Animation Sequence..

This is the sequence of images i used to create my animation. The animation starts with Piro's normal masked face and he slowly pulls off his mask. This worked much better than i first imagined but due to complications i couldn't turn it into a animation..

Jordan Buckley..

Buckley does a lot o ink drawings of random creatures and animals, often on commission. I love the level of detail he goes to like the reflection in the eyes or the hair in the fur..

Gabriel Ba..

Ba is one of the main artists who has inspired me throughout this project. His collaboration with Gerard Way to create these characters was how mine was in itself created. His superheroes (such as Space Boy. above) Show a good deal of similarities to 'Watchmen'. I like the dark colours he uses and the sharp lines for his characters to make them look gruff and battle worn.



Above is 'The White Violin' a very interesting character in terms of her powers and her motivation. After being cast out of her family of super naturally gifted brothers and sisters she turns to evil and is transformed in the 'White Violin' by an evil organisation. Her powers come in the form of cataclysmically destructive music which she uses to try and destroy the world.
   These weird powers made me think to try something different and give Piro No supernatural abilities but just the perception that he has. For example he can run incredibly fast over long distances

Tara Rueping..

I looked at Tara Rueping because (in this image) her characters are
cartoon like, and after reading the Umbrella Academy I realised, so
was mine. However her characters show more cartoon traits, such as:
unrealistically long arms and legs etc, where as mine is just a normal person
who has been 'cartoonified'

Elevations..

back to the environment again..

These are the 3 elevations of my environment, showing all the objects and features of the perspective environment in a simple 2d format. This makes it easier to see how large an object actually is. For example you can tell the sofa in the bottom left image (sofa in bottom left corner) is quite low in comparison to the high table on the right.

Storyboard..

Above is my story board showing Piro doing 3 actions.

1. Piro's normal expressionless, masked face.
2. Piro grasping his mask and pulling down.
3. A, still, emotionless face underneath.

Alex Drummond..

The above image is by Alex Drummond and the reason i chose this is because of the intimacy of the room. A small confined space with everything someone needs. This is much like Piro's home. He only has things he needs and there is little space for clutter and non necessary items.

This is another example of an intimate room. There is not much 'stuff' or clutter and this relates more to my character as the room is wooden, much like Piro's shack. I like the way the light pierces through the windows giving you a sense of the time of say being the early evening or later afternoon..

Although this is no representative of my characters environment (as its outdoors) this is the kind of size of community that people would be living in after a nuclear holocaust..

Artur Sadlos..

I really like this image of the basement from Call of Juarez as it shows off shadows and the bright light coming from the 

staircase and illuminating the area below the stairs. I forgot to post this when i was looking at him and this image is part of the inspiration for my environment. Sadlos creates an environment which gives of a sense of fear as well as hope. The stairs being the hope and the 'way out' and the back of the room being dingy and dark.

Piro's House (outside view)

The above image shows the four outside walls of Piro's home. The top right

as you can see has the signs and the bottom left has the door. The top left is the 

back wall which has no distinguishing features.

Piro's Home (inside)..

This is the original image I used to base Piro's home on, as you can see

there have been drastic changes.

This is the environment before it was made into 'live paint'

Post live-paint 

This is the inside of Piro's home. As you can see it is a very simple establishment

and has little comfort factor. This is due to the time he lives in and most luxuries 

(like duvets and cushions) were destroyed in the nuclear holocaust. As you can see,

his weapons of choice are displayed around his home to make it look more like 

Piro's. The painting in the left corner is a painting of Hermes the god he has 'faith' in.

However it is not so much a faith as a comparison due to his incredible fitness and stamina.

Signs..

I created the signs above to make Piro's home seem a dangerous place to
outsiders. The left sign was made from a 'Flammable' warning sign and I
changed it so it looks like Piro's head. The right one I created using a different
kind of flammable warning sign. This time I created the word 'maniac' using the
shapes of the original letters, and I added Piro's name so it reads 'WARNING: Piro-maniac'

Watchmen Similarities to The Umbrella Academy..

The dark colours and contrast the use in watchmen is also indicative of the graphic novel itself. Umbrella Academy also uses dark colours and like watchmen the superheroes are a bit dark and more malicious. Such as Rorschach in Watchmen and The Kraken in Umbrella Academy

Piro Running Pose..

Above is an image of Piro running. I used this base from Posemaniacs.com so I 

had something to work with. This is also the pose I will use for the final 4 images

we have to do. 

Gerard Way - The Killjoys & The Umbrella Academy..

As I have previously mentioned my character 'Piro' has been inspired by Gerard Way and his comic book called the Fabulous Kill Joys. This was where I obtained a lot of the inspiration for Piro. However The Fabulous Killjoys was never formally published to my knowledge so it is difficult to get extracts from it to make reference to.

However, i did some research and found out that he had written another comic book series called 'The Umbrella Academy' which have been published as a series of graphic novels.

This is an extract from one of the books (not sure which one,
i'll have to find out) As you can see the colours are fairly basic and
,to me, seem quite depressing. The drawing style reminds me of watchmen slightly

This is just one of the many graphic novels written by Way. I really like his (Gabriel Ba - the illustrator) drawing style, and I am please Piro has come out to look more like a comic book hero than a 

physical life like looking human being.

This is only a short snippet of the 'The Umbrella Academy' and i look forward to exploring their universe in more detail when I blog more about it, and when i purchase a few of the novels themselves.

Photos..

These photos below are experiments i did when taking pictures of a zippo style lighter with a Jack Daniels design on it. In each of these photos I have used different settings on the SLR to provide different outcomes  and colours..

This one is a simple shot in the light box which gives a
nice clean image and the writing on the lighter is easily readable

This is again taken in the light box and I have opened the lighter
so that the wicker casing and ignition cog are visible. I like the way the light
reflects off both of these mechanisms making a gold colour.

In this instance i opened the lighter and ignited it so
I could capture the flame on camera. The flame appears to be
hovering above the lighter which is a nice effect..

Avenged Sevenfold - Little Piece of Heaven..

The video above is very interesting to me as it employs simple 

animation and is fairly primitive in quality. This works really well as it

is easy to tell this was the intention. I like the way the skeletons narrate the video 

in a sinister kind of way. The violin playing ones as well as the ones with the bibles 

are explaining that if you commit horrific crimes you will go to hell or experience hell on earth.

This in a way makes the skeletons almost 'good' in comparison.

Piro Aiming a Rifle..

More drawings and developments of Piro in illustrator. Instead of drawing, this time, I used two images of soldiers off the internet to base my Piro's poses on. The top half of the body is from one picture and the legs and feet from another.

Top Half..

Legs & Feet..

Piro & Background..

These above are the latest versions of Piro I have done. These include tone, colour shading, mesh tools and a simple background. Amongst that I have added crease lines in the clothes as well as in the skin. I have added shadows and given his shoes a make over.

I have also changed the way the hair is coloured. Before the yellow in the hair was a random mess. After playing around with the mesh tool I realised that if I used the mesh tool on the tip of the hair spikes, the yellow faded down and looked a lot better.

Next time I am going to try and create a realistic background with tone and shading as well as developing Piro's poses..

Piro (sword pose)..

These are more experiments with my  character in illustrator. Piro. this time, is in a different position and I have now added one of the weapons I designed previously.  This time I have done an entire body 

shape which took much longer but the results are much better. The colour and  tone add a lot more to the image. However Piro's shape (shoulders) is not as good as I would like and this is what I am going to try and improve on next time..

My Chemical Romance - NaNaNa(NaNaNa) - Sing..

This video was a massive inspiration to me as 

the main character (one shown in the preview), his 

extravagance is what lead me to create Piro.

The video above is called Sing and is the second
half of the story told by NaNaNa.
The costumes and weaponry used in this is, again, what led
me to Piro