Hannah Sheppard Rookies 2024 Entry

Main Project

Marionette of Madness: Portfolio Project.

Splash Art Piece | Link to ArtStation: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/g0rzD8

This piece was created as my final project for University. Established within my early research, I centred my character's design around the Spider Lily flower and assassin role. The connotations, folklore and properties of the flower, worked well to visually communicate elements of storytelling and support the intent for this piece.

I had set myself a three word criteria for the mood of the piece, to reflect on and evaluate my success/progression throughout the development of this project. My keywords were: Intimidating, strong and powerful.

In order to achieve the self set criteria, I focused on shape language, colour choice - meanings/connotations, composition and character posing. These visual design elements were essential to communicating the intent for this piece.

During development, I encountered challenges ranging from perspective - how that altered anatomy proportions, values and ensuring I communicated my keywords through the rendering aspect of the process.

Despite the various struggles, I had a lot of fun learning how to render, developing my understanding of colour placement, relativity and anatomy.

My artist influences/inspiration for this project were the League of Legends Splash Pieces from Riot Games, focusing on the styling and processes of Bo Chen and Alex Flores.

I created this project using Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint.

Concepting & Development

To prepare myself for creating my splash piece, I created a few iterations, ideas for posing and a character sheet for my character as part of the pre-production section of my pipeline. 

When it came to deciding the posing for this piece, I had reached out peers and asked for feedback/opinions. In doing this I wanted to make sure that the initial intentions/keywords were communicated visually through the pose and shape language.

Taking on the feedback provided, I began developing the front facing pose.

The above image is the result I had created for the end of my pre-production stage of the pipeline.

Upon approaching the rendering stage of the pipeline, I had made the decision to rework the angle and composition to better communicate the key word criteria visually. 

Re-Work/3D Model Posing

Making use of the available resources in Clip Studio Paint, I used and positioned their base models, chair and a smaller cube (scaled), to test positioning and provided myself with exact reference for the work I was going to produce.

Using this method allowed me to speed up my process, ensure accurate proportions/anatomy and create the intended mood I set out in my key criteria.

Rendering

Whilst rendering, I was consistently referring to the splash art produced for Riot Games' League of Legends, specifically work produced by Alex Flores and Bo Chen. I really liked the semi-realistic styling these artists use within their work and wanted to create pieces that fit within that same styling. 

It was incredibly beneficial to be conducting studies alongside my development process as I ran into a lot of challenges that I had not previously encountered. An example of this was the red lighting, making it work for the intended mood whilst not overdoing it to the point where it was unrealistic. Adjusting opacity, using blend modes such as glow dodge and hard/soft light to add that additional light across the face and body worked nicely, amplifying the intimidating and powerful aura I was going for.

I have linked the artists referred to below:

Bo Chen: https://www.artstation.com/chenbo

Alex Flores: https://www.artstation.com/alexflores

I am very happy with the end result of this project and I have been able to achieve the criteria I had set for myself.

I was able to follow a similar pipeline to ones I have seen from professionals and learn through first hand experience what is needed/the process of creating splash art.

Due to this, I would say that this project was successful in intent and beneficial for my progression as an artist.

Second Project

Beast Tamer Character

Splash Art Piece

For this project, I was heavily inspired by the character Maui from the Disney film Moana. I love the visual narrative shown through his tattoos and wanted to create a character that followed a similar concept with the storytelling elements and connections but with animals.

Another influence/inspiration was the Māori culture and tattoos. I spent a lot of time researching the meanings, tattoo significance,  and how I could approach incorporating and representing the Māori culture within my own character.

The idea I had was to create a character that was able to connect to and summon animals, represented through tattoos on the character. The mood/tone I wanted to create within this piece was happy, calm and peaceful, which I had achieved through colour selection and lighting. Following a similar process to the project above, I gathered reference, set myself key criteria to achieve, sketched out a few ideas/compositions before developing the piece above.

Rendering the water in a semi-realistic styling was a challenge that proved quite difficult. I kept referring to references gathered at an earlier stage of my project, as well as listening to and taking on peer feedback to overcome the issue and achieve the desired results.

This project was a fun experience and gave me the opportunity to explore creating mood/narrative through colour and lighting.

 Supplementary Skills

Collection of Studies

Focused on Colour & Light (Colour Relativity)

To support my learning and understanding of colour, light and how the two interact - colour relativity. I created some studies alongside the creation of my final project, adjusting the focus to address concerns/issues I was facing at the time.

With these studies I have showcased my ability to create realistic results, observational skills and ability to learn new skills quickly.

I have linked the reference photos alongside the individual studies conducted. All credits for those photos go to the respective artists.

Egg - First Study

Link to Reference: https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-egg-on-teal-surface-3991968/

For my first study I started off with something simple, following the advice of the Lighting Mentor on YouTube. 

Link to their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@LightingMentor/videos

 Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d577v_XBKA

Through starting with something simple in shape, lighting and no difficult textures, I was able to solely focus on getting the colours to accurately match the reference. Adding small variations in colour - tints and shades, made the subject I had illustrated more believable. 

Glass - Second Study

Link to Reference: https://www.pexels.com/photo/transparent-glass-of-rose-wine-served-on-table-4969876/

In my second study, I chose the subject of a glass to work on light reflections. 

Although I had jumped up the difficulty scale quite a bit compared to the previous study, I had managed to create a result that looked very close to the reference photo. 

Choosing this reference with the main texture being glass, enabled me to refine my observational skills and colour selection choices. In addition to my initial intent/goals for this piece, I was able to learn how to illustrate transparent materials through rendering the glass.

Hand - Third Study

Link to Reference: https://www.pexels.com/photo/crop-ethnic-dancer-with-raised-arms-against-neon-inscription-7062186/

With red lighting being a major part of my main project, I decided to dedicate this study to observing how it interacts with a subject. Understanding that the red lighting almost 'mixes' together with the base colour, was extremely beneficial when it came to approaching the same subject in my main project. 

Additionally, I was able to work on hand anatomy, furthering my understanding of how the muscles and skin change the appearance through folds, stretching and relaxing.

Robin - Fourth Study

Link to Reference: https://unsplash.com/photos/orange-white-and-gray-bird-on-brown-tree-branch-8e4O5gk4h4A

This is the study where I finally found myself grasping the practical aspect of colour relativity and how it worked when illustrating pieces.

Using blue hues to communicate the greys in the colder areas with less light and tints of oranges and reds to create the warmer lighting.

Coat - Fifth Study

Link to Reference: https://www.ebay.com/itm/373335952503?norover=1&siteid=1&mkevt=1&mkcid=16&chn=psoc

With this final study, I chose a reference that had a lot of folds to test how well I was able to implement the light and shadow to create a believable result.

I had difficulties placing the shadow and light on the elbow/arm section of the coat to match the reference I was working from. It took some time to adjust and get a result I was happy with, however, proved beneficial for my understanding of how folds in clothing work and placement.

Overall, I am extremely happy with the progress I have made over a short amount of time and the quality of results I have produced. My next steps are to keep creating splash art and studies to continue improving upon my own skills.

I wish the best of luck to all participants!