Conclusion

Im really pleased with this finished product i feel it captures Half life and Shirow Masamune quite well. The main character looks very similar to a cross between a half life scientist and one of shirows strong female characters, the only thing i really dislike about her is the head.

The robot was heavily inspired by the half life Loader robot but kept the colour scheme of  Shirows work because Cyan is my favourite colour and because i wanted to refer back to my blue colour scheme. Midnight blue for the sky but lighter cyans and turquoise's to highlight the characters. The main inspiration from the loader were the Legs and the gun which was just an edit of the hydralics on the back of the loader. Most if not all of shirows mechs look partially 3d and this is what im most proud of because i feel i have encompassed this very well as i do believe the mech looks quite 3d and realistic.

I wanted the environment to feel slightly depressing, dark and moody. To acomplish this i chose a night time storm scene on the roof of a building overlooking the city, i feel this captures the effect i was going for quite nicely.

After trying to base my style on Shirows ive come to realise i dont like it. It may be due to all ive stared at for the past month is this art style and image but i will take away some things ive learnt from it especially the linework and the gradient system.

The Finished Product

I think im pretty much finished, ive touched up a few things, fiddled the lighting and added a rain effect to keep with the dark depressing dystopian feel shirow is well known for.

Envirobot

I wanted a quick test aswell of the environment with the robot just so i can see whats needed to be done. It looks pretty good though, im quite pleased.

Im most pleased with the lighting ive done using gradients and masks for shading.

Environment

Ive tried to create my own environment a cityscape at night, trying to mirror Shirows Ghost in the Shell enironment. Its a filtered picture with some added things like window lighting and sky gradients.

Nearly there

Im nearly there! woo. Robot is done, Scientist is done. Just a background to do and maybe see if i can do some nice lighting effects but other wise im happy.

Scientist

Im pretty much done with the character of the scientist im tempted to redo the face because i hate faces and i can never get them right they always look 'odd' But otherwise im pleased with how she came out.

Looking good

All the main parts of the robot are done, ive even added some lighting to it which will be usefull for when i go over the entire image with overlays and crosslighting, this way i know where the sources are coming from. Just the knees shoes and vent to do, then its just little details on it.

Gradients

Ive gone back over the mech with a new idea. looking at Shirows work he merges his manga style with a gradient mettalic  look for his robots. Im trying to recreate this with my piece using the gradient tool and altering the levels.

New metal

Old brush

Continuing the character

Ive been working more on my scientist character and shes nearly complete i think. The last thing ive got to do is the head (the bit ive been dreading most) to tie in more with the half life theme ive added the black mesa reasearch facility logos on clothing and the clipboard. I feel ive made her quite a dominant character now i just have to not ruin her face. Underneath ive also added an example picture of what the final image is going to hopefully be like.

Character start

Ive also started work on my main foreground character, Im thinking of having 2 characters one facing the viewer and another just working in thew background. Below is my starting attempt at the foreground female. Ive taken alot of inspiration from Ghost in the shell and also a bit from other cyber animes notable the science team from Neon Genesis. 

Mech Start

If started the focal point mech creature and its roughly drawn. If started converting it into a photoshop and ive also done some starting test colour just to try and get a feel for a colour scheme.

Started drawing and outlining they major areas

Colour testing

Focal Point

My focal point is going to be the mech type creature so here are some concepts of the mech ive created ive tried to mix the half life 1 loader with the ghost in the shell mech as seen in my research. The combination of these two should create a pretty unique design.

Im loving the bottom right design so i think im going to follow that through for the moment.

Scientists

Selection of reference Scientists

Original Half Life Scientists

I know my scientist character is going to be female thats for certain. Half life had no female scientists but most if not all of Shirows Protagonists are female so im going to stick with his trend. The ususal scientist look is white clothing with short hair or hair bunched up. Shirows characters are normally quite scantily clad so im going to have them wearing little under the lab coat, what little they are wearing will most probably be skin tight (see evangelion picture). leather gloves maybe?

Mecha Example research

Half life 1 Loader

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Ghost in the Shell

Metal Gear

Star Wars

Matrix

Here is an set of notable Mecha in the media fron film, anime and game. The blue mech is the Ghost in the shells version of mecha and the yellow mech is half life's version, i really want to combine these two with a mix of the others to create the final mech. So im thinking things it needs are limbs with claw like feet. I like the colour of the other two anime mechs Metal gear and Evangelion so im thinking of keeping the gritty colours of those with whatever i can come up with.

One thing to note is where my character is going to be working on said mech.

• Climbing on top of it
• Ladder next to it
• leaning over it
• underneath it

This is all something that will be needed to be taken into consideration.

Ghost in the shell

One of Shirows best known accomplishments is the multimedia franchise 'Ghost in the shell' based off his 1989 manga of the same name. The main focus of the franchise is on a counter terrorist organisation called 'Section 9' in a cyberpunk dystopian future Japan.

I find this series embodies everything Shirow Masamune is most known for.

• Well drawn and coloured pieces
• Sassy action oriented female protagonists
• Futureistic Cypberpunk
• Dystopian environments
• Mechanical augmentations
• Mechs and robots

I really like the look of the character and the mech next to her so at the moment im thinking maybe of doing something like that at the moment. But to mix things up have a female scientist working on it, still encompassing Shirows strong independant females

It's ok he's armless

One of Shirows biggest themes is cyber punk and augmented people, so for my next piece ive attepmted to show this. I really wanted to be able to get a nice metal texture as Shirow uses alot of metal and electronice in his art. So i drew my friends arm and just added some metal plates and made it a bit Sci fi looking.

Drawn piece

Coloured Robo Arm

Im really pleased with the end product here, i feel the metal looks really good and looking at the upper arm i have got a bit better at skin colouring and creating a smooth gradient.

Finished hand

Here is my finished hand, i personally dont think it turned out too shabby for a first attempt. I used brushes with different opacities to try and smooth the skin and shadows and i used the pen tool to outline the hand like Shirow does.

Handy attempt

Im going to try and attempt something small first of all to get a feel for the art style. Im going to focus on more of the colour for this but of course first i have to draw something to colour in. Im thinking for my final piece to draw some sort of character, if this is the case im absoloutly terrible at drawing hands so nows a good time to start.

My Hand

This is what ive come up with, im pretty pleased with the drawing itself and i will upload my attempt at colouring it in the style of Shirow when its finished.

Shirow Masamune

Looking into Shirow Masamune.
Shirow Masamune is just a pen name derived from Japans greatest Swordsmith 'Masamune' his real name is 'Masanori Ota' and he was born on November 23, 1961.  Shirow studied oil painting at the university of art in Osaka. While there he created his first manga 'Black Magic'

Black Magic Cover

This caught the eye of Harumichi Aoki a noted publisher, who in turn published Black Magic in 1983.
Out of this came 'Appleseed' (1985) Which took him straight to the top with a Seiun Award for Best Manga. Shirow Created three more volumes of Appleseed between 1985 and 1989 before he started work on his multimedia franchise 'Ghost in the Shell'

Appleseed

For reference this is the original picture i did last blog. I wanted to steer away from the generic themes dont shoot the scientist brings to mind so i took it out of context slightly and turned it into this rather amusing comic piece. Neal Adams - Dont shoot me im with the science team

Previous Blog Link

New Direction

Ok, so my first visual studies blog wasnt great so im here for another go.
In the first blog i chose to try out Neal Adams style of cross hatching block colours with the Half-Life quote. I was pretty pleased with the end result but thats all there really was. So this time im going through with less of a final project idea from the outset and just trying a few pieces out first before i dive straight in.

This time im going to stay clear of Neal Adams and attempt Shirow Masamune instead. Im thinking of keeping with half life though and trying to move away from the whole combine thing i did last blog.

At the moment though i know im pretty crap at this smooth gradient colouring and anime-esque style so im just going to practice that for the moment.