Concept Art - Final work and some thoughts

Good evening!

Today I finally managed to finish the whole Concept Art project. I had some problems with my computer, so I had to format my computer on Monday. Good thing they invented disk partitions and external hard drives. It is now time to sum it up. 

To begin with, I would like to explain my point of view when one talks about the term "gang member". It is very easy to have a general idea about gangs and gangsters, they are an active portion of today's society, coming up often on news papers and news reports. 

For me, a gang member is someone that belongs to a group of people that live, and in some cases, die by the same ideals. It is someone that takes part of actions that usually benefit this group, in most cases being those actions illegal ones. Is someone that identifies him/herself with the other members of the group, and this is what makes gangs strong and to stick together. The one thing that probably makes it somewhat different is that my gang member belonged to a gang that was fighting for an ideological good, rather than a material or sentimental one.

This is also the case in my specific story.  I tried to represent it by designing a common identification mark: the red stripe on his pants. It just had to be there.

On another subject, I would like to talk about the clothing style and the way I colored it. My gang member belongs to the low end of the social scale in the 1850's. The only way to reflect and represent this on the design of the character would be the dressing style. He has a regular cotton shirt, typical working trousers, a regular hat and the most common footwear possible for a poor guy (they were called Brogan's). Yes poor because at the time the difference between social classes was tremendous. His clothes are stained from his hard work, most definitely on a mine or possibly a production factory. 

A quick remark about the drawing and painting process. I have always made some drawings and paintings for fun, but I have never learned how to draw or paint properly. I didn't know any techniques. But nowadays with the use of the internet it is possible to find resources for almost anything. 

This was the case. I found a very good website about comic book drawings, http://www.idrawdigital.com/ and even though it is about a specific type of drawing, if one understands the basic flow and techniques, it can be used to any type of drawing. I applied some basic techniques to help me draw the different poses for this drawing. 

As for the painting process, it was easier, because I already use Photoshop a lot. I scanned my drawing and then I clipped the front view by erasing the white paper and isolating the black lines:

 After this it was just about creating several layers for the different clothes and accessories:

And this was how I colored my character.

I would also like to mention why did I chose the axe as his weapon. He is poor, and even belonging to a gang I don't see him having access to fire weapons, as powder was expensive and guns even more. A white weapon just fits and supports everything I want to transmit about my character.

With these choices in mind, I am expecting that when an audience looks at my character, they can identify exactly where he comes from and that they can understand the chronological and social factors he is inserted into. This is, from my understanding, what colors and clothing style should be allusive to in an animated film character design.

One last note on my character, that also has to do with the color's and clothing styles, is that in my story, my character is a "thug", the kind of guy that does the dirty job's, the one that takes the fall. The one that fights and would die to defend what he believes in, which in my story is the love for the Democratic ideology.

So here it is, my final character model sheet:

To conclude my work I will also leave you the final 3D models of the three accessories I chose to model for my character: the boots, the hat and his weapon, the axe.

This was a challenging project, as well as very entertaining and educational for me to go through. I enjoyed myself a lot. I should now go to sleep.

Good night!

Concept Art - About shoes...and hats! As well as axes!!!

Hello!

I have been considering my footwear decision for my gang member, and my conclusion is...the shoes I had previously idealized do not fit him. I mean, after reading about fashion in the 1850's, I came to the conclusion that the type of shoes I had attributed where shoes that would fit a character from the noble social class.

For my working class "thug" I would some "Brogans", that even though they were much more "in fashion" during the civil war, they were previously whore by soldiers and workers,since they were sturdy and trustworthy for a man! They looked like something in these lines:

 

So that's it for shoes. Now about hats...I mean, I really do think that a hat does fit a gang member at the time. First it was very fashion to wear one, second most working class men whore it instead of helmets, since..well, since they really didn't had them. Plus, I love to see my character with it! This one, without the silk stripe, is THE one:

 

 And last, but not least, the last accessory is the axe. I decided to go for a more primitive weapon, since guns were something somewhat exclusive to gang leaders and law enforcement individuals. So this is the axe type, characteristic of the time:

 That's it for now. Be back soon.

Concept Art - References for the gang member

Good morning.

I have been gathering information and visual references for my gang member character concept and his accessories. I found out that, among other things, that shoe fashion in the 1850's was so weird. Men whore quite exquisit shoes as you can see from the following images (yes the first ones are men's shoes).

I decided to go for the following style, as they are more of a regular type of shoes, whore most definitly by the average men at the time:

As for the dressing style it would have to be something related to a normal working class men, simple dirty shirt and pants, with the latter having a red stripe on them. My character will also wear jockstraps, which is a common feature among men fashion at the time.

As fot the accessories I would go for the shoes, definitly either a knife or a sword, maybe even a gun, since the battle at the time had a lot of gun shots going on, but these were probably used by the Police members, however since in America law permited the use of guns among the common civilians and guns were as well distributed by the faction leaders to their supporters, so a gun can also be something a person involved in the conflict would have had. I could use one and it would fit the story. 

However, I am most inclined to not using a gun and instead give my character a weapon that would fit this scenario in a more accurate way: a brick rock, a sword or an axe. This is, in my opinion, a much more fit weapon choice for a common civilian at the time. 

These are the things that run through my mind when I try to visualize a person from 1850's, living in a big city, belonging to the working class. Another thing that is very common fashion among men of the time is mustaches. Maybe I will include one on mine.

There are a couple of things that I should mention. First, when I chose the story to use as a background to my character, I realised that a movie had been done about this specific historical moment in the American society. However, since I have never watched the movie, I do not have a visual image of the happenings, so I am not being influenced by someone else's perspective and ideas of how things should look like, otherwise I would not have chosen this piece of story.

Another thing is why is my character a men instead of a woman. This is simply due to the fact that at the time, women were very opressed, and they had a very specific role in the society, to take care of the house and have children. This is not my opinion of how things should be among men and women, but is just an historical social fact that I am trying to be accurate with. So that's why it will be a male character, since men where the ones taking part in these happenings, as well as in other roles of the society, such as politics, economics, etc.


Now that I have gathered some references it's time to draw and model everything.

I'll be back soon!