Portfolio 03 Week 03

Story Beats Part 03

This week, I focused on beat 03, which is the audience seeing how excited Gothel is to help Rapunzel get ready for the ball. She is ecstatic because it would be a huge step for Rapunzel. My process can be seen below.

Here is the final illustration.

I have mixed feelings with how this came out. I don't really like how I did the lighting so I will probably redo that in time for industry review.

Portfolio 03 Week 02

Story Beats Part 02

This week I started on my second story beat. For this scene, I wanted to show Prince Luca giving Rapunzel the invitation to the ball, with Prince Luca being very excited and Rapunzel having to be convinced a little more. Below is the process being done in photoshop. I'm still looking for software to do a timelapse of my drawing process but in the meantime, I'll be compiling it in Premiere Pro as a gif.

This is where I am at so far, I am planning on finishing it by the end of the day Monday. Time wasn't on my side this week so this submission suffered from that. 

UPDATE

Here is the finished process and final illustration.

Portfolio 03 Week 01

Story Beat 01

For this portfolio sprint, I will be illustrating story beats - one each week. My research will be seeing how these sorts of illustrations are done for films. I will also be showing my process throughout. For future presentations, I will have a timelapse video of me working. This week I dived right into the assignment so I forgot to record myself, therefore I will be showing images for this week.

For the first story beat, I wanted to introduce Rapunzel and her problem of being unable to leave her tower due to her anxiety, leaving her distraught. I've seen people experiment with different compositions before settling on one, so here are the 3 shots I experimented with. I decided to go with the 3rd one since we get a good view of Rapunzel's face, which is the most important part.

For these shots I tried using camera techniques for how I wanted the audience to feel. I tilted the camera for an attempt of giving a sense of uneasiness.

After rendering out my frame, I went into photoshop and sketched in Rapunzel. I put the mannequin in to help with foreshortening and placement. I thought that having her hand on the rail would make the illustration more visually interesting.

It seems that for film, story beats offer a way to show how the camera, lighting, and mood of the scene would be. Since we're seeing Rapunzel in a sad state over something she thinks she can't change, I wanted to have the shadow cover most of her face seen by the audience. Since the light is coming more from the back, I liked the idea of Rapunzel being giving a nice rim light that would help her pop even more.

In terms of process, my work for this illustration was anything but organized so that is something I'm going to be working on in the next story beat.

Portfolio 02 Week 04

Environment Part 03

This week, since environment concepts were wrapped up, I focused on tweaking some of the portfolio pieces I have made thus far. I tweaked things based off of different critiques I have gotten. Here are the before and after pics.

Tower Interior

I got feedback that the gate shadow was too harsh and that the stair shadow should be darker.

Tower Exterior

The birds were too bright in the first iteration so I put a shadow towards the bottom to make them less distracting, which in turn helps keep the viewer's attention on the tower. I also added some detail to the top of the tower that I had initially forgotten to do.

Prince Luca

Prince Luca's expressions are now more welcoming than before. He seems more friendly and less stoic.

Character Lineup

In the character lineup, I updated Prince Luca, and adjusted Frau Gothel's size to be smaller. I also made some changes to Frau Gothel's skirt because I didn't like my initial rendering of it. Lastly, I included a background to help ground the characters and not have them floating.

Portfolio 02 Week 03

Environment Part 03

This week, I completely finished the interior concept for Rapunzel's room. I'm really happy I took this week to work on it because I was able to come out with a result I was proud of. This process was definitely a learning experience and a test for my patience.

Here are the final results.

Day Lighting

Night Lighting

Prop Callouts

Additional Close-Ups

Overall, I am very pleased with the result. I would like to keep improving on making the spaces feel more "lived in" to make them even more interesting and full of character.

Moving forward in the next portfolio sprint, I will be doing story beats in this setting.

Portfolio 02 Week 02

Environment Part 02

This week, I designed the interior of Rapunzel's room in the top of her tower. This was quite the challenge, I definitely underestimated how much work this would take.

I began by doing a sketch of what the floor plan would be like, then added in necessities like a bed, and finally added stuff for character. I also made sure to have references on hand for what Italian Rococo furniture looked like.

References

Sketch

Once I had the sketch, I decided to set everything up in Maya for a cleaner look, and to save me time for when I do the story beats in this environment for the last portfolio sprint. My plan is to finish the interior with a finalized lined and colored look, like the two examples here.

Render

I think that I can keep adding in things for character to show more of Rapunzel's personality in the room, such as more books strewn about, a hair brush on her vanity, and maybe a bunch of hats or clothes spilling out of her wardrobe.

For this next week, I think I will spend it polishing the interior, coloring it, and showing detailed prop callouts of what is seen in her room.

Portfolio 02 Week 01

Environment Part 01

For this week, I decided to concept out how I would want Rapunzel's rococo tower to look like.

Here are my references.

After gathering references, I starting doing thumbnail design for the tower's shape. I tried to keep my tone words in mind throughout the process, which were - thriving, graceful, ornamental, and aristocratic.

After deciding on the design, I blocked out the tower in Maya in order to save time for painting the final piece. Here is the render.

After bringing the render into photoshop, I first did a quick rough paint over to see what direction I would want to go with the lighting and surrounding environment. 

Once I was satisfied with my direction, I created the final concept of the tower.

Here are the orthographics of the tower based off of the blockout I made in Maya.

Portfolio 01 Week 04

Character Designs Week 04

This week, I focused on Prince Luca's design.

Here is are the main references I used and the initial thumbnail drawings that I started with. I used these drawings as a chance to experiment with different outfits that would affect the mood of the character. I eventually went with a mix of B, G, and J.

Here are the color combos that were considered.

Poses

Expressions

Orthographic

And here are all the characters fully finished.

Portfolio 01 Week 03

Character Designs Week 03

This week, I worked on Gothel's design. In this story, Gothel is sweet and a grandmother by this time in Rapunzel's life. She enjoys gardening and taking strolls in town, often seen with books in her hands for Rapunzel.

Here are some of Gothel's initial designs. I was trying to explore different shapes that could be done with the body and big dress. I found myself gravitating more toward a short and compact figure.

Once I decided how I wanted the body to be, I tried exploring different outfit designs. I decided to go with the first one since that seemed the most age appropriate and made Gothel look more approachable.

After deciding the clothes, I moved on to Gothel's expressions. I really wanted her face to squish and stretch with the expressions since her skin isn't as bouncy as it may have been in her youth.

Here are some different color iterations for Gothel's dress. I decided going with the purple palette since it seemed to look nice with Rapunzel's design.

Here is Gothel's orthographic.

This next week, I will be focusing on Prince Luca's design.