Team ChoW III - Ace Holes

[Rambozo]

Alright, first post to get things going.

Team members :
B-man
Rambozo
Tim
Tommoy


------------------------------------

We need a team NAME ! Figured this would be the best place to discuss it, should be easier than through PMs to everyone each time.

Tommoy has already suggested :
The Lazykillers
The swimming kangaroo's
Team pixeldump
Psychopath circus
Braindead Killer Baboons
Transatlantic Titans from hell

I had suggested some Flemish beer-names earlier on as team name(Dubble and Tripple etc.), but I don't think this would fit the bill any longer. So moving on, I figure there's 4 of us so maybe something like :
Aces high
4 of a kind
the Ace holes ???
4-stroke Engines (because "4-strokes" would just sound, well, premature hehe)
Cardinal Points -> Cardinals (and no this ain't because of the NFL or baseball )

Errr..
Megaton
Parabellum
Frostbitten varmints ?
Fang-toothed critters ?

Suggestions ? I don't reckon anyone's gona get too upset about a team-name, we just need to pick one and all agree.

[t i m]

Nice suggestions!

I'm liking:

Transatlantic Titans from Hell

Team pixeldump

Ace holes

Megaton

[Tommoy]

Hey guys, good to see we've got our team complete. Hope the four of us can kick some butt. Nice work Nic on setting this up. Lets first choose a team name, from the one's Tim has chosen I like Ttfh and Ace holes the most. Lets wait what B-man has to say. And of course if you guys have better options lets hear them. When we have a name we could make a logo too. Our first job, YEAH.

[B-Man]

I like Ace holes. Its easy to remember. Bring on logo sugestion. What about a 4 thin selfportraits in some ACE pose. Or maybe uss walking like in reservoir dogs.

[Tommoy]

First logo suggestion. I took the liberty of taking artwork from you guys here and there, for you Nic I couldn't find a zombie portrait that fast so I used something of myself. But it's just for starters...

[B-Man]

Ah good Ide. But that is a portrait of CA's wery own Stoph. I could make a zombie self portrait. And I think its a bit too much white. You could give the cards a older yellowish, used.card look.

[Rambozo]

Ace holes it is then !

Hmmm, Is the logo too white ? I dunno. At the moment standing alone it might be, but it depends what we plan on doing with this logo. If we add it to the bottom of our illustrations for instance, then the white background will be dropped and the white cards will pop-out rather nicely I'ld imagine. We'll see.

Tom : Cool start. Ya I've never really been into the zombie stuff so I don't believe I've drawn any before. But, since I couldn't come up with anything decent for what I planned on drawing today, a zombie-selfportrait was a welcome distraction for me

I thought the first version looked to much like one of those nazi-zombies from that movie that came out not to long ago (dunno what the name is), so I ended up adding a racoon tail to the helmet as a quick-fix to make it clearer it's suppoed to be a zombie-biker type thing hehe

*Yes I hogged the ace of spades... hahaha But I don't mind if anyone else wants it that bad I'll redraw what ever suit onto the helmet instead, no hassles.*

Feel free to add some blood drops or whatever to tie it in with the other headshots if you plan on using my quicky.

[Tommoy]

Pretty amazing Nic. Here's the result.

[t i m]

Tommoy that is AWESOME!

Oh and B-man is that you in your avatar? If so, I'm sure we could zombie him up and swap out stoph.

[B-Man]

Its me in the avatar but I made a different one.
Good work guys!

[Tommoy]

Looking dead, I mean looking good B-man!
What's that about shutting down CA, I red something in the Chow topic Dragon's egg?

[Rambozo]

Cool B-man, I was hopeing to see some viking HORNS on yours though ! hahaha

Tommow : am I right in thinking you had us each shot in the head so that there would actually be "ace holes", bullet-holes that is, in the helmets ? And the cards do look better with the dirty-look I say, Björn was spot on.

---

Ya for the CA off-air business. I don't know what to think ? Here's the thread :
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...62#post2552862

If they need to raise 150K I'm thinkin' this is to bring in the new CA version 4 they were talkin' about earlier, something new because that's just a lot of dough just to keep a forum running for 90 days. I would suck to lose the community though, with the ChoWs for instance...

[Dibujio::Guru]

I just want to say good luck to you guys this year...


That's a Bad Ass logo by the way

[t i m]

What's up dudes!

Logo really came along nicely, real team effort!

B-man that is a great zombie zombie head man!!

As for the ca blackout stuff, yea I was reading the thread last night..troublesome news no doubt, but I'm sure we'll pull through. CA 4.0 is gonna kick ass. I picked up a few of those downloads, I was pretty impressed. Lotta knowledge jammed in there, good deal for the price, imo.

Loving the progress guys, looking forward to hearing what the topic is going to be!


Added a new zombie self portrait to the logo, wanted to be more in the spirit of your guys stuff.

[Tommoy]

Couldn't stay behind so I've made a fresh one too. Well, logo's done, what next. Do we wait till the topic is clear?.

[Rambozo]

Cool ! Alright, so we all created something new for this, great start.

I wonder if we could do anything in anticipation now... Kinda hard without a theme, but. Any ideas ? We can't even work on a background or palette or, even boarders or anything like that can we.

Hmmm. Any ideas on how to split the work ? Discuss a pre-emptive schedule maybe ? I dunno.

[B-Man]

great work. Killer portraits there.
Ok, so We cant really work on anything that will be in our finished work for team-chow.
We could try and do random characters together to work on our teamwork. kinda like we worked on this logo. And we could find a common estetic. Im crap with cartoony look btw

[Rambozo]

Ya I reckon tryin' to build some common aesthetics would be a good call. Get that out of the way right now as we have nothin' specific to do really, so our finished pieces look all nice together hehe Uhm, everyone else onboard for this ? Any thoughts on how to get get the ball rollin' ?

[Tommoy]

To warm up we could do CHoW 184 The Surveyor as a team!
We can each give our own interpretation, perhaps some rough sketches alongside. From there try to make one drawing on witch we all work. In this process we can see how we can communicate best, this sketchbook could be enough but maybe we need more, perhaps Skype or Google talk. I heard some people about open canvas, it would be fun but I think it's no option for a Mac user.
B-man, don't worry, cartoons are for business.

[Rambozo]

Alright I'm in. I wasn't gettin' any ideas from the brief so I thought I'ld stay this one out, but might as well use a given subject to test things out

Hmmm, first glance I thought ok : the Surveyor... I see her sorta slow and under-waterish, kinda like an angle I guess but a little creepy. Like have her hair or clothes float around real-slow like, always in slow motion, like they were caught underwater. And have her guts and heart and brains flash out of her skin a little, not cadaver-like but more like an x-ray I guess. Like she radiating from inside.

I know I know... Hey look, I said the ideas weren't exactly bubbling for me on this one Did a real quick sketch, well.. Not even a sketch really, just an initial composition to help get the idea across a little, a vague form floating over head, as she slowly comes down to earth, askin' her questions without uttering a word.

So what do we develop our sketches each on our own ? Start on our own and once we get a good direction work off the same pose ? Off the same file ? Take turns at the same file ? My co-pilot bailed out on me in the last Team ChoW so I haven't really experienced the right way of goin' about this team business (I don't blame him or anything. Good artist this guy, it's just it didn't work out in the end).

[Tommoy]

Rambozo, I like the idea of a see-thru body. Or more shining from the inside to give her the alien touch. But we also have to consider she talks to people about for instance soup ingredients so she can't be too scary or ghostly I guess. Should she ware clothes? Also when talking to people she has to be on the same level, or not?

[Rambozo]

Tom, ya like I said I didn't get much inspiration on this one so I wouldn't mind scrapping the idea completely. I was more hoping to put something out there in order to start her up you know ? Get some ideas out there so we can come up with a cool approach/story to the character. We can keep the see-through body if you like it, could be a cool starting block, but I think there should be more to her though .

For the clothes, well, nekkid chicks are nice to draw hehehe But clothes usually tell a story of their own so that's a safer bet as far as conceptual stuff goes I reckon. Which doesn't mean she can't be PARTIALLY nekkid haha

As for the "talking" well, the brief never actually mentions her talking does it, only asking questions right ? So I reckon she could have some sort of a vulcan mind meld thing goin' on there, or ESP, or a thought-analysing ray-gun for that matter, something weird and different. If she's teleporting all over the globe at will, who says she ("they" ?) haven't evolved beyond mere vocal communication ?

[Tommoy]

Well, she takes 'interviews', and people have asked her why she is here, and she simply says "for the survey" so it looks like a conversation kind of thing to me. Of course this could be done without moving lips from the surveyor, that she is mind talking. With the see trough body I mean shining from the inside as if she is shapeshifting into a body of a woman, but not being scary. Partly with clothes, maybe these clothes are part of her body. We could catch her in the second before arrival at a new spot.

[t i m]

Sup guys,

First, love the new self portrait tommoy, and the avatars guys

The Surveyer activity sounds cool. I really like Nic's idea of a translucent skin, however should she have a skeleton? She is an alien with the ability to transcend galaxies. No need for bones to hold up flesh and muscle when you don't have to worry about the laws of gravity . We could have her be a mass of light and matter and gas. Remeber she is a vessel that is representing multiple galaxies. What if inside the black gas these lights are an image of the galaxies and stars that she come from? Similiar to how we slap our flag on our own space shuttles.

Then using Tommoy's idea when she talks to people she can arrange the lights and gasses on her face to appear as a 30 year old woman. Obvious idea being she wants to make the people "she's" interviewing more comfortable, but still remaining very alien.

Some sketches coming soon..

[B-Man]

Alright, I guess just jamming some thumbs would be awesome. just like you posted Rambozo. I always like to do lots of em and decide witch looks most intresting then work on that. Need to get the really obvious ides out aswell. Im sick at the moment but I did these 2 thumbs just now. I like to see the Surveyor as someone with the world in their hands looking at it. I find nr 2 of my thumbs most intresting.

[t i m]

Hour or so, just an idea..

B-man, feel better bro! Like the thumbs, pose wise second one is better for sure.

edit: A bit further. We'll probably not go with this one seeing as she's a bit too "alien". Hopefully it gets the gears churning for you guys though

[Rambozo]

I'm still in the "thinking" phase I guess, haven't actually gotten that much into questioning the visuals of anything yet Guess that would account for a lot of verbals on my part for this post heheh Still, at here's some small input !

Tom : no no she obviously communicates with people you're right I just meant she doesn't necessarily have to do it verbally, like maybe it can be only with their minds or some sort of babble-fish like in the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy hehe. Or again something like the Vulcans where when she touches your forehead for instance then she and the human can communicate with each other. Or hey maybe she CAN talk in the end, just tryin' to see things slightly out of the ordinary .

I agree with your inner-shinning : just some reminder that maybe she really isn't human (or at least not a human at our state of evolution). I didn't particularly like the skeletal (creepier) aspect of my sketch so ya I think you're right. And having the clothes materialising around her, like they're a part of some projection, that's cool as well. That would work with the inner "glow" too, because her face would also be a projection most likely : something for our benefit, to make the interviewees feel safe.

Tim : ya I figured it was time I changed my avatar so I reckoned hey this is a good time to move ahead with that ! I agree with you and Tom about the skeleton. The brief doesn't say she's an alien though, nor an angel. But that she "seems to represent a multi-dimensional population"... That could mean, well, just about anything, specially when you factor in the "seems to" as that would infer interpretation on the part of humans I guess. But regardless, I do agree that the bones probably wouldn't make for a good visual. Maybe something more ghostly, ethereal would be more appropriate.

I mentioned this just above but for my money you're definitely right about this character putting on some facade of a 30 year old woman to make "us" more comfortable. So I think in that optic she should look all lovey-dovey to a certain extent (maybe childish ? or motherly ?) but somehow have some visual reminder telling us : hey look, somethin's awry here, she ain't quite "right" you know ? But nothing blatant like.

Also, your galaxy idea got me thinkin' on a basic scenario (to be developed/altered/trashed) : This surveyor is the last human being alive, from far far into the future. And she has a glowy bit inside of her head or torso or whatever, which is the last shard left of earth, our planet having been destroyed by, I dunno say some sort of human physics experiment gone-wrong in which the earth implodes and compacts into this golf-ball sized chunk of energy-matter energeon anit-matter dilythium something something...

Now this advanced (almost alien) human comes back to the past, and she records all the information available to her either a) as a way to figure out how to stop the earth from being destroyed in her time, either b) as an a final testament to a race that will eventually die out with her, a sort of posthumous encyclopaedia of humanity to be stored in that earth-shard she carries. A little like the golden plate we sent up with voyager : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record
(Björn, this would also tie in with your "holding the world in her hands" idea, the remains of earth being lodged in between her lungs or something)

Björn : I'm gona try and get a few loose sketches done as well. Get a few bad ideas out of the way, maybe stumble on something cool by accident Hope you're not too sick dude!

---
Bahhh, too much babbling, not enough drawing ! I'll make sure and have some shots to post next time I decide to start writing a novel... haha

[Tommoy]

Björn, get well soon mate.

Tim, I like your sketch but she looks a bit too evil I think. The galaxy surrounding her looks great, is it possible to let her glow more from inside her body.

Nic, I've red your novel, good idea of her being the last human.

I've put up a moodboard because I can't get the picture clear, maybe this helps.
On my own sketch, I think its too much angel/god like.

[Rambozo]

Tommoy : definitely getting more of that ghostly feeling from that pic. I agree it might seem a little too godlike though, But the mood from the pic got me going. From there I thought I'ld try out an idea see where it got me. Keep the "galaxy ghost" aspect of her, transparent with the floating "stars" around her as with Tim's. Except I figured I'ld add something in the background, something more "techno" to design. Not sure it's a good idea but I thought I'ld draw up something loose to help make up my mind.

Alright, basically the surveyor's physical body is trapped in some sort of time capsule, spaceship, something like that, and she projects the ghost out from her mind, or with the help of some fancy transmographier or something. So the ghost is a PART of the surveyor, it IS the surveyor in essence only not in physical shape I suppose.

Glad you liked the last-human pitch Everyone else on board with this ? We honestly don't NEED a story I suppose, I just find it helps me get to thinkin' of the "why" behind things if we do.

Anyway, so this sketch is the moment where the projection begins to form, out from the laying body of the physical surveyor, maybe have energy particles or "stars" coming out from her or swirling in to her core, maybe materialising a part of the ghost ?

I'll have another sketch/idea soon. Should we establish a cut-off date ? Like from this day forward we concentrate on refining the render/detailing of the pic ?

[t i m]

Whattup guys!

Nic I really like that idea! I took your sketch and kinda expounded on it. I apologize for the sloppiness, but I think it gets the point across. We need to incorporate the interviewing aspect but at the same time get our own point across of host/ghost. I tackled this by doing kind of a comic montage type thing. Now I'm terrible at these sort of things so if any of you are good at layouts, split scene composition, speak up! So anyway I thought we could show her "body" appearing in front of someone beginning her interview. The person in the foreground is clearly shocked, "wtf. naked ghost chick". We could have the ghost like Tommoy's sketch very ethereal flowing hair etc. Finally a scene back in her mothership/homeworld whatever where she's connected to a bunch of techno stuff. Ok, so it's a bit Avatar-esque but whatever I like it. Feel free to expand on my sketch, rearrange stuff, or do your own based on where we are headed...it's all good!


Oh, and I know we aren't going this way, but I thought some more could have been done with my original surveyor piece. I pushed it a bit further wasn't digging the "scary face". Invested some time up there. Just wanted to share the finished result with ya'll..