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I went on a trip to Tim Burton's exhibition, I particularly liked this 3D model as I want to continue improving my skill in modelling. I love the texture on this model that makes the skin look scaly, as well as the use of lighting in the exhibit.

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Another 3D creation by Tim Burton, this time using more than one 3D medium. I like the attention to detail in this piece with the red splatters and the shading on the models, as well as the use of lighting. The colour of the light faded into different colours to represent the Christmas lights on the tree.

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Here is concept art of Edward Scissorhands by Tim Burton. I'm interested in concept art and I really liked that it was a quick sketch instead of a full art piece. I want to do experimentation with sketching and creating concept art in this way, as I can then do a lot of experimentation with my ideas.

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At first, I wanted to explore the whole concept of fantasy as the subject interested me quite a bit. However, because it was such a broad subject, I wasn't sure which path I wanted to follow in my project.

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I made a mood board of the things that come to my head when I thought of the word 'fantasy.' It was mostly the creatures and fantasy games I play.

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I decided to narrow down my subject for the project to the creature/race side of fantasy as I am interested in character design and fantasy creatures in general.

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I looked in a creatures manual for dungeons and dragons for inspiration on character design and ideas for creature races. These are a collection of the ones I liked the designs of the most and want to take inspiration from.

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Akira Egawa is a Japanese 3D modeller/illustrator. I'm focusing on her digital illustrations because I think the way she uses lighting in her art is very colourful and unique due to the way she renders. She doesn't blend her colours entirely smooth, using intricate brush strokes to make it seem blended from afar. Her use of bright and vibrant colours is very distinct and you can see it in this illustration here. She used cooler tones with every colour to convey the fact the creature is underwater.

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Akira Egawa is very good with drawing magical and imaginary creatures like dragons, such as the one in the image above. I love the way she makes the dragon stand out against the background by adding a vibrant, contrasting colour against it for an outline.

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For my first creature experiment, I spun three wheels that gave me random real life or fantasy creatures then compiled images of each one along with a colour palette. I ended up not liking the colour palette I picked from the creatures, and wanted to lean more towards the red/pink colours of the demonic creatures.

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Here I took the bodies of the imp and the demon, adding parts of the moth along with it. The wings, antenna, extra arms and feet are inspired by the moth. The horns are taken from the demon, along with the body shape in general. Later on I added the imp's tail. I really liked the way the wings ended up looking in proportion with the body, as well as the torso and second set of arms. It helps bring in the more insect-like aspect of the hybrid, considering it is a humanoid creature.

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I decided to sketch more of the Moth/Imp/demon hybrid to get more comfortable with the design, as well as show other parts of the creature that weren't shown in the main image. I gave the creature more character by sketching it in action, doing things it may do in the real world.

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Moth/Imp/Demon mix creature design - outcome

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Moth/Imp/Demon mix creature design - outcome

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This is the cleaned up and coloured version of my hybrid creature. I used a warm toned colour palette to represent the more demonic side of the hybrid, while also keeping the browns and pinks of the moth's wings in the reference photo I used. I like how I made small differences between the male and female versions of the creature, as insects don't have many differences between sexes either. I only changed the height difference and the antenna size between them.

I think the colour palette I chose worked very well, as when I used the one I colour picked from the reference photos, the hybrid came out looking mismatched, the tones of the colours being completely different and contrasting too much with eachother. Im glad I was able to find a better suiting palette that clashed less.

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I took inspiration from one of the images in the D&D monster book to make this clay sculpture of a fish person. I started feet first, as I wanted the figure to stand up straight and be well supported at the bottom. I used the tail to steady the sculpture further.

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Another work in progress, I used small clay sculpting tools to add the details in the scales and on the shell belt.

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Finished before drying - I made the face details with the same detailing clay tools that I used to add the scales and belt, though if I were to do this again, I would try and add more depth to the mouth and eye areas on the head. Since it is a fish creature, I decided not to add arms. I wanted to add my own touch to the creature as to not copy what the D&D monster handbook did.

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Clay experimentation - finished humanoid fish

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Clay experimentation - finished humanoid fish

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Here is the finished product of the clay sculpture. I used acrylic paint to cover both the sculpture and the base I made, then sealed it with PVA glue to make the whole thing shiny. This gave the impression that the sculpture was wet, which I think works well for the sculpture as it is meant to be an underwater creature. I also added drops of PVA on the base, but they ended up being discoloured. I wanted them to be clear to look like water droplets. Overall I'm very happy with how the sculpture turned out. If I was to do it again, I would work into the face a bit more and make the features more distinguished, as well as add a few more colours into the palette as it is very limited.

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To make these creatures, I wanted to do something more unique than spinning wheels with creatures on it. So I gathered macro images of insects on Google images and cut them out, sticking them together in different ways to create collages that look like new creatures. I then sketched the creatures and made them more realistic, adding characteristics that would be found on real animals. I really love how these turned out as even though bits and pieces of the creatures were taken from real life, I could rearrange the different parts into something completely new. I also loved how colourful they ended up.

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Illustrator experimentation - collage creature 1

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Illustrator experimentation - collage creature 1

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I used the shape and pen tools on Illustrator to draw one of the creatures, then filled the shapes in with similar colours to the collage. I made the outlines a brighter colour than the fill colour to make the lines pop more and to give the creature a shiny and illuminated impression. At first I struggled a lot with the shape tool in illustrator, but after using the pen tool to create the finer details in the illustration I really liked how it turned out.

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I did the same with this creature as I had with the other, this time using the gradient tool to fill the eyes, as they had many different colours in one space that I wanted to convey. I really like how clean and sharp the creature came out, I wanted to have this one crab-like, so I didn't round out most of the sharp edges to make the legs and horns look as if they were armoured with shells.

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Here are some extra sketches I made to play with the designs of the creatures I made a bit more. I drew sex differences with one and an action shot with the other.

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Here is another of the collages made with macro images of insects. I then sketched the creature a few times next to the collage to solidify the design as well as some of the features of the creature.

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Illustrator experimentation - collage creature 2

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Illustrator experimentation - collage creature 2

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Another illustrator experimentation, I became a lot more confident with the pen tool and the fill tool while doing these, and I loved how clean the illustration turned out.

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I tried another type of collage with other types of animals than bugs, but I didn't like this at all as the animal parts are just too recognisable and couldn't be used as much more than what they were. I didn't end up going further with animal collages because of this.

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As mentioned in my project proposal, I wanted to make a factfile or booklet with information on the creatures I've made. I decided I needed to research factfiles and what they look like, as well as get inspiration for layouts and general aesthetic. I really liked the way the more hand-written and less structured ones looked, especially the Brass dragon factfile looks.

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I explored different layouts for how I wanted my fact files to look like, which were inspired by the many different ways the images on the fact file mood board were laid out. I ended up going with the one on the right as it came across to me as more hand-made rather than perfectly symmetrical digital ones.

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Terry Isaacs is a Canadian painter and illustrator that captures nature and animals in intricate detail using oil paints. I wanted to research his art as I'm creating factfile for my own creatures and want to take inspiration from his amazing use of realism and capturing the colour in wildlife. For example, this artwork of a bison in the snow captures a moment in action, where it isn't only an image of the animal, but an image of the animal in its habitat. Isaac has made very delicate brush strokes to create an almost photographic image while still keeping less intricate brush strokes in the background to create the impression of blur.

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Instead of making a clay sculpture like i mentioned in my project proposal, I decided to experiment with something I hadn't tried before, that being blender. I used a variety of modes with this model, using basic shapes before sculpting them using the edit and smooth tool. I really like how this turned out because it's perfectly symmetrical which I wouldn't have gotten if I did a clay sculpture. I decided to use blender instead of clay going further in this project because I could get smaller details and have the shapes be clean.

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Here is another blender experiment with another one of my creatures. I once again used basic shapes and the sculpt tool to create this 3D model. One thing I wish I had more experience in is creating more texture in the models, as I wanted to add more detail to the hairy bit that I have on my creature, but didn't know how. In the end I still like sculpting 3D models in blender a lot more as I can get very sharp tips on my models as well as the smaller details which I mentioned before.

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Extended Diploma proposal sheet - Jonathan Williamson

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Here is how my blender experiment came out after being 3D printed, sanded down and smoothed out with clay. The 3D printer was having trouble printing the sharp points, as well as the mirrored shapes I used. I was able to glue the mirrored arms back on and make both sculptures look decent. If I were to do this again I'd maybe try and change the settings with the 3D printer and find out why it wasn't printing the mirrored objects. Otherwise I really like how they turned out!

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Here is the product of the crusider I made in blender. The 3D printer once again had trouble with the sharper points as well as most of the legs. However, the top half was printed very well so i was already very happy with the 3D print.

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Here is my 3D printed crusider after sanding the plastic down then adding clay to smooth it out. I wasn't able to stick the loose legs back on as the apoxy glue didn't seem to work on it after the clay was added. I was happy to have it smoothed out and ready for painting, as painting the plastic of the 3D print directly wouldn't work very well.

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Here are the drafts I made for my factfiles after finding out what kind of layout I wanted to follow with them. This was where I came out with the names for my creatures as well. I used features of the creatures for the first part of their names, then mixed words together for the second. I mixed 'flea' and 'weevil' for the Fleevil, 'tropical' and 'tooth' for the Troth and 'crusader' and 'spider' for the Crusider.

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Here is a drawing I made in preparation for the Fleevil factfile in coloured pencil. I was inspired by Terry Isaacs' wildlife paintings to create something more realistic and intricate because if my creatures were to be real, I wanted to make something akin to what they would actually look like in and around the world. I also drew the Fleevil in action doing something you'd see it doing in real life, which also adds to the immersion I want to portray in my project.

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Here is a side by side comparison of the crusider's sex differences in their horns. I drew this because I wanted to have a realistic approach to my creatures. Exploring sex differences as well as traits the creatures have is a good way to immerse the audience.

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Here is a coloured pencil drawing I made for the Troth fact file. I wanted to go back to Akira Egawa's style and use very vivid colours with a nice shading style, so I made this drawing inspired by her. I really love how expressive the creature looks in this style, and I loved the bold lines I added too.

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Here are the final products of my Fleevil 3D prints. After sanding and smoothing them out with clay I used acrylic paint to add colour on them. I saturated the colours a lot more than on my drawings as I wanted them to be vivid and bold. The smaller one was the first one I printed and I made a bigger one to have the details more visible. The smaller one is more accurate to the size of the Fleevils in the fact files.

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Here is the 3D print of the Crusider. I went with a more blue palette when painting it because I wasn't a big fan of the grey in the illustrator image I made. I also added white spots to make the creature stand out even more, especially due to the fact the main feature of the Crusider are the horns, so I decided to bring further attention to them.

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Because I waited until after I sanded and added clay to the model, the glue wouldn't stick the legs back on the body. I worked around this by putting the images I took into photoshop and editing the leg onto the body.

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I was experimenting with fonts I found online to see which one I wanted to use in my factfiles. I wanted to go for a handwritten aesthetic, so I tried out a few different calligraphic fonts. I liked the second font the best because it was bolder than the other fonts, and I liked the unique style of cursive it uses. The other fonts I saw all looked around the same while this font stood out amongst them.

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Here are my final outcomes for my fact files. I made two versions and these are the pristine ones. I like how professional they look but the images don't mix very well with the aesthetic of the background otherwise.

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Here are the aged versions of my fact files. I really love these ones because they fully immerse the audience because of how handmade they look. The images work so much better because they aren't bright white and are aged the same as the rest of the piece.

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Here are the mock designs for the journal factfile I want to make. I made this in indesign and added the drawings I've made traditionally where I will stick them down physically.