"Beast of Blankness" at Degree Show

I've been a bit slow on the updating...but I have been creating! Pencilling pages of my comic "Tales of Malice", and also planning another video-game based piece...more info to follow!

For now though, I have realised; all that work I put into the "Beast of Blankness" (my final degree show piece last June) and I never uploaded images of the complete piece/show itself! I uploaded the completed A0 drawing; but that was only a third of the complete piece. The other two thirds involved a structure that I built from scrap material and a video-game where you could explore the world inside the drawing.

"The Beast of Blankness", exclusive to the SuperMegaDemon 5000 Console!

My partner exploring the wasteland...

 

I LOVED that so many people played and interacted with it; I was anxious that people would be too scared to touch a piece in a 'fine art' show. I drew the controls on the screen to make it obvious what to do; I think it helped!

I was also ecstatic that kids wanted to play, too!! I even considered getting a tough wooden crate before the show, but it was incredibly stressful around the time of the show and I didn't locate one in time!


One last thing...

As of two weeks ago, I'm officially a graduate!

Master System Memories...

My drawing and game are all set up in place for the degree show on June 15th, Kingston University!
(That's June 15th 2013, not 1993!)  

I've been incredibly nostalgic at the moment; I guess it's because this is a strange time. Not long left until this chapter closes and we forge towards the future! I remembered my beloved Master System and its...*ahem*, unique box cover artwork. This is my tribute!

IT IS DONE.

Boneyard Bandits!

Today, we officially got kicked out of the studios (boo!)
It's been a non-stop mission; from getting splinters the size of harpoons, to carrying a whole plethora of furniture and giant work to other locations, to stacking it in a very Tetris-style fashion!

I've managed to finish some game art, however!
Just beyond the junkyard, underneath the scrap city, you can see a dark stain; Boneyard Bandit territory. They're mean, gross, and make innuendos and toilet humor jokes all day. Savages!

Take note of Meatsack; he's a pig (literally). He's nearly as nasty and heinous as his dastardly partner, Maggotbag (here she is, in case you forgot...albeit in a lower resolution, to keep the game file down!)

The Draw-matic Converter 5000 Mark II!

I'm still alive!

I've been preparing for our eviction from the studios on Friday; meaning that I put the drawing on hold and focused on getting the structure for the video-game ready. It's about done; I mostly re-used parts from my old arcade machines and the Making and Showing piece from earlier in the year!

Here's a montage over the last week of its creation;

And my frankenplinth, for it to sit upon...

The Draw-matic Converter 5000; Mark II!!

Here's a rough photoshop of how the interface will look with the mouse and keyboard built in...I'm contemplating painting/chalking on the instructions, just to make it super clear and simple!!

As for the A0...I'm now living with the enemy. This next month will be a non-stop drawing frenzy; on both the Beast of Blankness and art for the game. Let's go!!!

Gettin' in on the detail!

I was going to try and refrain from posting for a couple of days, but I'm too excited! I just wanna pluck those adorable little mice out of the paper and squeeeeeze them!

The last couple of days I've really tried to get some leeway on the Beast of Blankness; and I'm slowly winning the battle!!

I also drew up a page for the game environment; a tire wall and some bones (for the Boneyard Bandit's territory!!) a pit, a pile and a loose bone and skull.

I'm going to attempt to rest my wrists this weekend...although I still have a commission to finish, too!

Slow but steady progress...

Things have been building up here a little bit; so this is a MONSTER update!

The deadline for the Degree Show Publication is tomorrow! Here's one of the images that I submitted (a bit more serious looking than the first one):

"Guys, seriously, go away. I'm trying to look brutal."

Again, the gorgeous original photo is by Martin Hobby (http://www.martinhobby.co.uk) before I came along and defaced it with my silly brain barf.

I also wrote a 140 word statement about my final degree show piece:


"The Beast of Blankness" consists of an A0 ink drawing and a video-game. The drawing is composed of invented characters, objects and places; each with its own narrative and personality that have gradually formed an imaginary world.

This piece explores the journey of drawing; starting from the internal concept, through to the physical act of drawing and finally to the materialisation of the completed work.

The process of drawing can be isolating, originating in one's mind and then manifesting through the artist on to the blank paper. The audience witness the final outcome, yet the artist alone comprehends the full conceptual extent of what the lines and marks represent.

Alongside the drawing, the video-game is utilised as a navigational tool to allow the audience to invest their imagination and explore this imaginary and conceptual realm."


...to find out that it's 140 CHARACTERS. Yeesh, my mind is in overdrive. Here's the "tl;dr" (Too Long, Didn't Read) version:



"The journey of drawing can be isolating, originating in the mind and then manifesting through the artist on to blank paper. A lonely battle…"


So that's the publication stuff sorted! Whew! Here's the progress on the dreaded A0...

 

'dem tires man...'dem tires. Ouch...

 


I also got a burnt-out car pile drawn for the game!

With other projects out of the way, hopefully I can just buckle down and draw until my wrists turn to dust...(thank GOODNESS my bands don't have any gigs planned right now!) I started learning Maya the other day; but I'll post the results when I have more show!!

That's all for now, so here's Holeface wandering the wastes:

Ghost Boss Appears!

Another good, productive day!

We had a meeting about our upcoming degree show this morning (terrifying!) then I popped over to InKUbator. My game teammate Jo (The Queen of Code!) showed me how to centre the pages of my website; which is GLORIOUS!! I haven't applied the code to all parts of it yet, but check it out!

http://www.rachaelgater.co.uk

ME! Doing CODE?! First the Unity sound thing, now coding on my website! Who even AM I anymore?! (I don't know, but I feel pretty cool, haha!)



Here's the progress I made today with the abominable A0!
I redrew the clockwork mouse a bit smaller (gut instinct), inked it, drew a tire for it to sit on and started to draw Ghost Boss, hovering over Ghost Town!

 

"So...whatcha' doing later?"

"Hey ya'll!"

Holeface meets completion!!

That's right!! Here it is, in all its hole-facey glory! DAMN I love that cat...holey...stripey thing.

(You can also see I've pencilled out a Clockwork Mouse to ink next time...I think I'll have it sitting on some tires!)

 

Getting there...(inking the shadow under the collar)

Holeface the Cat; finished! (May add some more dirt later on...I'll see how things go!)

I think the stippling (little dots) work well!! I usually only use that technique for gore pieces (death metal album covers etc), but they work better than I thought for my cartoon style!


Also, over the weekend I made a few more game objects (particularly for the junkyard wasteland)...

The first of many junk piles!

A flying telescreen; I was thinking I could have pictures on the screens!

Does anyone remember Toasty...? From my Fine ARTcade Fundraiser poster I did?

I suppose not...otherwise this sign would not be needed. Don't be caught off guard by it's cuteness/ability to toast bread.

Tiled Floor and Diner Sign...

Not too much to update today; although I made a tiled black and white floor, along with a diner sign! (This will most likely be where the "Shit Music Jukebox" hangs out, haha!) Once I create who's running the diner, I can put their name on the plank above the sign...

Yeesh, ever heard of a mop??

Looks legit; let's eat here!

I think I need to get doodlin' some junk mountains, for the outskirts of the wasteland!

Sculpting the Wasteland

Today has been a "sit at home, drink lots of tea and learn Unity" day!

After much deliberation, I've decided that using RPGMaker for my game isn't the best choice...the graphics are incredibly limited and the 'feel' just isn't right (I should have figured this out ages ago...)

Today, I learned:

-How to make a custom sky (before I just made a box from planes, haha!)
-How to raise terrain (THIS is fantastic! The flat ground just looked awful...)
-How to add music (This would be lovely! To test it, I used the intro to our album "Wasteland"...)
-How to add 'dialogue' to a game object (my first ever bit of code!)

Originally, I wanted the characters to converse via text...but sounds could be cool! If I could maybe find multiple people willing to record a line or two of dialogue...

Below are some screenshots of my experiments! I also made .png files of all my characters so far. I was VERY careful to set the resolutions to 72dpi (I learned that from my first batch of artwork for our "Junkyard Physics" game...I just assumed that 300dpi would be awesome for detail...and got told off, haha!!) You can see Armed Ghost wandering around (not yet, I need to learn that...) in front of the moon.

I also threw this together for a bit of fun. I'd love to spend time on a proper one later on! The original photographer is Mr. Martin Hobby; seriously, check his stuff out!! He did both promo and live shots for BOTH my bands, The Furious Horde and Corpse Fauna; he's a GENIUS. ( http://www.martinhobby.co.uk/ )

Wandering the wastelands as Mortiroth, I get a lot of free time to create a whole gang of characters (I even had a dream about them last night...we were like a family, living in a big, crazy house. It was AWESOME!)

"...I hate you guys."

The Battle on the Beast of Blankness has Begun...

I finally made my first mark on the dreaded A0 piece!! I inked the border, pencilled out the rough 'sectors' for the composition, and roughly inked out Holeface the cat in the foreground (I felt like it had to be there. As one of my first creatures in this world, it feels sort of like a guide or a best friend...)

It's body originally looked a bit jelly-beany, which I might try to recapture when I go over the ink. I like the gauntness because it's a bit creepy, but...maybe -too- gaunt.

Thus begins my journey!

I also digitised another of my favourite characters; Maggotbag, from the Boneyard Bandit gang (they're nasty.) I'll create more members eventually, but I'm thinking that they're going to hang out in the "Under City" sector.

She's so rotten, that maggots live in her guts. Pretty gross, man. But I guess you'd never be lonely! I even made a maggot face just in case they want a say, too.

It's weird how this world is starting to shape up; daydreaming as I draw each character, another part of the world is created, and then more characters are created to live in that world...I'm excited to see where it goes!