Assignment

Hey all! Excellent job with the first assignment. I will try to get you some feedback tomorrow along with a new assignment. In the meantime, please feel free to crit eachother and share any other observations/ideas that came about from this process.