More Mazu characters sketches

I am doing further development on my Mazu project ~

(you can read about Mazu's story here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazu_(goddess) )

have revised the characters a bit and did a lot of sketches on gestures and facial expressions.

Here are some of the sketches :P Plan not to show them all since this project is gonna be shown at my grad show on Dec 18th.

Mazu - she is a quiet character, that's also her Chinese name "mo-niang"(silent girl) came from. So I tend not to show a lot of opened mouth expressions.


Big eye demon (Thousand Miles Eye 千里眼) - he is a naughty guardian, loves to laugh and trick people.


Ear demon (With-the-wind Ear 順風耳) - He is always sleepy and pissed but he does his best to be Mazu's guardian.

zbrush

I am taking a zbrush class with Bryan Wynia at Concept Design Academy.

Because my previous Character Design teacher Neville Page (he is the creature designer of Avatar, Watchman, and Startrek...) told me in class that I got the talent of doing sculpture with tiny details! (so glad to hear it) He said maybe I should keep working with clay or learn zbrush.

Plus ~ I am into character design and toy design stuff and I saw some 3D printing companies and services presentations at SIGGRAPH this year. It seems like the 3D printing machines and services are getting cheaper :D (check out this site: http://www.shapeways.com/ you can upload your zbrush model and select the materials, they will print it for you and you can even sell it on their website.)

So I think it's time to learn zbrush :) !!

The program is really amazing~ It makes 3D modeling a LOT easier (I have learned basic Maya and 3D max before). It's just like working with clay!!!

My 1st project is to do a serpent man model and then do 10 sketches in photoshop.

To be honest~ I am totally not a scary monster/creature person XD I love to do cute stuff.

So my sketches turn out to be a "serpent woman" not a man~ hahahaa

My teacher Bryan said this is looking feminine but it's ok... serpent man needs a serpent woman ~ lol.

Anyway I am here to learn the program so please don't mind that I might make everything girly. XD

Here are my 10 sketches using the zbrush model I made.

and these are my references (ewwww)

Spirited Away – Background paintings

Two background paintings I did for the Spirited Away redesign project :)
Trying to be flat and 2D :P

Here are the process before the final paintings…

Background 01
Value study

Color study (Acrylic)

Final digital painting (Photoshop)

Background 02

Value Study

Final digital painting (Photoshop)

Here is an extra props redesign – herbal bath chips
Inspired by the Japanese family logos.

The story of Mazu - props and poster

I animated them... just for fun~ haha
Weapon for 順風耳 with-the-wind ear

Weapon for 千里眼thousand miles eye


Changed background color

The story of Mazu

Another project that I am working on is the story of Mazu, Chinese goddess of the sea.
The story is about Mazu's childhood as a girl with superpower and how she met her guardians "Thousand Miles Eye (千里眼)" and "With-the-Wind Ear (順風耳)"

This will be developed into short flash animation ....when I have enough time. :P
Before the animation development this will be in flat and graphic style illustration done with Flash.

Poster/Cover of the story (will revise it after I get my teacher's feedback)


3 Characters design of the Mazu story

Mazu - childhood


Thousand miles eye


With-the-wind ear

Props and background are still under development.

Adidas commercial – matte painting

I had worked on a commercial project last term with a film student Gevorg – a talented 21 years old director. XD He has an awesome sfx team and he showed me some of the fx in progress ~ I think it’s awesome so I joined their team and helped developing the background for the commercial.

Spent about 3~4 weeks on the modern city background and here is the end result. It’s really awesome and I feel honored to be part of this project. :) They are working on the sfx break down video and they will post it online later.

Adidas Commercial from Gevorg Karapetyan on Vimeo.

Spirited Away - redesign

We are taking an existing movie/game/animation and redesign everything. So I picked “Spirited Away.” Since this is a popular film so I am not gonna repeat the story again :P (lazy). Here are the 4 characters I redesign. I am still working on the props and scenes design. I will upload it when I am done. ^^

Chihiro
 

Haku

no face

Yubaaba

Monster Mountain

A scene painting for the Monster Mountain story I wrote 2 years ago…
This is the moment when the boy meets baby monsters. :P

This is not the final version yet… since I got some feedback from my instructor, I am gonna do little more improvement to make this piece more completed. :)