GROUP CRIT 4

What key objectives need to be done to fully realise remaining projects currently in production?

- Finish four fashion concepts for the other three guardians
- Aim to complete for each guardian;

• Close ups
• Pattern
• More refined fashion

- Maybe consider doing a concept book? With about pages to make the character information easier to consume for the audience?

How has your work developed since starting this module?

- You have obviously improved your anatomy and figure drawing which is evident in your blog comparison, its good you use reference photos

- Good research

Does your portfolio of work currently represent your ethos and ambitions as a creative?  If not what steps can be taken?

- YES, you want to go into character design and concept art and that is evident in your portfolio

- Maybe do some quick concept art that can show variety, ie. NPC, other cultures, people of colour?

- Experiment with backgrounds

Other comments

- V V GOOD

- First two outfits for Zhu Que are the strongest designs!

- I really like the short hair for Zhu Que

- CRACK ON

Reflection 2

ZHU QUE
Female
Cheerful, Enthusiastic
North

BAI HU
Male
Vivacious, Precipitance
East

XUAN WU
Female (child)
Clam, Insidious
South

QING LONG

Male

Poker face, Arrogance

West

Thoughts:

I didn't expect this will be this hard for me to design clothes. Maybe because it is about ancient Asian and I don't have a lot of knowledge about it. I am not so into traditional clothes design actually. The first time I attempt to draw traditional clothes was last year 503 and it was awful. The reason why I decided to do an ancient traditional theme is I want to study and do better than last year. I started out collecting tons of image references, finding some interesting shapes and layout. With enough knowledge and idea then I can finally design my own. It was hard. 

I also tried to show my character's personality by clothes designs. For Zhu Que I mostly gave her long dress, because I want to show that she is noble and charming. Also because I designed her dealing damage with her abilities flame attacks at a distance which mean she don't need to be flexible. For Bai Hu, the white tiger is the king of the beasts in Chinese culture, I want to show that he is strong, unruly, That is why I design he exposing his body to show his self-assertion. Designing Xuan Wu was fun. The tortoise usually has a long life, but I just want her to looks like the youngest among them. The snake usually means evil in many cultures but I just want her to look like an innocent girl so I drew her in short cute dress and cute hair. Maybe I was a bit extreme... The last one Qing long, Chinese dragon in my mind they are arrogant and don't like to talk a lot. So I drew him in a long robe.

Overall I think I did ok. I can not say I love the process of designing it but it was a good experience for me. I felt accomplished after I created mostly 6 design for each character.

Style Reference

ONMYOJI

(Illustration by one of my favourite Chinese artist Rei)

AIM:

I think Onmyoji aesthetic is what I am going for in this project. My goals are to make 4 full-body drawing of each of my characters.

The Four Guardian in game reference

The Four Symbol is quite famous used by many anime and games as inspiration. Here is my study from the Four symbol inspired character designs.

Overwatch

I like these The Four guardian inspired design in Overwatch. The elements and the patterns the shapes are spot-on. They really did a lot of research in these, and those shapes in this design can show these character's personality and what kind of class they are. For example, the  Xuan Wu one for this hero Zarya who is a strong sub-tank, the designer gave her a lot of heavy amours and even a turtle shell; you can tell this hero is slow, have a lot of heaths, and have a shield.

XUAN WU

BAI HU

What I noticed in here is that the designer use a lot of sharp shapes in the design, it can show that this Genji hero is designed to deal damage.

QING LONG

ZHU QUE

Zhu Que Mercy is one of my favorite in these. Zhu Que is described as a red bird that resmbles a pheasant with a five-colored plumage and is perpteually covered in flames. This this design. The designer used a lot of flame pattern and added Vermilion bird feathers on her. The design show that this character is very flexible and she can fly.

Characters Research

I have choose the Four symbols for my characters origins and inspration. It is a very famous in Asian. The Four symbols are four mythological creatures in the Chinese constellations. Each one of them represents a direction and a season, and each has its own indiviual characteristics and origins. Symbolically and as part of spiritual and religious belief, they have been culturally imporatant across counties in the East Asian cultural sphere. 


Astronomy
In ancient Chinese astronomy, the sky ecliptic was divided into four sections. Each of these sections contained seven mansions, and together they formed the 28 Mansions. They reflect the movement of the moon through a sideraal month in a tropical year. This enabled the ancient Chinese to mark the travelling positions of the sun and the moon, as well as to determine the time and seasons. Each section of the sky is assigned to a mythological creature.

The Four Gods

The Four Gods (四神), also known as the Four Symbols (四象), Four Sacred Beasts (四聖獣), Four Spirits (四霊), are deities that reign over the cardinal directions of the constellations. A fifth god, the Yellow Dragon, is also said to rule the center. These gods are particularly famous throughout Eastern Asia and appear in a variety of fictional works.

Name (Chinese)	Appearance	Direction	Season	Color	Element	Divine Aide (Chinese)
Qinglong (青龙/青龍)	East Asian interpretation of a dragon	East	Spring	Green	Wood	Jumang
Zhuque (朱鸟/朱雀)	Giant bird resembling a phoenix	South	Summer	Red	Fire	Zhurong or Zhuming
Baihu (白虎)	White tiger	West	Fall	White	Metal	Rushou
Xuanwu (玄武)	Tortoise encircled by a serpent	North	Winter	Black	Water	Xuanming

A dragon is considered the benevolent and powerful ruler, promising good fortune and fertility. Qinglong is known for its particularly long tongue, which curves and twists in several portraits. Ancient Chinese could be open to interpret the dragon as green, blue, or black, but contemporary Chinese —and most modern interpretations of the dragon from China— favors green. Japanese adapted the Chinese's broad interpretations of the hue's character to mean a solid blue or a bluish green, yet often favors the former in contemporary Japanese usage.

The majestic bird held a noble behavior and was picky about what it eats and where it perches. Zhuque has often been confused with a phoenix due to their similar appearances and has been said to either be a red sparrow or a fenghuang.

Tigers were considered to be the king of all beasts in China, and white tigers were mythic elder versions of tigers. A white tiger is said to only appear when the world is at peace or if the Emperor ruled with virtue. It's fabled that Baihu is either the eldest or youngest of the four beasts.

The tortoise and the snake were symbols of longevity in China and were symbols of honor with a similar meaning in Japan. The word "tortoise" could also mean "taboo" in Chinese. Xuanwu is sometimes depicted as a turtle with a serpent for its tail. It's also associated or argued to be another form for Emperor Xuanwu, an individual who is depicted in black robes and appears as an entity within Journey to the West.

GROUP CRIT 3

CHARACTER DESIGN

Theme? Chinese folktale for the game

• come up with 10 figures
• do research/ onsite research on your trip back home

• look into 'journey to the west'
• Korean MMO aesthetics
• this of the story/concept
• then it might be easier to decide on the characters/figure

Target audience: young-adults

Whats next? portfolio

• draw. draw. draw.
• find your passion!
• look at 'Detroit Become Human' concept art
• look at location/region from Chinese folklore
• the background/landscapes are really good!!!!

Experiment

Character Design!!

So I decided to do character design now since I am quite interested in games and comic. I want to create my original characters. I want to be a concept artist or character designer for games in the future, so I am going to start practice and learn that in this module. My goal is to create a set of full- body design, emotion sheet and detailed final figure drawing. I hope in the end I can have enough of works put them into a publication. 

Experiment

Here below are my warm-up before I start my research. I began to draw some random characters on my laptop. I didn't find, and I didn't think a lot about it just kind of draw it for fun. Then I realised the problem with creating a character without any references is very hard; I kept changing my design and pose and element from my character. I didn't consider what I want to make, what I want it to look like, what personality they have and all sort of stuff. So it was a bit painful for a start. But at least now I know the importance of finding reference and research before designing.

I quite like my fox spirit, I might keep this design.