More inspiration/references

I was reading the Art of Pixar's Brave not too long ago and noticed that in the concept stages the artists had designed a lot of character themed Celtic knots/motifs

(there are also some lovely bear ones but google is giving me nothing)

These reminded me of the land of Rohan from the Lord of the Rings, which is home to the horse lords, and so have lots of lovely horse motifs kicking about, and they're very Celtic/Pictish looking. 

For instance, King Theoden's sword has two horse heads on the hilt(?)

 And the Golden Hall of Meduseld has horse heads at the tops of the pillars...

as well as the flag of Rohan...

With all this, plus a class trip to Dublin and a visit to the Book of Kells, it got me thinking that since the myth of the Kelpies is a pretty old one, it would make sense that they would be depicted in Celtic or Pictish knots. I've been giving it a shot recently but it turns out that knots are bloody difficult to draw, as it's pretty mathematical, but it's something I'm willing to work at. With this is mind, we've been lending a more Celtic feel to the ongoing texture design for the Kelpie, and it's giving us some really cool results. 

Life drawing

Some of this semesters life drawing:

The last two are from weekly drawing sessions to help with Dancing Nina, at Dundee College's 'The Space,' where they do dance courses. Since the dancers move so quickly the poses are probably somewhat incorrect...

Horse references

Just a quick post about the useful references I've been looking at to understand the movement of horses for when it comes to animating. I won't be doing any 3D animation, but it's still helpful to know so that I can direct the animation properly.

This one is pretty useful as it's in slow motion - helpful to see all the muscles working :)

I went to one of these shows when I was younger. These andalusian horses are trained to do some pretty crazy things, movements that regular horses wouldn't normally do so it's good reference for extreme poses.

And these are from the incredibly handy 'Horses Inside Out', run by a woman who paints the muscular and skeletal structure onto her horses!

Lighting Tests

I did a couple lighting tests for Kelpies last year but they were pretty bad (and quite frankly terrifying), so I gave it another shot. I can't remember how I did these exactly but I basically just mucked about overlay and multiply etc.

Lighting is something I'm pretty interested in, as it can completely change the tone of a scene. This is one of the interior scenes, where Murdo is sitting next to the fire. There isn't much other light in the room, so the firelight would be pretty intense on one side of his face. The second one is too red, it looks a little like light in film processing dark rooms, and I think the first is a bit too soft. The third one is probably closest to where we'll go with it, but it's maybe a little too dark on his hair. I also haven't given his eyes any highlights.

I also did a very quick test with the lighting on all three 'types' of Murdo (exterior daytime, interior and exterior storm). The lighting and shadows definitely add a lot more to the character, and I think it would help blend the 2D and the 3D together, but realistically I'm not sure if we have the time to do traditional lighting effects with every scene, since it takes a lot of time and we're behind schedule already..

Colour Schemes

I've been trying to get the colour scheme right for the exterior scenes. This isn't a colour key, more like inspiration for out background artist. I want them to look somewhat enhanced in terms of colour, but to remain fundamentally 'Scottish.'

There were a few more but I'm still dealing with computer problems and these were the only ones I uploaded to Facebook. At the moment I think we'll probably go with the more orangey tones, but with a sky colour similar to the last one. I also didn't do anything drastic with the water as that'll be determined later on with 3D and what not...

Inspiration

I've been looking at some films that I've used as inspiration and references for Kelpies. In terms of backgrounds and style 'Secret of Kells' (Cartoon Saloon) went in a really interesting direction, with stylised swirls and watercoloury textures.

The short film 'Old Fangs' (also by Cartoon Saloon) had some awesome (and similar to Kells) textured backgrounds.

Both of these films have a pretty unique look to them, one that is very beautiful. The textures and markings are something I think has influenced the style of Kelpies.

Film Poster

A poster was needed for our degree show website so I quickly whipped one up for Kelpies. (Apologies for the poor image quality, my computer has been broken for a few months and I don't have any of my work or files saved on it, so these are just from wherever I've saved them on the internet (usually FB)) The poster shows the eye of the kelpie, all scary and mystical and what not. It's similar to the scene in which Murdo sees himself reflected in the eye whilst underwater.