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.