Learning Progress

Title: Furry Cube Development                                                                                                   28th Sep 2011
Step By Step

I've always wanted to create a toy or a series of Toys so after watching a few films in animation and cartoons especially Toy Story i started to have a think of what sort of characters i could make with a simple body shapes. so i decided to go with the square look and add small rounded hands and feet this also relates to my pixel and cube starting point so thinking outside the box maybe?!
  • I kept the same shape all the way through and the same eyes for every character
  • Next i start with a furry brush tool and work up from the feet to body to face and these are all on separate layers
  • Once blocked in in one colour i start to shade in and put some highlights in to make it that more squishy 3D feel
  • I then start to add the little bits to make it more like the characters such as logos, masks, ears and hats finally adding the stitching round the character to give it more of a Toy look!
Possible Options i have looked into is getting them made into prototypes, so starting with one then take it from there! The second is to look into creating a 3D version in Maya and making them into a paper box cube toy!

Overall i'm very happy with the responses from people and i really enjoy doing it! so in my book this is a first success now to look into More Ideas! :)


Title: Pixel How to do it!                                                                                                      28th Sep 2011


                                                                       Step By Step

First of all this is my first Pixel Art character and to be honest i think its gone quite well :) I've always had an interest in the old and retro feel and so for my MA i want to look further into pixels and the use of cubes. So i started by following a small tutorial and looked into a couple of techniques of how to produce a good character or environment so here goes!

  • I got a character i like so in this case i drew my own fry's body and changed a few things around to make it my own such as: face, colour and shading.
  • using the pencil tool i created a black outline and went round the character
  • next i filled in the block colours then added shading and highlights
  • Then next i used the 2x2 check board technique to give that real retro feel. the other technique in the scatter pixel look, i have tried this but to me its a bit messy and it seems a bit out of place so far now i would rather do a few more experiments with the 2x2 check board look!

Title: Ball Toys Development                                                                                               12th Oct 2011

This is the first real go of using the pen tool and again i really like the outcome with the simplicity of the shapes and the use of colour. I can see these being made into a series and the fact they look cute makes them even more appealing.
. I first used oval shapes and stroked the path to make a well rounded black outline.
. I next created to circle eyes with two white dots
. eventually i started to fill the body in with the shapes relating to the character and started to fiddle around to get the perfect curves.
. Finally i filled in the block colours and added a couple of highlights on the right hand side!
. Overall very satisfied and would love to expand on this design in the future! 


Title: Paper Toys (Pixel Me)                                                                                               18th Nov 2011




.This is a process of my Paper template Designs now known as Pixel Me! i first started out with a blank square design one for the head and a smaller one for the body and the bottom part would of cut through so the body would fit in between the markings for the head. Once that didn't work i knew i needed to change it so i decided to change the cut to a glue and wouldn't you know it... This worked perfectly so step one was complete a template that actually worked!
. The next step was to create some Characters and IP's of my own and see if they worked and again these went down really well with the tutors and peers so i knew the template was going to plan and the wacky characters on them.
. I then got a mixed range of people from ages 4 to 40ish... and everyone enjoyed it but when i got Josh's son harri's drawings, i noticed he did everything perfectly but the arms were the wrong way round, so i knew it wasn't harry who was wrong it was the design i had created so to fix this i used the same design but re - arranged the flaps to create a more easier approach to the design.
. The next step to see if it was a success was to take my ideas and template to a local primary school and to cut the long story short, the kids loved it and to prove that all the spares i had.... were all gone and i didn't have enough to go around for a few more people so it just goes to show the potential behind it is brilliant but there is still a lot more to discover.