Scout Astor Hummel - prop and character design

Kappack (backpack prop) - Ortho

Scout Astor Hummel - character design illustration 

initial sketch of Astor Hummel character design 

Playing with a different style for environment drawings

I wanted to try changing my painting style to something more solid, less loose. A lot of my early paintings could be considered pretty muddy with the paint so I purposefully painted in flats and worked up from there. 

The kitchen illustration was actually the first set of the three, where I focused on values and story telling. Going from there, I had a personal success with the Greenhouse, in the style. And the Study Room was a second test to repeat that same style. 

Personally, I like the Greenhouse's results best; I feel like with the Study Room, the color palette was the best result out of it but I didn't get the same clean look I got from the Greenhouse piece. 

Moving forward, I definitely plan on working on this style!

Greenhouse 

Greenhouse - initial sketch 

super messy thumbnails for Greenhouse composition

Kitchen - initial sketch

Kitchen - rough values

Study room  - comp thumbs

Study room - initial sketch (rough)

Study room - sketch version 2 (cleaner)

Study room - rough paint in, pre version 2 sketch.

Study room 

Common Room - Teens of Valor environment design

Bloom lighting can be so pretty~

In the thumbnail stage, I told myself I really wanted to feature the kitchen bar counter piece more than the rest of the kitchen and show part of the living room space behind in the background. 

Another feature I really wanted to include was the staircase that didn't completely touch the floor. 

In the sketch portion, I decided to use multiple colors to help me see a bit better in my own drawing, especially since I started the sketch with everything as if it was transparent by drawing all sides of each object. 

The color stage was where I chose to paint differently. Usually I go right into painting very messy (well, not as clean at least), and include the shadows and lights on the same layer. This meant I would go straight away into painting and rendering. Thinking back now, I think this caused a lot of contrast-less paintings. 

To change that, I decided to make each shadow, secondary shadow, natural (or artificial) light , reflective light and bounce light, and bloom light on their own layers. 

It helped me adjust values better since I could go to the specific layer and change opacity or contrast on that layer and that layer alone. I think this method even let me get certain bounce color lighting better than I would if I had painted it in on the same layer, which helped me with this piece as I had colored transparent walls that needed a lot of bounce lighting. 

While stylistically, it's different than what I usually paint (no sketch lines, somewhat painterly style), it was a nice change of pace and I definitely want to see if I can incorporate it with my usual style. 

On Twitter, from one of the artists I follow, I saw some really lovely line work that I want to try to emulate for my own piece. The lines weren't like mine, where the lines were contrast and hard/harsh. The artist's lines were soft and sectioned; of course the said artist's style is watercolor so it complimented well. More experimenting ahead !

Communications Room - Teens of Valor room design

composition thumbnails  as well as some prop thumbnailing/sketches

The initial sketch of the environment was rough at first before I went over the same sketch layer and thickened certain lines to indicate what was in front of the other lines. 

It's still not a clean line work; I've found myself never really liking the clean line art since it loses the feeling it had as a sketch.

When I first started adding in the colors, and adding in some of the material details on the glass top piece, I envisioned a clear glass piece, until I saw some photos on Pinterest that showed frosted glass pieces, from some glass staircases. This made me consider frosted glass, since if A) the glass piece was to be walkable, which the design was initially, the glass had to be thick enough not to crack under various weights. The staircase design I saw had two pieces of glass with extra piece of metal possibly in between the two, which looked a lot sturdier than one clear glass piece. 

After making that slight material change, I added in an orange rim light to most of the environment, which was casted from the orange computer screens and the hallway light on the far right of the image. Since the hallway light was farther, I made that orange a bit softer than compared to the computer screen light's rim lighting. 

Ultimately, as usual, I got rid of the sketch lines and started cleaning up the paint. 

Not long after, I started painting in lived in details, such as drinks, cans, opened snacks. However, even after adjusting the color balance and such, I still felt like I was missing lived in details. The piece wasn't as void as it was initially but the snacks and cans were very small differences in the environment. And since this Communications Room was a public space, I couldn't really just throw in clothes draped everywhere like you would see in a bedroom or a walk-in closet. 

While I did include some lived in details like empty cans and opened snacks, I found myself still wondering what else I could include to give the environment a lived in look. 

I even opted to study and try to create my own computer box designs.

However, in the end, I kept this piece a Work In Progress as I'm not satisfied with the result just yet. A reason I could be unhappy with the piece is how gray it looks (lack  of values, contrast). I'm considering adding in higher contrasts on shadows to really pop the lights from the computer screens and such. I may even throw in bloom lighting, which I only just recalled I could use as lighting in my pieces recently from an Apple APP Store "article". (Really, it was just a small story dubbed 'Love Letter to Bloom Light'.)

Costume Carnival - a sketching event

 Every semester, the Illustration Department holds a Costume Carnival, where models come in with costumes related to the theme that event and pose for everyone (students, staff, alumni). I always get a ton of references and sketches/drawings done during the event so it's always worth making time to go in my opinion.
This time, I tried sketching with markers and brush pens (no color, except for the temperature of the markers). I found with brush pens, I had to stylize a bit more with the drawing but with the marker, perhaps due to the tip shape, I could chisel in the shapes a bit more. I wish I brought in more markers since the one I took with me to the event ended up running out with about 2 hours before the end of the event.

For those not following my Twitter or Facebook page...

The past 2+ months, give or take a few weeks, I've been keeping up with sketching at least once everyday this summer. I'm not completely sure if I uploaded sketches from June onto my Twitter but a majority of those were life sketches/ studies from travels around areas near my grandparents' place in Taiwan. Well, that and wherever we went to by car.

I even drew trees outside a hair salon one day while waiting to get a haircut, while most of my sketches in June were items in my grandparents' living room. 

Other times, I'm trying out ideas for characters:

 By July, I started posting photos of my drawings/ sketches to my Twitter ( and Facebook page due to linking accounts.)

And now it's August and I'm keeping it varied but working mostly on character design still since I lack in that area. 

Bit inspired to do daily thumbs

 I think I got inspired to do daily sketches from Claire Wendling's presentation, and decided to try to paint out quick environment thumbs and play with color combinations at the same time.

 

Some colors turned out better than others but I got some interesting shapes with today's approach. 

Landscape thumbnails

I pretty much just let my mind roam while doing these.

Character design for sarcastic trouble maker girl

Costume Carnival Spring 2015 - Saturday Morning Cartoons themed

 

I suppose it'd be more accurate to say 80s-90s Saturday morning cartoons with characters like He-Man, Jem, Speed Racer, Scooby Doo. Other characters from Power Rangers, Powder Puff, etc. It was great getting to sketch and gather photo reference for poses for roughly 5.5 hours. I had to warm up a bit being out of practice from pose drawing for about a year. I had Ecorche the semester after Clothed Figure Drawing and Heads and Hands this semester.

thumbnails for Lantern Square concept

 

I was thinking about a lantern filled area of a city street, since it was around Chinese Lunar New Year time. Of course, it's past New Year's now but the idea is still around.

I also researched some photos on city squares, though I focused more on European styled squares since I like their designs. 

Rose Water character design brainstorm

 

 A redesign of one of my characters. I believe I've changed her design at least 3-4 times since I first drew my comic (the very first version, the fanfic version).

Currently debating if I should change her name though.

" Dusty Clues" - mock Isometric game project

 

Assets for an isometric game for my Visual Development for Mobile/Web Games class.

Reference material for game assets, buildings and detectives. 

Influence material for the project.

FireLily - character design brainstorm

 

I spent past few days redesigning one of my characters, both in hairstyle and in costume.

(WIPs are on my Behance page )