Marco Ferrigno's Sketchbook

[marcoferrigno]

More creatures designs, just trying to build up a nice library of creatures for my major project.

[marcoferrigno]

Some more creature concepts..

[marcoferrigno]

More creatures, just trying to build up a little library of critters for my major project, feeling quite confident about this module which is nice.

[marcoferrigno]

finished the first semester yesterday and got positive reviews for my major project which is good, a couple of minor issues too but nothing fundamentally wrong.

This weeks C.O.W submission, demonic speedster (three variations)

[Flaskpost]

Ahw dude, really great progress so far! Improving really fast! The last two updates shows a step up, design- and idea-wise in my opinion.

[marcoferrigno]

Thanks for the words of encouragement Flaskpost, your new stuff is looking V nice aswell.

[marcoferrigno]

[marcoferrigno]

[Matthias Kinnigkeit]

Hey! Like your latest plantdesigns! The whole world these designs seem to be based in appears pretty cool. I really like this sci fi jungel stuff! Maybe you could think more about the 3D shapes when you render your designs. The whole thing of zylinders, cubes n stuff. Even if you just do fast renderings. Maybe you could search for some material about light (Coreshadow, reflected light,...) and how these diffrent geometric forms are lit. I think that would add more 3dimensionalism to your pices (for example the insect of post 33). Would you like to tell sth. about your project?

[marcoferrigno]

Hey Matthias, thank you for your advice, i agree that the lighting in my concepts is a bit weak at the moment and its something im trying to improve on, things like maya underlays help with lighting reference.

what is STH?

[Matthias Kinnigkeit]

With sth. I meant "something"
Just wanted to ask if you would want to tell something about your project, because the designs look very nice. I like sci fi jungle settings a lot.
new update looks cool!

[marcoferrigno]

Ah right ok I get you now.

Its quite a simple project really thats based of an idea ive had for a few years, I decided to commit some serious time to it when i got the opportunity with my final major project at university. So the idea is to design an alien world and its ecosystem aswell as the scientific observatory in orbit above it. I chose to do this because of my love for science fiction, environment and creature design but also to push my self in terms of self dicipline and also tackling subjects like interiors and vehicles that I am not familiar with.

I imagine this world to be harsh and violent in a natural sort of way. unstable tecktonic movements have created a jagged landscape of soaring spires and mountain ridges with jungle's nestled inbetween them.

Did this one using Photoshop and Maya:

[Flaskpost]

Friggin awesome, man! Love the gorilla-like creatures.
Seems like you have a very intelligent approach to the concept design thing.
With a few more years of experience you will be a force!

Do you watch the Feng Zhu videos on youtube btw?

[kevin_]

great designs and awesome colors!

[marcoferrigno]

@ Flaskpost : Yes I have been looking at his environment videos, there quite amazing, the way he works with so few layers and so quickly like the stylus dances over the canvas. VERY clever guy. Got some useful advice now on how to direct composition.

@ Kevin. thank you.

[marcoferrigno]

[Matthias Kinnigkeit]

Cool project! I really love this kind of stuff. Im looking foreward to the movie "afterearth" that should be released this year I guess, check it out if you dont know it maybe you would like it. The new pice looks cool too. I would suggest you to try to figure out how to indicate the texture that you want to include in your design (like rocks and grass) and then throw texture on top. Im refering in particular to post 38.

[marcoferrigno]

Thanks for the advice matthias. i very much agree with you, i have repainted the environment in post 38, need to upload it.

[V3T]

Your creature designs are so wonderfully weird, I love them =] Can't wait to see more ^^

[marcoferrigno]

Thank you V3T.

@ Matthias Ive repainted that one now.

[Matthias Kinnigkeit]

Great it looks much better! Maybe you could throw fast some textures on with low opacity and I would advice you to do some texture studys from stuff like animal skins and rocks, grass and so on because you do so much of landscape and creature designs lately. Ah and one more thing. I liked the fact that in the original pice the mountains in the back where so massive and huge. I think if you want you could go for sth. like that in the repainted version aswell using smaller textures, increasing the sice of the mountains, working with even more atmospheric perspective and showing objects of a big sice in the foreground and then showing them tiny on these mountains to underline scale. You could use some of those big glowing mushroom like things that you had in other pictures. Very nice! I like the monkey guy by the way he is nicely strange.

[marcoferrigno]

Thanks Matthias, i agree about the textures and usually I do enjoy using textures in my painting but for this one I was heaviley concentrating on the lighting. I sat down with my tutor who is a specialist with lighting rigs in maya and taking his advice and criticism I decided to try and sell this image on its lighting qualities.

I also agree about the scale situation, Ive found the scale issue to be a problem whilst working on this project as its an alien world. its an issue i still havent come up with a true solution for, although adding a scientific vesel does seem to help indicate scale.

[Hair Fish]

Intresting stuff and impressive as well. Loving thous creature stuff and there environments

[Eightball_]

hey man really nice industrial designs! would love to see more of those. keep up the good work

[marcoferrigno]

Hey guys, just wanted your opinion, does the fore ground help draw your attention into the back ground, following the ships trajectory?

[Flaskpost]

Looking good man! I think it makes the foreground looks a bit unnatural being shaped like that.
Also, is that the whole canvas? If so, i think the image could benefit from being either more vertical, or more horizontal. A bit to square i think.

[Matthias Kinnigkeit]

Hey man! I actually also don´t think that it helps so much. I don´t know how this is conectable with the stone structure you had in mind but a good way to bring attention to a certain element in your image is to use lines that are goint in the direction of that object. The viewer is just going to follow those lines because of the way the mind works. At least thats one tool you could use. Like painting spikey rock formations that point towards that ship. Furthermore my eye was really caught by the plant in the midground because it has such high contrast. You may want to save high contrast for your focal point. If you want to learn more about how to lead the eye I advice you to make some research on how to set a focal point. This huge plants from post 52 look great! The stuff you upload now is in my opinion already better done that from your earlier post. Nice improvement!

[marcoferrigno]

Thank you for the replies guys, i will post the altered final soon.

Flaskpost, I agree with you on the canvas size. Its an odd personal trap of mine where for some reason I tend to work better creating the composition when using a square canvas. Ill try extending the top half of the canvas up a bit.

Matthias, Thanks for the advice man. im going to do a little messing about with the rock formation and see how it goes.

cheers guys.

[asa]

I have been missing a lot
very, very cool concepts man

[Zedensod]

Damn! Pretty cool creature designs! I like the flying Dragon/ Beast. Reminds me of one of my fav. games, Monster Hunter: