Monday, June 15, 2009

back to the past...

so recently ive been trying to get myself to work up a concept art porfolio. you know. just so i have one i guess. the only concept arting ive really done in my life are for 2 classes way back when, "drawing intensive" with cecil kim (i dont even know if otis still has this class) and "drawing the fantastic" with gary geraths. looking back at the drawings i did for those classes... it's impressive how much i sucked at drawing back then. im not saying im great now... but man, younger me sucked. if younger me and i were to have a draw off, i would kick younger me's ass. and then make younger me cry. then maybe buy younger me a beer...

anyway... so since my concept art knowledge is rather limited, im going to assume that what i was doing for cecil's class was what most of a concept art portfolio consisted of. i believe that during that semester, we were supposed to come up with a concept for a story, come up with characters (good and evil), draw some settings/backgrounds, and finally have some nice keyframes to look at. sounds rather straightforward. since i want to get this portfolio going quickly, i decided to stick with the same basic concept i had back in the day, and just revamp it with my newer array of POWAHZ!!!!

ahem. so what exactly was the concept i came up with back then? well, it just so happens... ive lost the sheet of paper i wrote that on. but not to worry as, for some reason, i remember it quite vividly. unfortunately for you, im not so good at sharing, so my retelling is going to sound a tad incohesive. [warning: this is going to be rather lengthy]

so, the story was about a group of soldiers who had just returned from some expedition or whatever (who cares), and one of those soldiers is our main character (woo!). i cant seem to remember any names. i guess i never named my characters. anyway, so main character (MC) returns just in time for the destruction of his home, courtesy of evil guy (tm). evil guy is the leader of an army of undead warriors he had slain in his life (apparently he killed a lot of dudes). evil guy's hobby was collecting various rare weapons, most of which he wore with him at all times (ridiculous!). apparently, he was attacking the city in search of a sacred blade known as... well... i didnt name that either (or i simply forgot). anyway, so he and his minions ransack the city, killing all who opposed him (which happened to include everyone in MC's troop, other than himself. lucky!). MC, pissed off and shit, fights his way to evil guy, but on his way bumps into this mute chick. feeling manly, MC decides to watch over mute chick and take her out of the city. unfortunately for MC and mute chick, everywhere they turn they seem to bump into one (or a few) of evil guy's minions. taking care of them one after the other, MC realizes that evil guy is actually chasing him down. blah blah blah... eventually evil guy catches MC and mute chick and it is revealed that mute chick is the wielder of the sacred blade, but (gasp) the blade itself is only the seal to mute chick's power (!!) which is a siren like power that takes out evil guy (aww...). then there is some kind of touching moment where MC risks his life to return the seal on mute chick before the whole city collapses... and i guess they probably live happily ever after? never really got that far.

so basically, if you took the basic premise of the game Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, took out the time travel, mixed it up with some Final Fantasy craziness, and added a little bit of cliched action movie, you'll get my story in a nutshell. gimme a break, im not a writer.

now, if you read through all that, work must be really boring today. but if you stuck to it (or if you just skipped all the yapping) i have some drawings for you. so i thought i'd start off with the minions. i wasnt really thinking this through back then and i made all the minions look the same; weird, semi-samurai zombie things. very cliched, boring, and all-round badly drawn. here it is (it hurts me to look at it):


ARGHHH! I AM BLINDED!!

looking elsewhere now, i doodled out another zombie samurai. now i know i said i was trying to un-cliche it, and zombie samurai is like 2 great cliches in one super cliche, but... i like samurais dammit! i thought id start off with something i know i'll like drawing. so here it is:


still very rough, and obviously lacking in color, but much better than the old one imo. kinda reminds me of ice hockey...

okay, this post is very long. i think ive spent more time typing this out than i actually spent on my sketch. the reason why i went through all this is to hopefully hear what you think. i know there are a number of actual concept artists that skim through my blog, so if you get the chance, and are feeling rather crtique-y (tiki?), please do. even you none concept art people. i dont discriminate. i know there isnt much to talk about right now, but i plan on uploading more of this stuff as it gets completed, so stick around.

5 comments:

Whitney Pollett said...

Sam Thompson would be flipping out right now, like "NO! NOOO THAT'S NOT HOW I WROTE IT DAMNIT DUMNITTTTT!!!!"
AAAHHAHhahaha I was in your group in Gary's class remember!!! Those were the blurst of times. Maybe me you and Monica could get together and revisit The Tale of Augustus!
At least I think that was the name of it. I like your twist on the story too, making it take place in futile Japan. Very cool! And your Samurai zombie is pretty bad ass too.
I'm making a new concept portfolio also!! Can't wait to see what you come up with!!
Oh know what would be cool!!!???
Ok ok so make a line up of crazy flailing samurai zombies all silhouetted out like the one you have right now...it would be cool cus it would look like an army!! Yeaaah.
This has been my input for now. Adou!

mikes said...

when you said group of soldiers i thought you were talking about US marines or something (i been playing alot of cod4 recently lol). then i saw your samurai things, so im guessing the story takes place in ancient japan or somewhere? or some kinda futuristic ancient japan, like in the samurai 7 anime (i think youv seen it).

mr arthur said...

whitney: oh nono, this isnt the story from the tale of augustus (was it really called that?). this is the story i had for cecil's class. although feudal japan mixed with roman gods does sound very cool now that you mention it. if we were to ever revisit augustus and co, i think there would be a lot of cringing as we look through our old artwork...

anyway, i like your input whitney. very umm... emotional.

mikey: actually, it takes place in this... other world kind of place. feudal time in this weird desert city. that just happens to have samurai as well. it will become more clear when i flesh things out a little more. and yeah, i did watch samurai 7. or a bit of it.

Kubacki said...

your good ol' sams there is pretty cool. although i think he's got a bit of a child's face to him there. which could be inneresting! maybe the jaw should jut a bit more?

his armor looks almost shiny, most cool. like black marble shiny. most cool. i like it when they carry the wicker basket backpack things with a flag sticking out back though. younger you had the right idea with all the crazy jutting flags!

Unknown said...

your new version kind of vaguely reminds me of the robot warriors in laputa castle/island (i can never remember which one) in the sky.

looking good man.

you should totally draw fatlantis. or we can get together and make up another random story, haha.