CONCEPT ART/PAINTING DECISIONS

 

UPDATES

ART AND THE CLIENT

The job of the concept artist and painter in Virpet Theater was one that allowed freedom in the early stages of the creative process, yet later was influenced greatly by the needs of our client. In the early stages of the semester, we were free to throw in any new and exciting ideas and figure out how to implement these. But there was a reality where we had to step back and look at what we could actually accomplish building this prototype from scratch. The Children’s Museum was fantastic to work with, open to suggestions, and full of useful advice regarding the design, look and feel of the project. Our Client took special interest in making Virpet Theater take advantage of the famous local Pittsburgh collection of puppets, as opposed to there other collections such as the Mr. Rogers or Jim Henson collections. And I think it was a blessing in disguise to begin with these puppets and as the system gets stronger and more advanced, begin to involve the more famous puppets. Some of the puppets we originally received, due to age and wear were in a state that made our team wonder how the children would react to the if we were to duplicate them digitally in their current state. However, we found that once we made the digital replicas and placed them into Lithtech, the puppets were less threatening then we had originally feared. The kids for the most part found them funny because of their strangeness. Also, the initial collection of puppets we duplicated did not seem to flatter one another, because there were so many various, unusual characters. But our team did find that the digital puppets complimented each other quite nicely once in the system and children respond positively to the experience. This was due I believe to keeping our art sources consistent. All puppets and environments were modeled and painted by the same people.

VISUAL CONSIDERATIONS

Our goal in making the digital replicas was to keep the puppets as close to the originals as possible, while also sticking to our time constraints and the amount of puppets the Children’s Museum wanted to be built. While one model was being made, another was being painted. We stuck to this switch off allowing us to produce the puppets while focusing on quantity and quality.

The lighting situation currently in Lithtech 3.1 is poor. We have to guess through trial and error where lights should be placed and their brightness and colors. This was incredibly time consuming – and we ended up with little positive results. Therefore, we lighted everything reasonably brightly and most of the texture maps include painted shadows and highlights. We were able to complete 11 puppets this semester on top of learning the ins and outs of the system and other jobs expected from the team throughout the semester. This seemed to be a reasonable amount for the size of our team. Any more would seem to have overdone the team of three people – but any less would have been falling short of what the Children’s Museum needed for an exhibit this summer. We found that around ten puppets keeps the children interested, and keeps them playing with new versions of puppets and the whole experience.
In painting the models, most have been hand painted referencing from photographs and the actual puppets. However, painting by pasting directly from photos of the puppets saves time. The Chinese model was finished using primarily photos and turned out beautifully. However, painting the models from scratch seemed to help with maintaining a common feel and helps the puppets compliment one another. Painting the models from scratch was done through Deep Paint exporting materials in Photoshop.

PAINTING AND CHALLENGES

One major setback for the Virpets art team was that programs often did not work properly and were quite buggy. The process included making models in Maya or 3D Studio, painting them in Deep Paint, sending the textures back to the 3D programs, opening textures in Lithtech and saving as .trg and .dtx. Somewhere along the lines (most consistently in Deep Paint) this would breakdown, and information would not properly open in Lithtech. Hopefully the new version will solve all these problems.

PROCESS

STAGE CONCEPT ART

The stage was a difficult task to deal with because of style and structure. The style needed to mesh well with the puppets inhabiting the theater and also needed to reference to the time when most of these puppets originated. This is why we decided on an old time stage with arches and curtains. This was also done because the stage needed to read as a stage as quickly as possible. But the stage could not detract from the puppets being the main event and focus of the whole experience. We tried to paint different and changing background environments, but the Children’s Museum said that this was not what they were looking for. They were searching for a very subtle background that complimented the stage and puppets. The art team felt that different backgrounds would have helped the experience, but went with the Museum’s request.

Making preliminary paintings in 2D were helpful to have for artwork on the website, reference for the modelers and reference for painting the models.
The structure of the stage was also a bit of a question because this framed the whole experience. This frame we found could cut too far into the experience and limit puppet movement. However, pulling the stage too far outside of the view would detract from the feeling of being on stage, and cause the aesthetics of the whole experience to decline.
We allowed four or five days for each model to be built, and three days for painting. This would have to be adjusted when programs were not working properly or technical difficulties were encountered.

HANDOFF TO FUTURE DEVELOPERS

1. ADD PUPPETS Make as many more puppets as possible…
2. MR. ROGERS PUPPETS If possible, get the Mr. Rogers Collection created.
3. CURTAIN ANIMATION Animate a falling and pulling curtain that starts and finishes with the music cues.
4. WALK AND DANCE Animate the characters when they move around the space to walk or dance.
5. SIDE MOTIONS Give the characters subtle yet interesting side motions that make them come alive. This would be something that draws kids into the experience such as the puppets blinking or including mouth movement. Maybe even if the puppets started to act bored when kids are not playing with them – this would cause the kids to feel more of a connection with the puppets then them standing still.
6. UNIQUE MOVES Different puppets should have their individual movement based off of the real motion of the real puppet. Video a professional puppeteer playing with the puppet and then see if you can imitate this.
7. PROPS The addition of props for the puppets could be helpful
However, the children’s museum seems to want to stay as close to portraying the real puppet as possible. Giving one puppet characteristics or props which don’t necessarily have to do with that puppet seems to be frowned upon.
8. UNIFIED DESIGN The designing of the final exhibit should have an artistic “theme” which incorporates all of the individual pieces of the project with one another. By this I mean that the joystick controllers should have elements that are similar to the projector screen. For example, if there is a frame bordering the projector, this should match the style of the design of the joysticks. Making the whole experience compliment itself and feel like one whole complete exhibit is important. So the website should match the interface and match the joystick directions and the museum exhibit of the displayed puppets. Right now there is no united design since this was a prototype.
I also suggest that the stage is actually a flat painting in the final exhibit, in which the puppets are projected onto. This would save space and allow the puppets to move more freely.