Steampunk

rakker16mm said:
Your drawings are great. I like the girl especially. I do think she would have a bit of a reputation for revealing that much of her shoulders, but it could be said that is in keeping with the gypsy look. The guy looks great too but the period seems a bit modern. I can't quite put my finger on it. It may just be that the bow tie reminds me of a tuxedo which makes me think of James Bond.
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Thanks for the crits. The comments about the shoulders is really funny (even if true) to me given that current comics can pretty much be a lingerie catalog.

I have to admit I'm using a mish mash of clothes. Especially for the girl. That particular dress cut is from a late Victorian/Edwardian time, but the details have been patched in from several sources. They seemed to have outfits for different times of day and occasions so I'm probably putting her in something that only gets worn in a ball. :) I'll try some different suits and jackets for the guy sometime. I agree something else could be tried.

It's definitely a great resource to live in a city with historic buildings. I always bring my camera with, when ever I am walking around SF. Some times people start to get a little suspicious though after I take 20+ pics of their house LOL. If you are interested perhaps we could swap pictures.
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I'll need some pictures first. :) I'm working on roughing in some head models right now, but once I get to street scenery I'll definitely take some pictures around town. I would be easy to set up a site where we could share pictures and other files if people are interested.

I saw a magazine at the mall called Victorian Homes which seemed to have interesting pics in it. Also I've used costumes.org for some references.
 
steamthunk said:
I'll need some pictures first. :) I'm working on roughing in some head models right now, but once I get to street scenery I'll definitely take some pictures around town. I would be easy to set up a site where we could share pictures and other files if people are interested.
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A site sounds like a great idea. As long as the bandwidth doesn't become an issue it shouldn't be very expensive. Most Victorian era photos would be public domain as well, though I have noticed that people do put copy rights on them after the fact. I don't think there would be too many issues with the street photography either as that should fall under fair use since it is for reference purposes.

Today I was working some Victorian architectural elements from "Bicknell's Victorian Buildings" A. J. Bicknell & CO. were known for their Second Empire / French / Gothic buildings. Lots of brick and Dorner windows. I tend to go more for the Queen Ann style and Edwardian style that there is so much of in San Francisco, but Bicknell's stuff is kind of growing on me. Any way I would be happy share any of the elements like brackets and window surounds for people to add to their own buildings. Not that modeling top notch or anything but I do try to keep it to scale as much as I can. I was going to send one of the brackets but I can't get it to upload at the moment.
 
OK then lets try again. I think I just needed to put compress it. OK that did it. Any way this is nothing exiting really. It's just a bracket.
 
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I spent a little time this week doing some studies for the buildings I will be modeling in my story. I'm going for 1870's - 1906 when the great Earthquake hits San Francisco, but instead of having just the typical Queen an style and Edwardian flats normally associated with SF I will be mixing ing in quite a bit of 2nd Empire with a heavy gothic feel to it. The second sketch is more typical of what you would see in SF today. I still want to keep the spirit of the City but this is an alternate timeline version so I need to make it reflect that as well.
 

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rakker16mm,
Thanks for the thoughts and sharing your work. Also thanks for teaching me some stuff, I was ignorant of the term Second Empire, I did some goggling and then realized it was that awesome architectural style.

The new links you provided are very cool. The Jules Verve style mobile big thing....wow. Its kinda of a humble howls moving castle or baby howls moving castle. Seeing it being hauled through that arid place adds to the bizarreness and unique beauty of this contraption. :)

P.S. I epically enjoyed the second drawing you provided of the section of architecture from that Second Empire period. Lovely tonal quality to that picture.
 
Thank you Bluerider,

I appreciate the compliments. I know what you mean about the term second empire as I recently figured out that it was an architectural style rather than a form of colonial rule ;) and that did take a while LOL. I'll be posting more soon as I seem to be on a bit of a roll at the moment.

I'm doing quite a bit of storyboarding these days and although I draw a lot of characters I don't really get a chance to focus on a good character study. I prefer to work on traditional media, but on my current project I am using a tablet so that the work doesn't have to be scanned at the end of each session. That 6X9 space just isn't the same as nice big sheet of paper, then again I would have thrown away quite a bit of paper so far on this project :)

I saw some of your excellent character sketches in this section of the guy with the hat an goggles. I got the impression those were from a previous time and I hope you are keeping up with it because your work is really great.
 
rakker16mm,
Guy with goggles, thanks. Currently I am multi tasking in about 4 different disciplines as the moment. I am hoping this weekend to combine my characters designs with my 2D environment backgrounds.

The characters I need to be build in LightWave then I.K. then a simple walk cycle test. The 2D backgrounds have already been developed enough, the one I have in mind is in the digital painting thread, currently the last example. :)
 
Originally I was going to make my story into a film but other considerations like making a living have gotten in the way :( So at this point I am more incline to make a graphic novel. Fortunately the guy I am storyboarding for now has published several books already and is willing to help walk me through the process. Then if I get a bit of breathing room in terms of money and time I will have great resource for raising interest in my project and a pretty good start on a storyboard as well.
 
rakker16mm said:
Originally I was going to make my story into a film but other considerations like making a living have gotten in the way :( So at this point I am more incline to make a graphic novel.
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I hear ya. Man just got back on the boards after a hectic week. Looks like some cool stuff got posted. I'm afraid I don't know enough about the architecture to know the difference. Are you planning of modeling all that detail?

I'd love to see concept sketches for your graphic novel. I'm less ambitious and trying to just get a few stand-alone pages of a steampunk-esque comic done. I started modeling the head for my industrialist character, but stuff has taken a back seat right now in face of a work crunch. 8~
 
I'm not sure how much detail it makes sense to model since the renders will most likely be the starting point. One thing is I can draw a lot faster than I can model, but then I've been drawing most of my life. The thing is once I have a model I can render it from any angle which also saves quite a bit of time messing with perspective and foreshortening.

I've been experimenting making the cornices and roofs using rail extrude. For windows, doors, crown moldings and corbels, I plan creating something like a library so I can just mix and mach a la Mr. Potato-head. Hopefully that would save me enough time to add some more detail for the up close stuff.

One issue is now that I've decided to go with the Steampunk genre the story is also rewriting itself. I feel a bit like I am being taken for a ride and I now the final destination is in question. I will put up some earlier sketches from this project after I see what I can still use. Most of it is too big to fit on the scanner and I also like to use metallic ink which doesn't lend itself to scanning all that well either.
 
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Hey, just found this thread, and it's awesome.
I've been trying to improve my steampunk drawings lately too. The crabfu link was great (http://www.crabfu.com/steamtoys/diy_steampunk/ if you missed it) especially for analyzing the basic elements.

My 9-5 has taken a decidedly steampunk turn lately, with a telegraph museum and a railroad museum both currently in the works. Add to that a healthy dose of Victorian age conservatories work in the past, including carnivorous plants...

Anyway, that brass goggles site has a picture of one of the exhibits I designed: http://www.brassgoggles.co.uk/brassgoggles/?p=572. It's a small pic of one object in the whole conservatory, but I liked that it found its way to a steampunk blog.
 
Care to take a closer look at steampunk???

pritchard.jpg


http://www.antique-microscopes.com/
 
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