Possible character aesthetic

Some Japanese comic artists have an aesthetic i really like for the kind of cyberpunk feel here's some below:
Tsutomu Nihei

he also has some good cyberpunk environments to look at.

Hiroya Oku:

Yoshitoshi Abe:

enviro:

(I have the artbook at home)

Assignment 2 - Concept art for Dune

For this assignment we need to create our own concept art based around the story of 'Dune.' we can either redesign one character + a prop that they use (vehicle, weapon etc) or a character and an environment that they are in (related to a particular scene).

For my style, I picked the category: horror/goth/cyberpunk

I am interested in exploring the cyberpunk aesthetic, so I gathered some environment samples that I like from games and movies and made a mood board:

I have an affinity for the 'Mirror's edge' game environment style, but I feel its probably too bright for the theme I'm using, so I could consider making the colours more grungy? I like the idea of industrial environments with flat surfaces.
I will look at character design aesthetic in the next post.

Cover page for final

We were unsure about what to use for the cover of the pitch bible so both me and ben made our own version of the cover. Here's my version:

 Unblurred text

Blurred text

UPDATED: with Gloob + higher contrast

Credits page + duties

I did a sketchup of the team to go on the credits page :) -

Things I assisted with -

• Initial thumbnails and layouts for the spreads
• Cover page ideas
• Character concepting/design and colour
• Group co-ordination/organisation (with a great reliable team :))

Episode character overlays

These pictures are for the small episode sections and their colouring is a bit more muted as the will be scaled down further than the character pictures:

Episode 1: Merv reaching out for the stone at the bottom of the lake.

Episode 2: Robot witch finds the mysterious plant to heal Gloob in the Witches Coven.

Episode 3: Robot Witch is banished from Robot City by Sonya after Sonya steals her invention.

Robot witch for cover page

Here's robot witch for the cover page. We decided to simplify the cover a bit so that it is her with the text coming out of her smoke trail and a minimal back ground: (top - simple colours, bottom - details)

Sonya updated version

Sonya's original pose looked a bit too stiff and not arrogant enough so I redrew her in a more powerful kind of pose: (left - flat coloured, right - details).

Orion update

This is just with added details as we were happy with the initial character pose and colours:

Merv update

Here is a better coloured Merv to go on the character page:

Robot witch + Gloob updated

Here are the pictures/ development for robot witch's character page. I trashed the initial side on image because the style wasnt great nor the pose, so this is the pose we went with: (left flat colous, right added details).

Broken robot witch junkyard

for the junkyard scene I started to draw up a broken robot witch and gloob to be leaning against a pile of the junkyard, it still needs tweaking but the overall concept is done:

Here are a couple of samples of it on the scene for context. The first has the colour unblended but the amount of details on the figure might not be seen from this distance:

Here is the more blended version:

The hue of the lineart still needs to be adjusted I feel to match the background. 

Background by: Ben Costeloe

I also need to redraw Robot Witch for the character page and Sonya in a less stiff pose. Merv and Orions picture just need slight tweaking but the overall pose looks good for the character pages. In addition Robot witch's face was redesigned in a group collaboration. (see below)

Layout for spreads

We deliberated on what would be our layout for the spreads it initially looked very simple:

After we revised it it looked a bit more like this:

(contents sketched by Ben Costeloe)

(junkyard scene sketched by Ben Costeloe)

(junkyard scene sketched by Ben Costeloe)

The last few pages we still needed to decide on and some of the scenery may be changed at a later date.

Merv & Sonya

here I've also done Merv and Sonya as samples for placement in the book mockup:

Water colour test on Orion

I worked out how to do a water colour style painting effect in SAI, so I tried it out on Orion here. The colors still look a little washed out but it might work better overall with the backdrops than flat full colours.

backdrop and character sample

I tried working on the textures and lines for this picture with robot witch and gloob but I think its not quite there yet. The colours of the character could be adjusted to fit with the background but Ali suggested that Robot Witch is probably a bit too purple here so I would need to match it closer to the blue hues of the background rather than the red.

Other mentions were to not have a 'heeled' foot, not allow the hair to be visible from the hood and to make her overall shorter in the scenes. I'm also working on a more watercoloured look in the way of colouring.

background by Ben Costeloe

Robot witch development + secondary character colour redraw

After deliberation Robot witch's final design (above) she still has the gas-like hair coming from an output at the back of her head - the gas appears as the power she is receiving from Gloob. I thought it might be a good idea to give her teal accents to relate her back to the colour of gloobs magic/power. She also has broken wires on her left arm and her hood/cape is removable.

We are still working out how we could give a water colour effect to the background or characters either via paper or brushes.

For Orion, Merv and Sonya I was playing around with colour schemes, Ali suggested to make Sonya look a bit more robotic so I might change her colour scheme + add some seam lines to make this clearer

Cover page mockup

Here's my sample of the cover page mockup, I just grabbed some photos/designs from around the net and edited and drew over them to give a general idea of what the cover might look like:

- Robot Witch's house in centre front - she is sitting on it casting a spell of some sort with Gloob by her side
-Lake surrounds house
-Robot City to the left - Sonya's domain
-Witches Coven to the right - Orion's domain
-Dusky sky - maybe add stars/moon? gives a mystical feel

finalising Robot witch

After looking over the head design it was decided that Robot Witch would also have a hood/cape. I adjusted the eyes a bit and mouth so there are more seam lines, and drawing the eyes without pupils made her look a bit more mechanical. Here are the changes:

before/after

We also met and worked on the layout of the pitch bible so that it was drawn up simply

More Designs Robot Witch

This character I was still unsure about so I looked at some images for eyes/mouths:

Here are some more sketches too, involving the idea of the gaseous hair more and various eyes/robotic mouths: