@ Alan & Phil (Major Project Idea Progression)

Looking back at the positives of my minor project, it was clear that there were some victories. For instance, my actual ability to model higher end more complex pieces, has definitely improved - I picked up a lot of useful skills with regards to that and also a lot more After Effects know how. Despite that, It became apparent at some stage in my project, that the design part of the actual piece, was missing a certain something. So with regards to that, I think my main objective this time around would be to carry my design dynamic throughout the entire 15 weeks, and see how this changes things.

After speaking to both Alan and Phil about some ideas for my Major Project, it seems that I will most likely continue in a similar fashion, with prop and object design/creation. That being said, the only thing to do now is to actually come up with an idea that doesn't limit me in regards to design ideas, yet unlike the last project, isn't so abundantly free, that my designs fail to take on a certain charm.

Again, after speaking to both tutors on Tuesday, my next step is to come up with my world, for which I will be designing. Alan proposed two choices in a sense.

Choice 1: Much like the character design project, come up with a hero, villian and sidekick characters, from a story with 2 or more fused elements. Without neccesarily designing the characters perse, use them and their personalities along with a synopsis to come up with a line of gadgets, props, weapons etc. that they could use.

Choice 2: Take an existing story (be it a film or novel) and reinvent the world in which originally existed, be it in an alternate time period or genre etc. and in the process, come up with a line of new props for certain characters in these stories.

NOTE: when I say props, as i said to Phil, I don't mean simple props such as tables and hats, but rather props with character and personality themselves; props that actually drive the story in some way. The McGuffin.

Now below Is a selection of the most popular types of genres which I can choose to fuse together. As well as a mix of genres, there is also the possibilty of fusing a genre with a particular time period instead. For example, a horror movie set in ancient rome (except not as terrible as that)



Also in the list below are examples of stories with certain characters and themes, that have been either put in a different timeline, writtennduringna different era or fused with another genre.



Now that you can see the 2 types of ideas I'm going for, I would gladly appreciate any ideas that anyone has.

Also, Thanks for the ideas so far Phil, Sometimes you get it right with the first go and I think you may have with regards to the Fisher Price, childlike weaponry. I shall look further into this

Interim Presentation

Latest Work Update

Hey there everybody, This update won't be in my usual video format due to some unforeseen circumstances. I just had to get my work which I have done up to show everyone. Hopefully things should be back to normal within the next week.

So without further a due, here are the finished concept blueprints for my weapon designs.



Here we have the Grapeshot. As with all the blueprints, key features and mechanisms were annotated. Also, as you can see with this image, the cockpit area is quite small in detail, therefore was given its own close up blueprint.



This is mostly for concept purposes, as the cockpit in the final piece will very rarely if at all be in view. It's still good practice and logic to design things like this though, in case of any future changes to my project.



Next we have the second manned weapon, being the Hell Lance. Once again, key areas and mechanisms are shown and noted. Also, the cockpit area is given its own blueprint to show it in more detail.



Despite the intention of this piece to show more detail, it is once again merely for an audiences purposes, as the cockpit area will be pretty much out of sight for the entire duration of my final piece.



Moving on to the handheld weapons now, and this piece shows the Ender 50cal. In all of its blueprint glory.



And finally we have the Spectre blueprint, showing its mechanisms and key features as well as having a brief description of what exactly this gun is capable of.

Now that the blueprints have been drawn up, it was a natural next step to outline which parts of the weapons would be split away or detachable etc.






The above images show just how and where these weapons will split, what kind of split that area is (see individual keys) and what kind of splits there are all together.

So, to look at what my next steps are I have to think about what needs doing. After speaking with Alan on Friday, I will now need to produce my base mesh for the weapons, as well as taking those concept pieces and adding some depth and shadow, just to show the audience what exactly each feature of the gun does or looks like.

So fingers crossed things get back to normal and next time I'll have a video again for you all.

Concept Progress

Please find below the concept Art featured in the video.

Chosen weapons & texts

Here you can hear the chosen texts and weapons I will be transcribing for this project.

Ideas And Thoughts

Something slightly different, to get my views accross. I hope you enjoy :)

Proposal for minor project

My first proposal stems from my last blog post. The idea of the robot factory has been an appealing one to me, since I began this course, and I finally feel as though i'm ready to take on the challenge.



after some thought and some initial sketch work (which will be put in the next blog post as a collective) I decided to move away from the futuristic or more obvious choices of themes for my environment (those choices being similar to that above, of a sterile hi-tech lab in the future)


My ideas came together and finally I think I have quite a solid plan for the piece. Imagine a robot factory, or for that matter, imagine a robot by any definition of the word, designed or invented by someone who has never seen any sci-fi or very little mechanical advancement of todays standards e.g. what would a robot factory look like If Da Vinci had created it in his era??



Above is an influence map of just the sort of ideas and styles I could employ for such an environment. At this early stage of deciding between projects, I haven't sunk hours of research into either of them, and have just gone with my instincts and what thoughts each of them provoke in my head for now.

My second idea is probably my favorite; Weapon design!



Above is the infamous lancer weapon from the Gears Of War series, and is possibly one of the most famous weapons in gaming history. However, its design, how it works, why it looks the way it does etc. began more than likely from tons of research and concepts.



So in essence, my proposal is to design from concept to fully rendered cg model,an array of weapons from 'The Lost Fleet' Sci-fi military series. The books detail specific new technology and weapons used by opposing sides to gain the upper hand in the battle. Weapons such as the 'grapeshot' or the 'Hell Lance' along with others will be taken from text to real life, and shown in full working order fully rendered as if it were going to be adapted into a hollywood movie.

So to wrap things up:

Proposal 1: To design and create a 16th century robot factory, as if designed through the eyes of someone who had never seen today's style of science fiction and someone who has little if any access to mechanical tech like that of today's. What would be in it to create multi-purpose robots, and why would it look the way it does?

Proposal 2: To design and create, in full working order, an array of weapons and tech, from The Lost Fleet novel series. Based on the descriptive text in the books, and the kind of environment/time period it is set in, what will the weapons look like? why? what makes them superior to what the enemy has?

I hope to find out more about where I'm heading with one of these projects today in my tutorial, perhaps it could even be a blend of the 2? really push the new, pre-futuristic machines used to create the robots, what would they look like? I'm all about ideas at the moment, so let's get to it.