My graduation show project -Mazu

Hi guys ~ sorry for the late update.

Finally I graduated from Art Center!!!! (After…switching majors from graphic design → illustration → Entertainment Arts → Entertainment Design…. what a journey!!!!)

Usually in our Entertainment Design department, most students do visual development projects in sci-fi and featured film style, but I really wanted to do something different. Something I enjoy doing too! So I picked the Mazu project.

My teacher Christian Scheurer said my style is fresh and unique for Ent Design department. I was reaaaally happy to hear that ^^ (coz I wasn’t really sure if doing a complete different style than everybody else was the right thing to do or not…)

Below is my project poster (inspired by Tibetan Thangka). You may have seen my older version in my blog but this is the finalized one. :) I actually changed all the characters’ look and also refined the background.

Characters line up

main characters

Props, houses, trees

Fighting scene


and the location

I like this location painting a lot! This is done after researching and referencing traditional Chinese paintings and it’s compositions. I got a lot of good feedbacks on this painting at the show too :)

I actually did some few sec animated loop characters and scenes… will post them later.

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)

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.

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

Quick rendering

I am doing character design for a Visual Development class~
Our instructor is Paul Lasaine and his stuff is AWESOME! You guys should check it out.

I am not done with my character development yet but I just wanna post something since I have a long time didn't post anything new :)

We are doing visual development based on a story that our instructor Paul wrote.
So this is my character design for the captian (the father) in the story.
His personality is serious, responsible, and organized (neat freak? :P) So the shape of the character is SQUARE.

some facial expression sketches


This was rendered within an hour... (photoshop) ... so I call it a "quick rendering(painting)"
I guess I work faster now... thanks to Art Center hell training = =|||

However, I am still exploring the art style I want to use.
I want to try something different this time... but I couldn't help myself to add more details when I did this rendering. I am gonna do a really flat and 2D style for this character and see how it will turn out. :)

So I will keep this for myself :)

Buffalo man final photoshop rendering

I am sooooo glad that this final painting wasn't just gone with my HD :'(
(found another copy in my ipod)

This is a clay paint over by Photoshop

Old buffalo man - revised

revised and colored version.
I changed the shape of the head and also the proportion of the face features so that the design of the face is more interesting.


I am working on another clay sculpture of this buffalo man ~
will do another photo real clay paint over this week.

Puss in boots - cat character rendering (blue one)

I finished 3 of them before the show :D
That also means I finished this class final project 1 week early ~ wahaha

Blue poster

Puss in boots - cat character rendering

Mucha (Art Nouveau) style rendering for the cat character in "Puss in boots" story.
Those Art Nouveau backgrounds took me forever to do >< .....

This red one.... I made the circle in Illustrator.... err.. took me a long time to get it done...

Red poster


Yellow poster

There is another blue one that I am working on....
I need to prepare for my intern show on Thurs. so I am not sure will I be able to finish the blue one or not... wish me luck.

Character rendering

This assignment is a character rendering in realistic style.
So we need to pay attention on materials indications and everything should look real.
This is a contemporary costume design for future era and she is a princess.
The costume is inspired by ancient Chinese costumes.

I just uploaded this revised one so I re-post this again.
I had soften some edges and added textures in the background.
Added some shadow and highlights to show forms more.

Final version


early development

I don't really like my first sketch, so I changed the pose and her hair style.

Woner woman - in "The Incredibles"

This project is to take a character from 70s show and put it in a modern movie. We have to render the style as the movie and make sure the character that we design can fit in the movie scenes.
So I chose wonder woman (since we also had that cartoon in Taiwan back then XD).
She is also a superhero character so I think it's gonna be great to put her in "The Incredibles" movie. As you can see, she is also like The Incredibles parents that she is a retired superhero.
With middle age woman body and wrinkles, she is still very confident and able to fight any time.
I am gonna put her in a screen capture scene from "The Incredibles" movie but I need to get a HD quality movie first.
I will upload it once I get the good quality screen capture image.



(Photoshop rendering)


I am trying to match her rendering style with this poster.

Puss in boots - cat character

This is costume design for the cat character in Puss in boots story.
The style inspiration is combining 2 historical periods - Art Nouveau & Elizabeth Period.
Here is the collage:


Then I did 20 ideations of the cat's costumes.



and narrowed down 10 ideations with color keys


This is still an on going project.
I am gonna do 3 different poses with 3 different costumes of the cat.
I will upload it when I am done. :)

Buffalo man - early development

Clay paint over
This is early development of the buffalo man.
I am working on the revised clay sculpture and I will do another paint over and upload it.

Thieves design

A gang of thieves design completed.
Redesigned characters for treasure island

Costume design (Architecture influence)

Inspiration from architecture collage


10 ideations



Costume design for an animation character.
The time period is in the future, and her name is Lena.
She is a princess and very outgoing and active.
Lena was tired of her boring life so she ran away from home and went on an adventure.
Eventually she learns her life lesson and her responsibilities of being a princess.

Thieves design - leader

More Goblins

Character Design - Goblins

This is the project for my Character Design 1 class.
We are doing animation style and focusing on characters shapes.
I had a loooot of fun doing this hw :DDDDDDDD