Minor Project: Older Robot Silhouettes

Older Robot Silhouettes

I've created a small group of silhouettes for my Male Robot character, derived from a drawing I had created, seen below. The main influence for this concept has been household appliances from the 1980s, specifically, the Dyson Cyclon, the Black and Decker Dustbuster and the Oster Regency Mixer Blender Kitchen Center.

At the moment, the function that I have constructed it around is that of a vacuum cleaner. The torso houses the cylinder, which feeds via a pipe to the hips and legs, powering points of suction in the feet (hence their resemblance to Dustbusters.)

I've retained a bipedal construction for this character, as I plan to model the Tidy-Heidi character with a cylindrical dress-like lower body, which contrasts nicely against the bipedal appearance of the Male Robot. After staring at vacuum cleaners all day, I'm also considering giving the character a single, interchangeable arm, as well as a permanent one. This both works for the function of the character, as well as the nature of the robot as an appliance, having different attachments for different things. 

Adaptation: Further Environment Concepts

Further Environment Concepts

This is a snippet of a larger concept I've been developing, showing a small greengrocers, heavily inspired by the work featured in my previous research post, here.

It is a lot closer to what I had in mind than my previous concepts, although I'm still unsure whether it will look right next to the semi-realistic design of the Housewife character. Whilst the character is stylised, she isn't this stylised. I think a stricter, cleaner and more contemporary approach to the 1950's aesthetic may be more suitable. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Adaptation: Housewife Marionette Concept

Housewife Marionette Concept

To create this concept for the Marionette Housewife, I simply modified the existing turnaround. I wanted to retain the appearance of the Housewife character, whilst making the transformation quite drastic. I looked at the delightfully creepy giant puppets of the Royal De Luxe for my main influence, as seen below.

I've also designed the Marionette to be economical in terms of production, with changes subtle enough that I can simply modify the model of the Housewife character when created. When it comes to rigging, I will probably split the limbs up into separate components, as they would be in reality, and skin them individually to each joint. I should be able to get away with skinning the character fairly quickly, as there isn't any skin deformations to take into account, the character's limbs will move as solidly as they would in reality. As for the dress, I wondered whether I should treat it as wood also, designing it to move much like that of an action figure or artist's mannequin, although after looking at various marionettes and puppets, traditionally they use clothing to cover up the mechanics and imperfections of the puppet beneath, so I imagine I shall retain this tradition and focus on changing the limbs alone.

This is unlikely to be the final design, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Adaptation: Supermarket Concept

Supermarket Concept

This is my attempt at drafting up a simple supermarket design, taking influence from the images in the last post. I'm on the fence about whether this is a successful concept or not. It feels somewhat like the style I'm attempting to emulate, although its not quite there yet. 

I've incorporated the flat, messy colours and that odd, offset outline you can see in many of the images, although I think I need to be a bit more Caligari in the shape of everything, its all too strict and not spontaneous enough. Anyway, let me know what you think.

Adaptation: Housewife Turnaround Progress 23/2/13 Part Two

Housewife Turnaround Progress 23/2/13 Part Two

Just a minor update in response to Tom's feedback on the last progress update. I've attempted to reduce her muscularity somewhat, mainly in the arms. I've also added a little bit of texture and colour, just as a little test to keep things a bit more interesting for me, really.

Adaptation: Housewife Turnaround Progress 23/2/13

Housewife Turnaround Progress 23/2/13

I've began to develop the turnarounds for my Housewife characters. When working on the Character Design project, I found it easier to design the character whilst developing the turnarounds, so I've decided to go that way when developing my characters here also. Its quite weirdly proportioned in places, but that should all be sorted as I develop the turnaround further.

Adaptation: Some Quick Dress Designs

Some Quick Dress Designs

Just a few simple designs for my Housewife characters. Taking inspiration both from Phil's suggestion of using paper dolls and the cast of the television programme, Mad Men (specifically, the character Betty Draper), I've attempted to interpret my general idea of the stereotypical 1950's/60's housewife. 

I'm not sure whether each separate housewife will have a different design or whether, to economise the work involved, share the same design with unique textures. Let me know what you think.

Adaptation: Pattern-y Kitchen Concept

Pattern-y Kitchen Concept

After drafting up the Three Housewives screenplay, I was left with this sort of image in my head. Using the same textures I had used from the V&A in the last lot of concept artwork, I quickly drafted a simple kitchen scene and flatly applied the textures on top, deliberately leaving out any considerable details. I kind of like the way it forces the viewer to fill in the gaps to a degree, as well as its resemblance to the sort of kitchen scenes you see in Ikea catalogues (thanks to the camera angle). This may not be the final style (its a bit too 'in-your-face', I think), but I feel as though it is a step in an interesting direction.

Adaptation: More Patterny Bits and Bobs

More Patterny Bits and Bobs

Using samples of genuine 1950's fabric patterns supplied by the V&A, I created these three small bits of concept artwork. I am quite drawn to using these simplified patterns throughout the video, as they resonate both with the period and somewhat with classic product packaging, as seen in the sample of Sainsbury's packaging below.

Adaptation: Playing with Patterns

Playing with Patterns

After looking at a bunch of different examples of packaging, advertising and album artwork, I made a quick patterned concept, just to see how it could turn out if I incorporated it in my work. It resulted in this unusual, doo-wop inspired... thing, with a sort of Saved by the Bell vibe about it. I have no idea what will come of this experiment, although one idea was to create models in Maya and then texture each of the models with a flat, tessellated pattern, making the models distinguishable as simple shapes alone. I may not use this style for the whole video, but I can certainly incorporate it as a snippet somewhere in there.

Adaptation: Housewife 'Puppet of Consumerism' Concept

Housewife 'Puppet of Consumerism' Concept

Harking back to an earlier idea, this is a concept for a 'Puppet of Consumerism'. Originally, I had put this idea to one side pretty early on in the project, although it feels as though this somewhat Lynchian, Svankmajer-esque approach may be suitable once more, to help develop and reinforce a general narrative, where the consumer gradually becomes part of the thing they are buying into. This is a very quick concept and by no means a final design, but any feedback regarding any aspects of the concept would be appreciated.

Adaptation: Graph Conveyor Belt Concept Art

Graph Conveyor Belt Concept Art

This is a piece of concept art I created in response to one of the ideas Phil and I discussed. We spoke about treating elements associated with consumerism, such as statistical graphs, as other elements in the mass production process. This particular image displays a non-descript statistical graph as if it were a conveyor belt on a production line. The style was heavily influenced by the Sprite advertisement below. The entire animation will not necessarily be in this style, but if I choose to incorporate this idea as a repeating part of the montage, it will retain this style.

Commission: White Blood Cell Concept

This is the concept for the White Blood Cell 'Police Car, along with the Pre-Viz model. It is influenced by the Lincoln Futura, a concept that was intended to take cars into the future, but ultimately never went into commercial production (although it did become the basis for the Batmobile in the 1966 Batman television series starring Adam West and Cesar Romero).
I think it needs some visual motifs to make it more noticeably a police car, but other than that, I'm fairly happy with the general form.

Commission: Red Blood Cell "Ambulance Hovercar" Concept

This is another heavily "Jetson's"-esque concept, this time for the Red Blood Cell. I think I've settled on demonstrating the Cell Cycle in relation to healing wounds, with this in mind I thought it could work out that the Red Blood Cells act as little ambulances, rapidly getting to the source of the wound and dividing constantly in order to save the day. The design is incredibly simplified, as to fit with the overall style of the project. As mentioned in a previous post, the glass dome will house the genetic material. The processes will be visible through the dome and the little hovercars will multiply as a Cell would be expected to.

Commission: 'The Jetsons'-Inspired Cityscape Concept

Just a quick little bit of concept artwork heavily inspired by The Jetsons. This concept depicts the human body as a bustling city, with Red Blood Cells being depicted as little hovercars. The genetic material would be housed within the glass domes on the Red Blood Cells, with the hovercars reaching checkpoints etc and dividing. I like this idea, but it still needs a ton of work before it will work.

Concept Artwork: Salon Chair

Another prop design. The props in my story aren't particularly exciting, being simple, everyday objects, but its still a nice opportunity to practice painting. I'm trying to loosen up more so in the way that I work, so I've been attempting a more ruthless, painterly approach when creating these generally bland objects. Any practice is good practice!

Concept Artwork: Looking Into the Attic

This is a view into the attic through the main window, detailing the use of the umbrella to conduct electricity. Once again, not an overly phenomenal painting, but its all practice!

Concept Artwork: Umbrella

Concept Artwork: Hood Hairdryer

This is my concept for the hood-style hairdryer that is in Frankie's salon.
As you can probably tell, painting isn't really my thing (and I'd go so far as to say I really don't like painting that much), but this could have gone a lot worse and it does its job, so I'm pretty happy with it.

Concept Artwork: Frankie's Attic- False Reality

This concept artwork dramatises the idea that attic of Frankie's house is a centre of terror, whilst in reality, its something quite different.