Photoshop: The Anatomy of a Dwarf, and an Elf

2 Point Perspective: Designing a Tank or Armoured Vehicle

For this project I had to design a tank/ armoured vehicle that needed to be drawn using two point perspective and shaded correctly using colour theory. I chose to design a tank.

What comes to mind when you think of the word tank? . . . a hulking mass of steel crawling towards its prey crushing all in its path? like an animal freed from a cage? Or a fast nimble box spraying bullets as it zips up and down enemy lines? Maybe you think of the old WW1 tanks sliding around on the mud and blood of no man's land? Or even something as extravagant as a hover tank gliding up a beach head firing its rail gun at enemy shield generators? the possibilities are simply endless. But for me having grown up playing with boxes of old toy soldiers what I imagine is rooted entirely within the confines of reality. Tales of soldiers and tank aces fighting it out on the battlefields of WW2 are my main source of inspiration. Sherman's and Tiger's battling over the future of Europe isn't just a figment of my imagination, it really happened all those years ago. And out of this great conflict emerged a new breed of tank, one who's sole purpose is to destroy other tanks. A mechanical monster that strikes fear into the hearts of men; the heavy tank.

Heavy tanks in WW2 are in some respects the easiest to design. The threat of being killed by long range missile strikes didn't exist. Aircraft weren't a great concern to tank designers because in the early stages of the war they only had to contend with ground forces. Helicopter gunships didn't exist either so the size, the noise and the amount of heat they produced was of little concern. The designs that emerged from this period in time reflect this disregard for attack from the sky. They were huge machines of all different shapes and sizes. This gives me the freedom to create anything I want as long as it looks convincing enough to be from this time period.

However instead of designing something completely new I want to build on the shoulders of giants by developing further a tank design used in WW2. One of my favourite tank designs from WW2 is the Soviet KV-2. It is a massive tank with a huge 152mm gun protruding from its box turret. The shells fired from this gun were so heavy that the reload time suffered during continuous fire because the loader would struggle to lift the shells into the gun breach to fire it. A tank such as this would be fun to work with. Plus I can draw it using 2 point perspective because it is 'boxy' making it easier to draw for a beginner such as myself. 

I'm planning not on copying the KV-2's design but evolving it. I need to look at what I can do to improve upon the design whilst making it strong enough to rip through other tanks from WW2.

An image of the KV-2 on the front of a modelling kit.

A KV-2 in WW2, the crew take a break from fighting and use the tank as a climbing frame.

Due to the nature of 2 point perspective this design will be simple. I will be more focused on using 2 point perspective correctly than small details on the tank itself. However that doesn't go to say that I will ignore the features of the tank. After all its down to me to design a new tank, not draw one that already exists.

First up is the tracks.

I have looked at multiple different designs of tracks and their suspension from the 1940's and my favorite so far is that of the Sherman tank.

I want my design to be fearsome, I think adding an extra gun to the tank would help make my design stand out.

Drawing my tank using two point perspective. I started out with the hull and tracks.

You can see here how I have used two point perspective.

I soon moved on to the turret and blocked out the guns.

My finished design, you can see how my inspiration has fed into my final design.

I scanned my design into Photoshop and began to paint it using a tablet.

I blocked out the base colour and changed the tracks to fit the design of the tank. The tracks didn't fit with the scale of the tank so I blocked in some tracks that are similar to those of the KV-2.

I then added correct shadows to the tank using the colour theory I learnt in lesson.

I then layered the base colours of the tank on top of the correct shadows.

I changed the colour of the tracks so they stand out more.

To make my design stand out more I placed a texture over the top and added the red star, this was the decal used by soviet forces in WW2. By adding textures and the decal it makes my design more believable.

I am overall happy with my design however I did struggle with using a tablet to paint on Photoshop. This is something that has become a recurring problem with my work. If I was to revisit this project i would probably alter my design more so that it doesn't look quite so much like my source of inspiration, i would also add the shadow of the tank onto the ground to create depth within the scene.

Color Theory: How to Shade Correctly

How to shade shapes correctly is actually more complex than it seems. It isn't a simple case of dropping a light grey onto one side of a shape. 

How to shade objects correctly

The box at the top of the image is placed on a white background. To shade this box correctly you have to use the grey scale from white to black. First I have to shade the top, I have shaded the top  with a 20% grey. The top shade is the most important one, It provides the base for the rest of the box. So to shade face 3 I have to take into account face 1. To find the value of face 3 I have to find the halfway point between the value on face 1 (20%) and Black (100%) the halfway point between these value's is 60%. So face 3 is 60% grey. You find face 2's value by looking at face 1 and 3. Face 2 is halfway between the value of face 1 (20%) and face 3 (60%) so face 2's value is 40% grey. They all relate to each other.

The shadow of the object is halfway between the backgrounds value (white) and Black (100%) so it will be 50% grey.

2 Point Perspective: Tutorials

Tutorial 1 - Drawing a Room With One Point Perspective

Tutorial 2 - How to Draw Backgrounds Using One Point Perspective

Maya: Rigging and Animating a Turret

These are a set of screenshots showing how to rig and animate our complete turrets. 

This is the turret I am going to animate. We have been working with this turret since the start of this course as a base to work off of.

First as an example I used a square and animated it to rotate counter clockwise. Using key frames (s key) and the rotate tool I turned the cube and at certain points (while turning the cube) I placed a key frame. I then set the frames to 30 fps, this meant it would turn around on the spot and not move too quickly or slowly.

I deleted the cube and started to work on the turret. The first thing I did was to freeze the transformations of all the components in the scene. This means when you import your model into a game engine all of the transforms are set at zero making it much easier to animate. Its easier to animate something if its position is 0 instead of -80 for example.  

I then began to create a hierarchy of game objects by grouping them together. This means I can control different parts of an object without breaking it apart or making it one solid object. This gives me the freedom to make changes later to certain parts of my object without breaking it down into separate models.

I grouped the objects together that make up the head of the turret. This will allow me to make it turn independently of the body. 

I repeated this process with the barrels of the gun. I grouped each barrel together as separate groups so I can move each barrel independently. I then put both of the barrels in a group together so both barrels will move together when animated.

I then centered the pivot of both barrels to the center of the turret head. I also locked the transforms of the barrels to the X axis. This means when the barrels turn and elevate they move up and down without turning through the turret head. They are also locked to the turret threads which in turn is connected to the turret head meaning when something happens to the turret head it also happens to the connected barrels. 

I then made some changes to my hierarchy and groups. 

I locked the transforms on the end of the barrel so I could animate the guns recoiling when they fire. They were locked to the Y axis meaning they could only move along that axis. This meant the muzzles wouldn't move through the barrel when animated.

I then began the process of animating my now rigged turret, I animated the head of the turret turning to its left and lowering the guns. The guns then fired together and recoiled together. This was done in the same way as my cube animation I gave an example of earlier. I rotated each object and placed key frames in so Maya knows where and when to turn the turret and how quickly it should do it.

After I had finished animating my turret I smoothed out the animation curves so that the turret when moving and firing doesn't have jerky sudden movements. It is a smooth transition from each key frame.

Here is my finished turret halfway through its animation.

Here is a short video of the finished animation.

By animating this turret I have learnt how to Freeze Transformations and the benefits that can have when animating. I have learnt how to create a hierarchy through the use of groups and create an efficient rig. And finally I learnt how to animate in Maya using key frames and how changing the frame rate affects the animation process.

However I think I will have to repeat this process multiple times before I have a full understanding of how to animate an object off by heart. If I could of done things differently I would of made a more complex animation by adding more life to the turret. It would of fired more like a machine gun as apposed to my approach which made the turret look as if it was the main battery on a battleship, a slow heavy hitting weapon which wasn't complex to animate. A machine gun would turn quickly and fire at multiple targets creating almost erratic animation curves. I think I would of had more difficulty animating that over my slow firing cannon.   

Life Drawing: November 2014

Here are all of my life drawings from November 2014.

Wednesday, 26th of November

Three (warm up) charcoal drawings each drawn in quick succession. The subject chose to position himself in some difficult poses that created depth and perspective.

Charcoal figures.

Charcoal figures.

Charcoal, here I focused on drawing the outline then simply adding the dark areas of the figure in. I used a light grey to build up the shadow.

Using charcoal I filled in the outline with harsh dark marks to build up a sense of depth and add texture. Instead of shading the dark areas by smudging the charcoal to blend in with the negative space I added more contrasting lines to create strong shadows. These shadows conflict with their surrounding area due to a lack of grey/ mid tones. 

I repeated the same technique here with this drawing. Using dark marks to build strong shadows.

Two drawings. Left was drawn with a pencil and the right was drawn with a fine liner.

Light pencil.

Here I used a fine liner to create precise marks. Going from a thick, blunt piece of charcoal to a sharp fine liner proved challenging; but I am happy with the results.

Overview of my work.

Wednesday, 19th of November

Three initial warm up drawings drawn using charcoal in quick succession. 

Playing with the composition of your drawing can create an interesting piece of work. Here I have drawn the subject in detail focusing on different areas of his body whilst framing the drawings with parts of his body missing.

Close up of the above image.

Again I have taken my time with these drawings and framed them differently, zooming in and out from the subject. 

I used a rubber to etch into charcoal to create the figure using negative space. I purposely placed the figure at the bottom left of the page to create a more interesting composition.

This is the above drawing, here you can see how I changed the composition and placed the figure at the bottom left of the page.

Portrait drawings. I have always struggled with portrait drawing. Individually I can draw the features of the human face but when put together to make a face I seem to struggle with getting them right. Here for example I made the eyes on the left way to big. They should of been much smaller. I feel like every drawing I do of a persons face looks the same as the next. this is something I will try to work on over the period of this course.  

Wednesday, 12th of November

Ink and Water.

Ink and Water.

Multiple drawings using different techniques.

Ink and Water.

Ink and Water.

Charcoal, I exaggerated the forces applied to her body such as gravity. This gives her a greater curve to her back.
I also focused on giving her curvier limbs and didn't focus on small details such as her hands and head.

Again here I have exaggerated the curve in her back and size of her stomach and legs.

I have greatly increased the size of her features In this drawing. making her spine curve more in the process. 

First 3 warm up drawings. 1st on the left, 2nd in the middle and the last on the right. Warm up drawings really helps to get your eye in and loosen your hand. Just like warming up before exercise.

My set up.

Wednesday, 5th of November

Charcoal and Rubber.

Charcoal and Rubber.

Charcoal and Rubber.

Charcoal, I used the long side on the charcoal to create long smooth marks. This technique is very similar to painting.

In these drawings I have blackened out a whole page using charcoal and etched into the page using a rubber.

Side of the charcoal stick and smudging using my fingers.

Side of the charcoal stick using long smooth strokes.

Charcoal and rubber. Notice the light tones I added around the figure to bring him out from the page. This helps to separate my drawing from the sea of charcoal surrounding him by creating an atmosphere/ highlight, this in turn adds depth to an otherwise flat image.