W4: The Nano Pirates

For my next project I chose to do the fully stylised Nano Pirates brief, this entails:

Specifications:

• Highly stylised

• Style strongly referenced from The Borrowers (1997 film)

• Tiny household objects repurposed (keys/film rolls/batteries/pins/marbles/etc.)

• ​For weapons, clothing, tools, vehicles etc. This is a key game feature

• Miniature people

• High yield of characters to fit in universe

• Nautical in nature

• However you can choose your own style

• Research/Pioneer recognisable, quirky style

Intended Learning Goals

• Worked to a well-researched style

• Collected, collated, analysed, and annotated reference for usage

• Ideated through a large number of initial character designs and weapon/item

• Developed a range of stronger outcomes for more key characters

• Experimented with various colour palettes

• Developed a number of characters into a polished outcome

• Developed a couple of characters into media-worthy promotional artwork

Hand-in requirements

• 12 main characters with a distinct weapon or item

• Their vehicle

• A couple of promotional pieces

I knew that this project would be fun because not only would I get to choose the style, but I could also really push some proportions for my characters that I normally can't do (for realistic/semi-realistic characters).

It would be challenge for me though because I really need to add unique emotions/expressions, body language, shapes, and poses for each character. I would also need a unique art style. Plus on top of all of that, I have to concept a vehicle for them, which isn't my strong point, but I'll do my best.

To begin this pirate journey, I was leant a book by one of my peers (Sketching from the Imagination by 3D Total); this book has a wide array of initial sketches, final pieces, artist styles, and much more. Taking down the artists names whose styles I found the most applicable for this project, I began to rally the images together on a Pinterest board.

I looked at quite a few different art styles and how they've rendered their characters.

Once I'd decided on what kind of style I wanted, I took my favourite and most applicable ones onto a final moodboard; I've also annotated and analysed them.

As the brief says that their weapons and clothing have to be made from household objects, I made a board up of which was helped along by the character profiles that I had already started to write up.

Some of these are still up for consideration, the main aim of writing these out is to help me bring these characters to life and decide on how they look and generally what they'd be doing. I've also gone over some of the characters with a tutor and been given tips/advice/ideas on how I can improve them.

Pirate ship roles

1. Captain: Fabulous with flowers, vain and carries cocktail umbrella, imposing physical figure however. Will possibly look like Hugh Jackman.

2. Quarter Master: strangely ripped old man, has pet lizard. Only has 1 arm, lizard uses tail as lost arm. Saved the lizard from being flushed and ever since then, they were inseparable.

3. Chef: great chef, always carries spices with her, every now and then will make a potion. Potions in doll bottles; probably a witch. Doritos’ (snack) bag on back; carries/scavenges for food.

4. Sailing master: She has glasses and terrible sight, surprisingly well at navigation however. Contact lens at end of rolled cardboard for magnifying glass. Broken compass. Google maps, navigation. Compass dash on back.

5. Boatswain: kleptomaniac, carries items in his ridiculously large head of hair and beard, sack of loot in a sock.

6. Carpenter & Surgeon: has medical supplies (tape a wire). Will often attempt to use ship fixing supplies on crew. Not all there.

7. Master gunner: Pyromaniac who carries matches and sandpaper on him and lights things at inappropriate times, Beard always on fire. Dual lights matches by drawing them across the sandpaper on his back; like someone drawing swords.

8. Mate: fox-like and erratic, constantly writing notes and organising, perfectionist

9. Rigger: uses long locks of hair to lasso rigging and swing around the ship. Laces, butterfly clips, and clothing pegs used for grappling.

10. Cabin boy: Not actually a boy as she's the Captain's daughter, haughty and wants to take over the ship and grow up.

11. Power monkey: always covered in powder, and thus always sneezing

12. Swabbie: addicted to cleaning liquids, drinks it like alcohol, pukes it around the place and has to clean up usually resulting in a pristine ship. Button eye-patch

The Ship and Accessory Ideas

• Ship Casserole dish

• Ship made from a skateboard floating on rubber ducks

• Anchor is a made from a padlock

• Bath bombs as bombs, powder monkey chips at a large bath bomb resource to get ammunition. Ship sails underwear Mini hand-fans on back to move faster Socks Screw knuckle dusters

• Earing backs

• Christmas lights

• Popping candy ammo

• Matchstick crossbow

This moodboard will be indispensable to me as I'm really not a vehicle designer. For this reason wanted some references for some basic sketches of ships as well as more detailed one. My current idea for the ship is:

• A skateboard base for land travel

• Rubber ducks as floatation devices

• A plug/padlock as the anchor

• A doll as their main mast

• Boxers and frilly underwear as the sails

• Twine for the rigging

• Handheld fan for a speed boost

• Fairy lights for decoration

I am aware of my time constraints so I'm going to keep everything fairly simple. Personally the characters are the most important part of the project for me so I'm going to get those complete, and then do the ship.

As the style is strongly based on The Borrowers I made a moodboard of their outfits, though going a bit further and adding some makeshift outfits that other people have made as well. I even looked at homeless people because they often have to band together or create different clothing items to wear.

Although the outfits have to be makeshift they still have to look like pirates; I grabbed references from various placed, even looking at general 16th century outfits. I really like grandeur of some of these overly-glam outfits, but also the wearing and weathering of the clearly poorer outfits.

For stylised characters their stature pretty much as to embody their personality, their shape is key to reflecting their character (or even sometimes used to deceive your audience).

Quick idea generation is an area I need to improve on as I'm prone to focusing on detail far too quickly, for this reason I looked at how they successfully make interest thumbnails in The Skillful Huntsman book. I was still a bit stumped to be honest but then another one of my tutors gave me some extremely helpful advice on a process in Photoshop, that involves using the mask tool to carve out the character inwards instead of going from a blank state. So far it has been successful.

This method has made thumbnailing really fun for me as I'm more fluid in my creations and I'm not over-thinking the forms.

For the captain I wanted to have an imposing, broad-shouldered figure. Originally I focused more on getting an interesting silhouette, but I got some reviews from my peers and they said that I need to really exaggerate the shoulders and make him bulkier. This worked best with tapered legs. I then took on the strongest silhouettes, going through passes; eventually getting to my 2 favourites and adding some basic details to break things up. 2C is probably what I'm leaning towards as I like the peg leg and the pose.

Originally I wasn't sure what I was going to do for this character, she was either going to be an older woman badly disguised as a man with a fake beard. But then I thought about a young teen who wanted to grow up but wasn't anywhere near. I also decided to make her the Captain's daughter, she would then be haughty and angry that she has to clean up and be a servant to people when she wants to take over the ship.

For her design I tried out a mixture of poses and whether she would be wearing pants or a dress. I then decided that she needed to almost have a captain's hat to symbolise her power-status.

The gunner will likely become one of my favourites as he's extremely unpredictable and will have a really expressive face. This character needed to have a battle ready stance and as I knew he'd be holding matches, I added that into his silhouette. I had to get some references for his position and muscle structure, and I'm happy with the results.

This character was supposed to be the Able Bodied Sailor, but I didn't think that his role was interesting enough so I replaced it with a Chef and made him the Quarter Master. I wanted him to have an aged kind of strength to him, to show that he's been through a lot, but gotten through it (hence the lost arm and lizard companion). He was the old Captain, but retired to live a more peaceful life (though not on land). Once I'd gotten his pose I did some iterations on his clothing and the lizard. I also thought it would be interesting to play around with his hair and beard. This character is quite unique and it will be interesting to see what else I can do with him.

The chef is a mysterious woman whose skills range from general grub to the occasional potion. Most of my characters are quite rough around the edges, so I wanted to have a glamorous one in the mix. Her outfit is floaty and fine, but it also serves as storage for her to stash food and spices in. I decided to give clinch in some of the outfit because it's her job to scavenge for food as well, so she needs to be able to move around and be fluid. I'm really looking forward to developing this character because I want to give her a Calypso, Sea Witch feel.

Last but certainly not least for this week's silhouettes is the Sailing Master. This was one of those super silhouettes that came about by chance, other than doing some basic values and maybe adding some more detail, this one pretty much made itself. This is definitely the strongest one of the bunch as she's already in motion and is interesting as-is. I'll have to make sure that I don't lose this detail when I'm actually doing the final lineart for her.

As I was masking out areas, I got this really awesome effect of an emerging character, it looks really cool and gave me some great ideas for the promotional pieces.

My plan for this week is to get all the thumbnails done ASAP so I can get onto my line work and then do colours. Monday is going to be really intense, but I need to get these done.