Final Diorama Idea

For my final diorama idea I shall create a small scene based in no mans land, From the mood board below I have looked into how it looks. In my scene I shall be including muddy puddles, dead trees and barbed wire. I may also look into adding a trench, but this is not decided yet. I really want the scene to look dead and unappealing, so this would make a nice contrast to the bright and colourful Uncle Sam. It would also give a strong message to the audience, in the way that Uncle Sam is promoting going to the war and trying to rally troops. And then you see the scene and its death, the reality is actually all death, and the troops would be going to die in such a depressing environment.

When I get this into UE4 I hope to add some particle effects such as smoke coming from the ground to show that bombs have gone off recently. Also a dust particle effect to look like debris is falling slowly. I will also add a material to a plane to show water. It shall be rather basic fr the blockout, but when I go to do it for real I shall edit them to fit it to my scene better.

At this moment I am unsure if I will have it as a circular base like a war hammer figure, or if I should have it so the actual environment is quite large, and I then use a fog effect so you cant see after a certain distance.

I also need to think of a way to properly integrate Uncle Sam into the scene, as at the moment I can only imagine him pointing to the camera and just standing there, this may make him look out of place. I have thought of a number of ideas so he will fit more into the scene, but I can only think of ideas that will add too much work to what I already have

Diorama/Scene

Now that I have chosen my idea to do Uncle Sam I next needed to think of a diorama or scene to put him in. I found this quite challenging as you only see him from the poster and not in any real environment.
I did have my first idea which would involve actually creating the rest of the poster, so by this I mean creating the writing in 3D and then creating a frame for the outside of the poster. Then when going presenting this I could have the camera facing straight on and slowly zoom out to show the rest of his body. I just feel then that the rest of the scene would be quite empty and could do with more being added into it. I do still like this idea, and if allowed I will see if I can incorporate it somehow.
Following on from this idea, I liked the thought of presenting the scene with it starting off with Uncle Sam pointing at the camera, then slowly zooming out to show more. I feel if done well this could have a good impact on my scene.
Part of the brief stated we could mix a certain theme into our idea e.g a castle could have a fantasy like element to it. I began to think, how could I possibly change Uncle Sam, and it working. I first though of him slowly turning into a skeleton/zombie, with the top of him looking normal but as you zoom out it reveals rotting flesh, bone showing. But I imagined this may not look very good, and I have seen many people on the internet draw pictures of Uncle Sam as a zombie. I then went to the complete other end of ideas. What if as you zoom out it shows him not even being completely human, and once it cuts off from the waist, it turns out he has tentacles. I liked the idea but was unsure if this would be allowed. The whole idea of me wanting to change him was only to change his bottom half, as in the posters you can only see his top half and one arm. So what if it turned out he was in a wheel chair and had lost his other arm? Or maybe, and I just thought of this while writing, he was a ghost of a soldier that died in battle after blowing up from a grenade. And on the poster was actually all what is left of him ( I may run this idea by my lecturer).
I decided to leave this idea for the time being, untill the new week started and I could share my ideas with others in my class and ask my lecturer if any of these ideas were suitable.
I began to think about the scene again as this was more important. I thought it would be fun and still fit the theme, if I went extremely American with the whole project, and had the American flag flying the background, and then an Eagle coming down to land next to him, and then some ww1 planes flying in the background. I thought this could actually work well, but I felt it may be too much to model in my time given. I couldn't think of many other ideas which he could be placed in which would work well, but not be too complicated to create. I then thought of his standing behind a podium, giving a speech to a crowd. The scene could involve chairs, plants and the entire room.
I still felt none of these were working very well, I thought a simply solution would just to have him on a diorama piece like a statue would be on, or a trophy. But I knew this wouldn't be enough to fit the brief. So I had to think of a way to still have him on his piece with not too much happening too him, but still quite a bit going on around him. Thats when I thought of the idea of having him in a museum. I could have him in his position, standing and pointing. But then it zooms out and he is behind glass in a corner of a museum with red rope around it cornering him off. It could then be filled with plants and lights around him, and various things found in a museum. Also in the set up with him could have the flag flowing in the background. I could even incorporate my idea of the 3D writing and outer frame, so when looked at from a certain angle it looks like the poster. I could also have a backdrop with some clouds and some faint WW1 planes flying in the background, to emphasize the WW1 theme. I feel this will work nicely and I am able to use a number of my earlier ideas in this scene.
Other work I can relate this too, is to Call of Duty. In one game you are able to go to a museum and see still scenes from various levels of the game, and this had the same sort of theme as I wanted to show. A still shot from a moment with the scene made to give more of an impact.

In the two images above, you can get a good idea of what was happening at that moment in time, which is what I want to try and portray. They have also use 2D backdrops to give the audience a good idea of where it was also set. I think this idea will work very well for my idea and I look forward to starting this project.

At the start of the next week, once I have got the okay for my idea, I shall begin to create a block out for my scene as well a s Uncle Sam to give a better idea of what I wish to create.

Uncle Sam!

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images
/I/61IFMPQe1TL._UL1500_.jpg

While I looking at more images to do with propaganda I came across an Uncle Sam poster, and instantly liked the idea of this, I then looked into it to make sure it was used during WW1 and discovered that it was! so I have now come to the conclusion that I shall be modelling Uncle Sam for my A3D project. My reason for this is that; first I like the colours in it, being able to use red, white and blue on the model will make it really bright and stand out nicely as long as it isn't overdone. I also think I can exaggerate some of his features nicely, but once again not to overdo it so he doesn't look like some cheap characterture. Considering I can only see his chest and head I have decided to give him quite long, thin legs. I have seen some images of people wearing his outfit as a costume and have found he is always shown wearing red and white stripped trousers. I will also have his second hand going against his back.

I then went to look to see if other people have created models of Uncle Sam, and have found not many have, however I did find two very nice models, which I may use as reference when going to model my own version.

http://www.lifesize-models.co.uk/custom/images/
products/UNCLE%20SAM%202.jpg

The first model, turns out to be a real statue that's 8 feet tall! I still feel best to post about it as it is still very good reference and will help me in the process. This model has him in the position I had originally thought of which is helpful when getting the blockout stage done and working out where limbs should be places. However I plan on having the feet placed closer together, skinnier and slightly longer, to give him a slightly creepy and taller presence.

http://costin3d.com/3d_art/images/Uncle_Sam_additioanal.jpg

The next image is of an actual model, where as this one the creator has made Uncle Sam extremely muscular with a vest instead of a blazer and no shirt. I do not plan on copying this, but I still feel parts of it will be helpful especially with the legs.




I have noticed with both figures and most images on the internet that his has has been changed to have red and white striped along the top of his tophat, I feel I may also follow this theme as it will make it look more appealing and will match the rest of the figure.

Ive done a quick mood board to get an idea of his body proportions and the colours used in the clothing. I have included two images of the Joker from the Arkham games, I have noticed they resemble each other quite a bit, with the same body type and clothing. In fact after writing that sentence I had to search to see if there was a connection as I realised the Joker does look a lot like Uncle Sam in the way he dresses and even slightly in the face if you were to remove the Jokers make up. However I could not find anything, what a shame.

Week one cont.

Later on during the first week I was still stuck for ideas, not wanting to do something obvious as I felt it was boring, but struggling to find some different, until a friend was talking about his WW1 idea, and I suddenly thought of WW1 propaganda with its posters and the pin up girls. Straight away I liked this idea and began to research into it and found a really useful website(http://www.ww1propaganda.com/) which showed hundreds of propaganda posters from various countries and with various themes. I started first by looking at women used in these pictures and found a whole selection of them as well as nurses within the propaganda posters. I found many which I would have been quite happy to look into and felt I could quite happily choose one of these images which are shown below

I did of course look at male figures during WW1 such as those in the war and Doctors and various others, but I felt this was too obvious and other people in the class would be doing it. Another reason for this is because there is this style I like and I wanted to see if I can incorporate this style into my piece, and I have seen this done mostly with female models. I have seen this style done by a number of people in the past, but the most recent one which stuck out to me is Andrew Hickinbottom, where his work can be found at http://www.andrewhickinbottom.com/ . I really like the style in these models as its quite 'cartoony' with some of the features often being exaggerated. Also with the colours, I like how they are quite bright and clean and all seem to pop out, It has almost a Pixar like appearance to it. Here are two images I have shown which show off the style, and are also done in a way to look like a pin up girl.

I especially like the one on the left, as it has a very old fashioned look to it, and if you were to see it quickly you could mistake it for being 2D. I also really like the way the skin looks, very clean colours and I feel it just has a nice soft texture to it. I would like to make my character using this style, and although I imagine it will be hard to do this I would like the try it.

In my next post I will have decided on an image and began on a mood board and sketches, as well as various ideas for the diorama piece it will be placed on.

Week one: Brief, Ideas and so on

For this brief we have been given the choice to create either am environment piece or a character. With the theme being either Gothic, WW1 and Moorish for environment, or Tudor, WW1 and Moorish for Character.

http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131117200351/rsroleplay/
images/8/8e/Gothic_cathedral_d_uomo_by_yolayoli-d4az34e.jpg

For me personally I wasn't very happy with the themes as I find them not very interesting, and I struggled to find something that would keep my interest for the next 12 weeks. I first began to look at environment as I wanted to get better in this area. When I first began to look Gothic, I soon discovered it this mainly involved Cathedrals and other buildings like that, the patterns in the archways and on the walls were appeared very complicated and I could imagine I would struggle with this, that and my lack of enthusiasm with this made me not wish to choose something like this, however I would plan on looking into it again at a later date.
The same was with Moorish design I found this had close to the same sort of design to it but was slightly varied, and I felt that the patterns were slightly more complex than the Gothic look so I decided not to pursue this path either.
After I then looked into WW1, but at the time I could not think of many ideas I could create an environment for, even after doing some research I did not see anything that stuck out for me.

Not feeling very confident I decided I wanted to do a character, I felt like doing one from the beginning but felt am Environment would be easier to create. I have not actually created a character during my time at Uni so I felt this may be too challenging for me as up untill now all I have really done is create machines and this would be my first organic piece. I though though if I am able to find something that takes me attention that it would be worth the challenge, and if not, then I would look more into an environment piece.

http://www.delpiano.com/carnival/images_carnival_
venezia/grev_medico1_w.jpg

I got my first idea of a Black Plague Doctor, I thought this would be a quite a good idea as its the style I like and as it is wearing a mask it would help with my lack of skills when modelling a face, I thought this would work as I was sure the black plague was around during the Tudor period, but once I got a chance to research this I found that the costume was created a few years after the Tudor period had ended.

I then went to look more into the Tudor period to see if I could find something to do with the plague, but couldnt find many pictures that I could base a model off. I then went to look at more of the style of the richer people such as Henry VIII, I was not too keen once again on the style of clothing, and though it looked quite complicated once again. I liked the idea of doing Henry VIII as I have always been quite a big fan of him and found him quite interesting, and with this figure it would make it quite fun to make. I decided to keep him as a backup idea in case I couldn't find anything else.