Production Dairies 18/05

What I created today.

Rogue's dagger. Mage's staff. Began creating the mage's character.

changed sword's black outline to v dark red.

Continuing on from yesterday, today I started with creating the mage's staff, using the same techniques I used with making the warrior's sword. (Using the line segment tool and curvature tool to create basic straight and curved lines, and the paintbrush tool to create more advanced lines, tracing over the rough sketches I had made in my sketchbook.)

I had some trouble getting the swirling right on the orb of the staff with the paintbrush tool, so my tutor suggested the pencil tool, which is similar to the pen tool but allows you to rewrite over the same spot multiple times until you get the desired effect. I found the pencil tool so helpful and wish I found it a lot sooner.

After struggling a bit with making a crescent moon shape, I decided to research easier ways to make a crescent moon shape. I found this Youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp_4ySjiLOc) that explains how you can make a crescent moon shape with two circles over top of each otheer, then from the Pathfinder window, you use the "subtract from shape" tool and it cuts out a crescent moon shape. I found this quick and helpful and I will for sure use this method to create other shapes that I'm struggling with in the future.

When choosing a colour scheme for the staff, I wanted to stick with my original idea of golds but also add in a hint of purple to give it a mystical vibe. I had previously mentioned in one of my blog posts that I wanted to add purple in, so I added a light purple colour to the orb, and a darker purple colour. This way it adds a hint of purple without taking away the golden vibe.

I also kept in mind the video I watched on Understanding Colour. Purple and gold are complimentary colours, which was mentioned in the video. But if you notice in the image below, it is a blue-purple that matches with the gold colour, so I tried to stick to cooler toned purples when choosing the colours. I also made sure the colours were easy on the eye, as I learnt from the Understanding Colour video, some colours can look too bright and be hard to look at.

To finalise the design, I changed the black bordering to white. This matched the colour scheme a lot better than black as the colours I've used are quite light shade-wise, and the white outline blends in better.

Here is the final piece.

I next added the staff to the appropriate frame in Adobe Animate.

As you can see, I added a golden glow to the staffs orb area. This is to both make the staff stand out, and also give it an even more magical feeling. I also placed it in a box with a purple sky design. I thought the background would compliment the purple detailing on the staff well, and the fact that it's in a box makes it look almost like a playing card of some sort. Perhaps if this were an actual game in the making, there could be cards with all the weapons on as a special pre-order purchase. I think that would be cool.

Next to make would be the Rogue's daggers. I used the same method for the previous weapons and found that with the knowledge I'd gained from the YouTube video, the official website tutorials and knowing the existence of the pencil tool, it took a lot less time than the previous two weapon drawings.

I came into not exactly a problem, but a question. How could I make the gem look more realistic in the most basic way possible? I am using illustrator rather then photoshop, and although illustrator can do a lot, it lacks in making things super detailed and realistic. I would love to spend time in Photoshop making these weapons look super realistic but unfortunately I do not have the time. To solve this, I searched though goggle images of "gems" and found this picture. I noticed that some of them are just made up of basic shapes, but with different shades of the same colour.

I decided to give it a go, although I only had four surface areas to work with, I think it worked well and adds some detail and realism. All i did was add different shades of blue to each side, randomly.

I also was playing around with the gradient effect on the blade to try and get a white shine to it, to give it realism and depth. I feel like my little experiment was successful. It could be improved, but with the time restraints I have I think it looks great.

I also made the outline a dark blue, so it stands out from the pitch black blade.

Added into Adobe Animate and here is where I'm up to:

There are two daggers because the Rogue dual wields.

I next began work on the actual mage character, which in my opinion was a mistake. I still hadn't drawn the outfit that was the Warrior's, but thought would look better on the mage, and I hadn't thought about poses. I was too busy thinking I needed to get stuff done that I completely forgot about it. This means I'm probably going to have to redraw the whole thing. (Apart from the eyes, I can just copy and paste the eyes to save time). But considering the more I use Illustrator, the faster I am at it, I don't think it will take me too long. I'm going to give myself a day for each character. 3 hours for the outlines, 3 hours for colouring. Over the weekend I will need to draw the characters in their outfits in their poses, which I will create a mood-board for each character for.

This means that by the end of Wednesday, I will have all the characters done. All this leaves me to do is to put everything together, and to write out the characters journals, the lore, and the maps, then put everything together. (Oh and add small animations here are there) I believe I can do all that in two days. So, providing nothing goes wrong, by Friday I should have a working character portfolio.

Here is the mage I created:

Next steps for over the weekend:

Finalise mage design and pose. Finalize warrior design and pose. Finalise rogue design and pose.