Ryan Nagata makes high quality replicas of spacesuits, tanks, gas masks, helicopters etc. He prioritizes accuracy over all else, with accurate texturing and impressive detail, even to the extent of using the real material used for the things he’s making a replica of. for some of his work Most of his work is made on a small scale however he has also made life sized space suits. I think he shows how much thought can go into something like this if you really want accuracy.

Much like Ryan Nagata Hot Toys make small scale yet very high-quality replicas although Hot Toys seem to focus more on fiction than Nagata. They manage to capture a remarkable amount of facial detail in their work, showing creases and pores in the skin. The colouration of the skin is also done very well, creating an almost life-like look with how different flesh tones are applied making it feel reminiscent of a polychrome sculpture. These are likely made for a niche audience and thus probably have a high price since they probably don’t sell as much as most commercial figurines do.

I find super sculpey tutorials useful for learning little new techniques to incorporate in your work but what I find even more useful is watching someone sculpt something start to finish since it not only gives you some insight into specific nuances of how to sculpt best that only normally come from experience but also which aspects of sculpting to spend the most time on and which to do fairly briskly.

Graphical Styles

SUPERHOT is a first-person action game where time only moves when you do. The game's artstyle has an intentionally primitive look to it, models are low-poly and every model has a flat colour for textures. This lets enemies pop out of the environments because they are a strong red on a mostly white background which is also good for gameplay because a player will be able to easily spot them. It also works to contrast the extreme violence featured in the game. 

Morphite is a procedurally generated open-world game about discovery. Similarly to SUPERHOT it uses a low-poly style with simple textures and it gains many of the same benefits as SUPERHOT such as unique parts of the environment standing out. However it also lends the game world an abstract mysteriousness that works in tandem with the exploration and discovery of the game.

Astroneer is an open-world game that uses an artstyle made up of “curved geometric, sort of broad vibrant colours''. This style was apparently chosen to be distinct from the Minecraft-esque artstyle that had become popular in the open-world genre. It was also done to let them implement new ideas into the game quickly and easily.

Virginia is a mystery thriller that uses a simplistic art style although in this case it’s to aid the surreal feeling the game is going for. Terry Kenny, the art director said he wanted to craft an “abstract quality” and this can be seen in the dream-like presentation throughout.

TRON: Legacy

The lead animator for TRON: Legacy referred to Cinema 4D as a “go-to package for graphics”. He attributes this to the wealth of tools at your disposal in C4D and the amount of tools available for learning it.

The Lion King (2019)

As seems to be a running theme with reasons for using Cinema 4D in film, KTM productions made use of Cinema 4D because of how easy it is to experiment with different approaches to a model or a scene.

Avengers Age of Ultron

Cantina Creative used Cinema 4D to create tons of visual effects for Avengers Age of Ultron. Cantina mainly worked on designing the HUDs and monitor graphics. The VFX supervisor for the film specifically highlighted the efficiency of Cinema 4D "we’re a small shop, so finding the most efficient means to create something cool is really important for us".

Spider Man Far From Home

Perceptions’ work on Spider Man Far From Home mainly consisted of making advanced, futuristic looking technology. They wanted to show “intense complexity” as one of the VFX artists put it. One of the easiest ways to do this is to create intricate models or displays that the audience can’t understand to make the technology seem beyond anything in the real world. Cinema 4D’s easy to use model creator likely came in handy for experimenting with different designs quickly and easily.

Avengers Endgame C4D

In an interview about working on Avengers Endgame, a member of Territory Studios talked about how Cinema 4D was used in the creation of special effects. In particular they highlighted how Cinema 4D allowed them to “play” with different graphical effects in a timely manner. This underlines Cinema 4D’s usefulness in professional industry work especially, allowing people in the VFX team to experiment without using an excessive amount of time. This shows that Cinema 4D is popular not only because of its toolset but also its convenience.

These are my sketches for plant ideas and my storyboard for the plant’s origins. I enjoyed coming up with multiple designs for my plant and using drawing inspiration from the David Attenborough documentaries I’d watched for research.

The storyboard was quite easy as I already had an idea for where the stalk came from but it was still fun to come up with shots to represent the stalks growth, especially the panel of it wrapping around the planet.

This is my joining sample board. It was interesting to try out different methods for stitching and thinking about which method would suit a plush plant. Generally I found doing these joining techniques easy however I had some trouble with the hand-stitching from both struggling to thread the needle and pulling the thread out of the fabric. I think the thickness of the thread was the issue in this case.

These are my latex samples and my beading. They were quite easy to make but quite fun to experiment with, especially with combining the colours of the latex samples.

This is my board on sea stacks. 

I found the stacks that were photographed at night to be the most visually interesting because of the silhouette effect the stacks create against the sky.

The simplistic charm of these plant plushies is something to take note of as it shows how the most appealing designs come from not over-complicating or cluttering anything but rather showing confidence in a few key design elements.

The cactus at the bottom has a very simple face. Simple designs are often the most generally appealing because there are so few distinguishing features that could make it look unappealing.

Chorlton and the Wheelies was a British children’s TV show that was made using stop-motion animation. As the name implies, many of the characters in the show are on wheels which likely made it much easier to animate, especially under a potentially tight schedule.

The plant sets featured in the show are made out of a variety of things. Some appear to be drawn onto a flat surface and cut out whilst others are fully modelled. This creates a loose dream-like aesthetic that suits the show and characters. Generally, the plant designs themselves are quite abstract and colourful, mostly being made up of simple shapes.

Cosgrove Hall, the creators of Chorlton and the Wheelies, have a massive backlog of shows and movies that include Danger Mouse, the BFG movie, Count Duckula among many others. Most of their work was made with stop-motion or 2D animation.

Evaluation

My favourite project besides animation was making a super sculpey model because of how much time and control I had to refine one idea to make it perfect rather than rushing through tons of ideas that aren’t very well defined. I think it has been my most successful project partially because I enjoyed it the most since I like designing characters and partially because of the ample time frame we were given to work on it. My detailing and model quality obviously aren’t on par with the designers I researched however I did make an active effort to use techniques that they used but not to as great of an effect as those I learned from. I feel like I organized my research quite well although I found it more difficult to write about some artists compared to others. Next term I’d like to focus more on writing as much as I’m able to about an artist without being redundant rather than repeating myself to try and meet a certain length.

I mainly generated ideas by drawing because I find it to be the easiest way to put something in your head on paper. Pinterest and Google images are both useful for reference however I didn’t use mind-maps at all since I never really felt like I’d benefit from making one.

I think I’ve gotten much better with blog work this term both in terms of presentation and the content within. I could probably do better to take screenshots and photos of work more often. I don’t compare my work to other people or professionals much although I do try and learn from them.

There are definitely certain stereotypes and expectations that exist although they are definitely lessening over time. My work hasn’t really defied or promoted any perspectives. I’m not certain which industry I’m aiming for at the moment although lots of industries are either male or female dominated for lots of complex reasons. There is imbalance but I don’t know if it comes down to the personal choices people make or if it’s because of societal expectations, probably a mixture of the two. I think it's important if qualified people can’t get jobs because of stereotypes against them.

I went through lots of ideas for my bottle designs, going from something themed around the Artic to some kind of virus sample container. I had lots of different ideas as to what I could do but in the end I decided to go with something comparativley simple and ambigous. I wanted something that would make someone looking at it ask questions about what the text said and the floating thing in the middle was. I think I achieved this in the original sketch however I did have to repaint the watercolours a few times because I wasn’t happy with the way they looked in my first attempts.

The simplistic charm of these plant plushies is something to take note of as it shows how the most appealing designs come from not over-complicating or cluttering anything but rather showing confidence in a few key design elements.

The cactus at the bottom has a very simple face. Simple designs are often the most generally appealing because there are so few distinguishing features that could make it look unappealing. 

Ryan Nagata makes high quality replicas of spacesuits, tanks, gas masks, helicopters etc. He prioritizes accuracy over all else, with accurate texturing and impressive detail, even to the extent of using the real material used for the things he’s making a replica of. for some of his work Most of his work is made on a small scale however he has also made life sized space suits. I think he shows how much thought can go into something like this if you really want accuracy. 

Much like Ryan Nagata Hot Toys make small scale yet very high-quality replicas although Hot Toys seem to focus more on fiction than Nagata. They manage to capture a remarkable amount of facial detail in their work, showing creases and pores in the skin. The colouration of the skin is also done very well, creating an almost life-like look with how different flesh tones are applied making it feel reminiscent of a polychrome sculpture.

I find super sculpey tutorials useful for learning little new techniques to incorporate in your work but what I find even more useful is watching someone sculpt something start to finish since it not only gives you some insight into specific nuances of how to sculpt best that only normally come from experience but also which aspects of sculpting to spend the most time on and which to do fairly briskly.