The Ultimates

In 2000 the Marvel universe was updated for a modern audience, where the characters were placed in a more realistic and belivable world, for example, Giant man is a wife beater, Thor was kept in a mental asylum for beliving he was the god of thunder, and Iron Man is only doing this dangerous superhero work becasue he has a brain tumour, and says he only has five years left anyway.  This I think was one of the best things to happen to Marvel since Stan Lee stated working on Captain America #3 in 1941. THey are my favouraite series of comic books, not only for their fantastic re-invented stories and incredible artwork, (pictured here by Bryan Hitch) but also for their fantastic scripts. I can find very little flaws in these comics, but the only ones i do find relate to the character Thor. 

 I'll start by explaining that Thor is my favouraite Marvel charcter, and I think he is brilliant in these comics and written and drawn perfectly, the only flaws I find are the ideas in him. For starters i think he should still have his huge red cape, I feel its part of the iconic look of the character, but I could forgive that generally easily, but what i dislike is that is ablities and hammer Mjolnir are just made by technology, which I think makes him more like Iron man. Then, unexplainably, Mjolnir is just written in as the mystical hammer were all used to, and suddenly Thor has his powers without relying on technology. I thought I'd missed an issue but as far as I've researched its just written in.

 And lastly, Mjonir can only be picked up by someone who is worth to lift it. And in the Ultimate comics Magneto can lift it becasue it has metal in it. This I think was a mistake becasue not only is it uneccessary (as Magneto does nothing with it) but its distracted Thor from being origonal or unique in anyway. in past comics Captain America has lifted it, Hulk has and now Magneto, whats the point in Thor if everyone can lift it? I think it should be limited to him and only him.

That said, I still think that the Ultimate universe has been the best I've ever read, and its mighty conclusion, 'Ultimatuim' is a ladmark in comic book history that ended the series in the finale that it deserved. with out spoiling it, I'll simply leave it with a fantastic quote from the comic. "When God didn't like what he created, he washed it away in 40 days and 40 nights. I will do it in three."

Adam Kubert

Adam Kubert has been one of my favouraite comic artists for a long time. He seems to create a fantastic look for any character he draws, and is most known for his work on Ultimate X-men and Ultimate Fantastic Four. I particulally like his drawings of the Thing, for the first time the Thing is really huge, towering above other character and yet so expressive. this really captures the monstrosity in the appearance of the character and also grasps the personality and human element of him.

Prometheus

Like Oblivion, I struggled to see any clear plot for this movie. Clearly it was about scientist who have travelled in to space to meet their makers, but it seemed only to be on random event after another, where the characters logic made zero sense. Even casting an actor as talented as Michael Fassbender as an emotionless robot seemed like a waste of talent, (this said, he and the CGI were the only good things about the movie). The design work was also great, but it all seems rather pointless and hard to appreciate when the story and movie are so poor.

Oblivion

With beautiful scernery, impressive CGI and incredible design work, its a shame thats all this movie mounted to be. Its story is poor and predictable, the acting isn't amazing nor nearly cruise's best, it merely is there to impressive with its eye candy CGI.

Its a number one example of visual effects becoming more important than narative, and had this movie come out a month sooner it would have served as a perfect example for one of my Essays, this is a movie that will date quickly and comes highly unreccomended.

X-men's Beast

Hank McCoy is one of the founding members of the X-men, and in my opnion should have apperared in the movies ever since the first one. I do however understand that Wolverine is the most popular X-man by far, and to show his anamalistic nature might've have been stronger shown if a character like Beast didnt appear, also Beast would take a lot of money to create, and in 2000 superhero movies didnt have enourmous budgets like they do now.

In X-Men 3, I was very excited to see that Beast would appear, but to my surprise, they cast Fraiser's Kelsey Grammer. This I think was a very poor choice and I could think of many different actors better suited to the role. Also his design was awful.  He wore a worse outfit to the other X-men, and his Beast make up was just him painted blue with lots of bushy blue (and very fake looking) fur stuck on. This film was beyond bad for many reasons but Beast was one of the most obvious.


When Mattew Vaughn  would later direct X-Men First Class, I found myself seeing hope in Beast once more as the concept art looked absaloutly incredible. It looked like the right amount of ugly and hidiousness, the right amount of hair all I'd change was make him more muscular.


To discover Nicholas Hoult would be portraying him was another unpleasnet surprise, no me he didnt have the physique to nearly look like the charcter. I held out hope that perhaps he would 'buff up' and get in shape to play the character. He didn't. The final outcome wasnt a total shame though, at times the charcter looked good with the worse factor being that the prothtetics didnt allow Hoult to close his lips, so the Beast always looked a bit funny when he talked. It also seemed to be made per expression, as it didnt seem to allow Hoult to change expression during scene.

 I am however excited to see him in 'Days of Future Past' although as this is the only picture realeased of him its difficult to see if the character is yet to be as muscualr as he should be.

The make up looks good though, the prothtectics look like he'll be able to move and show expression in his face a little more, and the wringles and scars give him a bit more of a aged feel. I also like how the blue is darker around his eyes and he has some grey hairs, this is a vast improvment from when he started in X-men 3 but still not how ive invisioned him, wich should look more like Ulitmate Beast, illustrated hereby Adam Kubert:

Star Trek: Into Darkness

 J.J. Abrams latest film Star Trek Into Darkness really impressed me. I was never a fan of the movies untill they were rebooted by Abrams in 2009, which was alos nothing short of fantastic. I did howver think that its sequel was far better, mainly down to Benedict Cumberbatch's memorising villian. he executed the role perfectly and has brought to life the best villian I've seen on screen since last years Avengers' Loki.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhz4A5BCMAA

Looper

Looper is an orgional, compelling film about time travel, morality, and what lengths people would go to do whats right.

This I thought is what made the movie so fantastic, posing such brain teasing questions, which I will try to relate without giving away spoilers.

If you could go back in time, and find Hitler as a baby, would you kill him? Would you be able to shoot a baby at point black in the head if you knew what he'd grow up to be? And what if you only know he's one of five babies, would you kill them all to ensure the survival of 6 million people?

I think its this what made the film great, its way of showing what people would do for the people they love, or what bad things they'd do for the greater good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G90QrEKh8l8

AeroSmith - Sunshine

 Although I usually post about COmic art, Videogames and Film, this I thought I'd share as I really caught my eye. As a new fan of Aerosmith, I'd been listening to some of their music and found a vdieo to their song 'Sunshine' themed around Alice in Wonderland. Its a great display of costume design, colour, and editing, creating a low budget fantasy world were all these elements  compliement each other to create a very effective peice of film. One critisism would be though, to have the whole video filmed in this way, rather than random cutaways to the band performing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFF9pLfxhCI

Superman Returns

Superman Returns in my opnion was an apaulling film, with director Bryan Singer abandoning his fantastic work on the X-Men francise to the poor hands of Bret Ratner to make a Superman film that whent wrong in all the wrong places. The video game however, was simple, repetative, but oddly fun. Players didnt have a health bar, but the city did, which was great as it really made the user feel like a super hero protecting their city. Also the city was on a huge scale for ps2, and Superman had not much, but all the controls he needed to travel quickly and combine his powers to keep the game enjoyable.

Tomb Raider: Underworld

Unfortunatly, my Playstaion 3 has broken, so I am being forced to refer my gaming expeirences to Playstaion 2 games. The first of which I bought was Tomb Raider: Underworld. This game I had on the PS3 and was a huge fan. the game on the PS2 is understandably worse graphics, and dosent cantain some of the PS3's complex enviroments such as the sinking ship level where you could explore underwater scenery, with sea life, and be able to climb aboard a boat. This said, this still makes a very good PS2 game, with puzzles and enviroments to explore it continues the Tomb Raider's francise as THE Adventure Explorer game, even if the combat lacks. I cannot wait to see what Crystal Dynamics have in store for the next installment in the francise, the reboot of Tomb Raider. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFBrgeSjj-0

Dexter

 Dexter was a hugly sucessful series of books by auther Jeff Lindsay about Miami Metro blood splatter anaylist Dexter Morgan, how keeps a very dark secret; he's a serial killer. Dexter can't control his inner urge to kill, but channels it to kill only other bad people, who have escaped the law.

HBO aired it as a television series on showtime in 2006, where it became hugley succesful. Its aired 7 seasons so far, with its 8th season to premire in June. Dexter I feel is such a captivating show mainly due to the fantasticly complex and origonal charactor of Dexter, is great writting which captures to book perfectly, and tense and atmospheric score by Daniel Licht.


The trailer below for the next and final season of Dexter contain spoilers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ckzE5vT0w 

 Art by  Patrick Brown

Marvel Nemesis

EA’s collaboration with Marvel produced 2005’s Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects which tied into the comic series. The 3D fighting game was unpopular amongst critics, for its bad graphics, small arenas and that some characters are unevenly matched compared to others. I however argue its brilliance. In the Marvel universe some characters are far more powerful than others, and with practice, users can revise to perfect the characters moves to create some of the weakest characters into the most powerful. Also, very few times do superhero videogames use combat moves that aren’t ridiculously over exaggerated. For example, The Thing’s punches are designed more like a boxer, yet he can still punch characters across the arena, lift incredibly heavy objects and is more durable than other characters.  This combines character powers and more realistic combat moves to create a fun, enjoyable game which balances the line between super and human.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozuOZUglN7g

The Beast and The Thing Drawings

After London Super Comic Con, I wanted to draw some quick takes on two of my marvel favouraite characters, Beast and the Thing. Beast I wanted to look muscular, with fur but not covered in it, so viewers could still see his anatomany. I also placed him in quite a crouched postiosion to display his acrobatic nature.

 The Thing, I felt, should be huge, and top heavy to really convay his strength. I also designed his rocks so that the larger ones are placed where muscles are and where movement is minimal, so that at the joints and places of often movment have small rocks, so that there's this logic that if he was real, these joints could actually move.

Chris Hemsworth Portrait

 Due to my recent work on anatomany and comic book style illustrations, I wanted to brush up on my portraiture skills. I drew this picture of Chris Hemsoworth using HB - 9B pencils. I think its important to keep practising this skill and keep various styles of drawing in my portfolio.

Stan Lee

Stan Lee is not only the most famous name in comics, but his work and stroies have impacted modern cinema on a huge scale. His ideas and storylines have challenged comics and mainstream plots and charactersfor over 70 years, making him not only an incredible wirter, but an extrodianary visionary. He is enthusiastic, loves his job and claims he 'never wants to stopp working, because he enjoys it too much.' He in my opnion, has had the ideal career and although his long time artist partner Jack Kirby deserves just as much credit, he has the most impact in comics in history. At London 2012 comic con, I was able to meet meet my idol for a brief moment, I asked him what he thought of our characters and he replied, "I think its damn great!" I shook his hand and thanked him. This was the best moment of my life.

Anthony Spay

Anthony Spay is an artist for Zenescope Comics, his work  can perfectly grasp the beautiful and the ugly equally well, allowing everything and anything he draws to be immacualte in detail and suited to any type of character.

At 2013 LSCC, he reveiwed our work. His advise, was once again anatomany, this has made a clear picture that this is our most desprate area in need of improvment.he also noted that the tall characters are looking more like giants, dure to the fact that they are proportionally correct, just enlarged to look tall. This has made me understand that these characters must be drawn on the same page to compliment each others hieght and proportions. His last critisism was that the backgrounds must be hand drawn, as of right now the backgrounds are only ment to give the veiwer an idea of how they'll look, but i know that if a comic artist is to be successful he must not only be able to draw the charcters, but also the world they live in.

Getting these professional artists feedback has been more helpful than I ever thought, and I will continue to work on these comments to improve my anatomany and drawing skills for my vist next year to LSCC 2014 to gain more feedback.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVskSHj0gG8

David Finch

David Finch's detailed and anatomically brilliant work is used to perfectly in superhero comics and specifically rampraging powerhouse characers like Hulk, juggernaunt and Rhino. His use of extreme musclar detail and very atmospheric peices have made him one of my favouraite artiscts in the buisness, his best of which I fell was featured in the conclustion the the Ultiamte Marvel Universe; Ultimatum.

At LSCC 2013, he managed to give us a short amount of time out of his busy schedule to critique our work.

His advise was cheifly to stop with developing colour, and shading, and work alot more and anatomany. Understanding his point, I feel that perfecting our figure forms is what is essential to or work at the moment. Looking at our work now I see so many bad points, poor mucsle tone and disproportionate points. Although his words may seem harsh, it is exactly whatI need to hear to improve my work, knowing what is bad and should be improved is far more useful than compliments and praise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAltOBPX8lc

Bob Layton

 Bob Layton is the "Definative Iron Man artist". His work with writing partner Daivd Michelinie re defenied the character and made him one of marvels most popular characters. Their Story 'Deamon is a Bottle' (where Tony Stark is a alcholic) is concidered a landmark in comic book history and was voted one of the 20 best comic book storylines. Mr. Laytons designs are also featured in the Iron man movies.

Unfortunatly we werent able to see Bob Layton at 2012's LSCC due to his busy shecdule, but we manged to get an interview at LSCC 2013.
 
 His main advies was to work on colour, contray to what some artist gave as our biggest compliment Mr. Layton advised that the use of colour needed to be used to a more contrasting effect. His advise was that some of the illustrations are loosing alot of deatail due to a similar colour palett on the characters and backgrounds and heavy shading. This lesson I feel is to strike an even balance of setting the charcter in their scene, and yet making them 'pop'out of the page.

Another peice of his useful crititism was to use layers of background, middleground and foreground, and to shade and coulour these layers diffrently in order to gain a more dynamic percpective and create more obvious focual points.

Mr. Laytons advise on compostion and colour has proved very helpful to my studies and is something I will greatly consider in future work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4_Ud09B1YE

J. Scott Campbell

 J Scott Campbell's artwork is without doubt my favouraite in comics. His unique style and fantastic orgional anatomany work is something to be admired. This eggagerated look could be frowned upon as sexist, but he dose also draw men as tall, muscualler, good looking heroes witch I feel balances out his simply idealsitc, or perfected veiw of anatomany. His style allows his proportions to be unrealtic, but keep within this belivable 'Comic book' rule that this logic can allow the reader to accept the anatomany as part of the stylised comic.

Also his poses and positioning of characters is a strong point of his, allowing the dynamic sequence pages to 'Jump out' at you with compostion that compliments the page.


At London Super Comic-con 2013, I was lucky enough to show him my work and gain feedback. As my favouraite artist, I was anxious to find out how he thought I could improve.

His critisims where extremly helpful. The first point he made was one wich no-body else had picked up on. Clothing. He advised that we look more closley at how clothes wringle and crease on poeple's bodies, even when their extremly tight like spandex. This point now seems so obvious to me that I can't understand how I thought it looked acceptable before.

This also goes for another problem advised no one else picked up on. The way I draw hair. he said it looked greasy, almost like dreadlocks. This was becasue I drew even strands, and evenly spaced gaps between them, where as most hair shold be free flowing, and drawn with various random strands to give teh illusion of many, (see his pictue top left).

J. Scott Campbells work has been an inspiration to me ever since I discovered it, and meeting him and gaining his perspective is a expeirence not only will I never forget, but one which I have learnt so much from.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB3hBNi6vbw

Brady Webb, LSCC 2013

A year later, after working on our anatomany and proportions, but keeping the poritive feedback, we returned to London Super Comic-Con for futhur advise on our work. Once again we showed or work to Brady Webb, as after his helpful words last time allowed us to improve our portfolio.

Again his advise came in incredibly valuble. As a fan of our colour work, we started to understand that this was a stong area of ours, and the most area needed for improvpent was our figure work,spefically in women. as he states, 'what this seems, is a fusion on western and manga, it dosent always wok but when it does it works fantastically.' this was something I feel I had been doing subconciously, and could work to create to balance and fusion more evenly to gain the best of both worlds. Another comment stated that our female characters looked sexist, and a movement which the comic idustry was trying to break away from. This was a little confusing as my favouraite artists, J. Scott Campbell, draws with a very sexist and idealised out look on women, however, his artwork is undeniably beautiful and he is one of the most sort of artists in the buisness.

He also advised us to use photo and life reference so that our knolwdege on the human figure and perspective would naturally start to appear in our work.

Brady Webb has been one of our most helpful and wondrerfully critical people I've known, and his wise words "Learn the rules before you break them," is exaclty what I plan to work on with my next year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4jjM7ANZp8

Chris Ryall, LSCC 2012

Our 2nd interview of LSCC 2012, was with Chris Ryall, Chief Creative Officer, and Editor in Chief of IDW Publishing (2000 AD, Teenage Mutant Nija Turtles, Doctor Who, Transformers).

Mr. Ryall gave us postive idea on not only how to approach publishers, but also on hoe to develop or work. liek Mr. Webb, Ryall advised we work on anatomany, to grasp a more proprtionate look to our characters, and to practice as often as possible to refine them.

He also adivsed that we work on sequencial pages to gain the ablity to draw scenes, how they differ from action to relaxed, and to show our skill of natural character interations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2oxhNVBiMU

Brady Webb, LSCC 2012

 Our first inteview we did was with Panini comics (Marvel Puplishers) editor Brady Webb at 2012 LSCC (London Super Comic -Con), who's feedback and advise on our work was very helpful. he helped us notice problems and offered construsctive crititism to our drawings, as well as telling us what was working and what wasn't. the most helpful of this was proportion, specifically in the women. I had been drawing the heads far to big and needed to start life drawing, anywhere and everywhere to help refine this skill.


He also offered help on the Story, where using such volitile subject matter would require a very sympathetic view to the characters problems, and also to realy on the human element of the characters to make them relatable. Futhuer more, Mr. Webb taught us some difrences in publishers, and how European and American audiences viewed comics, and how to approach a publisher with your work.



After this, we knew we had work to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tQ4hNmupxI

Final Game Environment

Below is what my final game environment looked like. I was very excited about how it turned out and it really conveys the word fear that I wanted to bring into my project. The only thing that I was unhappy with was the fact that the character didn't get to explore more of the level and if I were to do it again I would have made sure I had more time to build more parts of the level.

Making a Tree

Before starting to create my final level I started by creating a tree in Maya to test my skills and to be able to use some new features of the program in order to develop my skills further. I used a cylinder as a starting point, and lowered the poly count as we were creating low poly games, and then started to extrude upwards to create the main tree trunk. I then selected different faces and extruded them further upwards in different directions to create the different branches.

I then moved onto the smaller branches which I simply added textures onto small planes so that they can be moved around and placed on the ends of the larger branches. During this stage I chose not to add leaves onto my tree as I wanted to use it in my own level, and having a tree with just branches added to the sense of fear in the level. During this exercise we also learned how to unwrap UV maps which was really helpful for the future if we are ever going to be texturing cylinders again.

Castle That Went Wrong

During the process of creating my final piece I experienced a few problems when it came to extruding parts of my castle. I realised after completing most of the castle that I had been extruding sections of it inwards instead of outwards, resulting in double faces which meant that when it came to texturing it didn't work.

Final Concept Art

After I had a basic idea of what my final idea would look like I started by drawing the floor plan for the final concept art idea so that I knew the layout of the castles parts and how they would all fit together.

I then drew out some elevations of the castle so that when modelling I would know what it looked like from all angles, so that modelling would be made easier.

Then lastly, I completed a final concept art picture of my castle from the best angle including a cloudy sky and also with rain to give me a better idea about what the final outcome of my project would be.

Concept Art

I started by looking at different variations of castles in different exotic and dangerous locations. I tried to make my initial designs as different as possible to give me as much diversity as possible at the start so I could go on and develop my ideas further.

I then developed the underwater level with a kind of Atlantis theme, which would broken down and abandoned, but at the same time inhabited by sea creatures; a bit like in Tomb Raider: Underworld.

I then developed the castle in a tree design which would be more for Tarzan crossed with Planet of the Apes inhabitants. A place or planet where people more in touch with nature would reside who are more interested in a natural way of life.

I then also developed an island castle, using the inspiration that I took from the different castles from games and films. This I feel will be easier to model and I am more confident that I have the skills in Maya and Unity to create it.

Dracula's Castle Van Helsing

Tall, spiked and menacing, Dracula's Castle is designed to look overpowering, daunting and unapproachable. Again there is that element of isolation that works completely well and there is also a large amount of miss around the base of the castle which would be something that I would also like to put into my own work as this works well to convey fear and give the appearance that you wouldn't want to go near the castle.

Dr Doom's Castle

Arguably the most evil enemy in the Marvel Universe, Dr Doom remains one of the most powerful foes throughout fiction history. Stan Lee placed him in fiction country Latveria where he could give his villain diplomatic immunity for his crimes over seas. Given this storyline reflecting common war-like conflicts, Dr Doom resides in a castle designed to be as menacing as possible. I chose to study this as a huge fan of Marvel; I wanted to gain inspiration from classical evil characters and their environments.

Snow White and the Huntsman Castle

The castle in Snow White and the Huntsman has a very daunting effect, and is almost owned by the dead. There are hardly any colours used, apart from grey scale, which gives the castle that sinister look that I want to use in my own work. Again like the other castles, I like the fact that it is over water as it gives the sense of isolation and that then gives the sense of fear that I want.

Skyrim Castle

I really admired the look of the College of Winterhold in Skyrim as it is built on the side of a steep mountain which makes the general look of it amazing. I would like to take some aspects of this into my own game as the way its built on rock above water, gives it that isolated look and gives the college the sense of loneliness, a feature that goes well with the fear emotion.

Amnesia Castle

The first game that I looked at was Amnesia: The Dark Descent as it includes a great castle that I can relate my own work to. The castles insides are dirty and filthy and give the appearance of horror and fear, which is what I want to bring to my own game level. The windows in this level are always very bright and this game is not afraid to do darkened areas to create the contrast between the two, which makes the game appear more frightening. There is very minimal sound in this game and there is also a lot of fear presented in the monsters as some of them are invisible; meaning that you do not always know what it coming after you, again adding that sense of fear to the game.