Kekai Kotaki

Kekai Kotaki Research

Hello guys,

Kekai Kotaki has been one of my favourite artists since I started playing this specific MMORPG game called "Guild Wars 2".  I found his artwork because his concepts were always shown during the loading screen in game.  Moreover, I look up to this artist's concepts and work because of it's details and painting style and I adore him since he started from scratch and now he works with big companies like Arenanet and Bungie.

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In guild wars there are 5 races which are; Asura which are the small creatures wearing blue glasses, human, Norn (Basically humans but more huge and Viking like), Sylvari (plant humans) and Charr (Bull like creatures).  The player can choose one of the races then can go on and choose a class such as: Warrior, thief, mage....etc. then he or she can jump into the game and play the character they created.  Most MMORPGs are played like that but the difference since usually the gameplay, races and classes which I will talk about in a different blog.  The picture above shows all the races in Guild Wars 2 in different classes.

To start with, the most thing I adore in Kekai's artwork is how he paints his concepts in details yet he manages to give it a sketchy feel into it.  I chose these 2 specific concepts since they were one of the most appealing creature art concepts in his work for Guild Wars 2.  Although my project will not include background artwork for my creatures, I appreciate the quality kekai puts in his concepts since he does not draw on top of photos like other concept artists.

I can relate to these pieces since I am aiming to paint using a similar painting style to Kekai although it will not look the same because of the experience gap between me and him. 

These are another concepts that he did for the game.  I can benefit from these concepts and the ones above that too since my painting style is going to be inspired by Kekai's painting style since I love the sketchy yet detailed concept of his artwork and the colour usage of them.

Having plants as inspiration is useful too since I am aiming to create creatures out of plants so the first picture of the monster plant is useful for myself.  Another useful thing to look on to is concept art sketches like the second picture since it shows more than one idea in one page which is beneficial for developing a piece of artwork.  

The first picture shows more concepts done by Kekai and the one on the right is my favourite because I like how his body is hollow from the inside and fire is flowing inside of it.  The other picture is not a creature but an armour concept which made it into the game.  I added this armour concept into my research because it can be useful for me if I want to create armour for one of my creatures.

What I like about his artwork as well is his usage vast variety of colour hues in one concept art piece by making the colours saturated.  Making them saturated makes it aesthetically pleasing to the eyes although there are a lot of colours in the piece.

All of the artwork was taken from this site click here

Kekai Kotaki. 2017. Guild Wars 2 - Kekai Kotaki. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.kekaiart.com/guild-wars-2.html. [Accessed 08 May 2017].

Kekai Kotaki. 2017. About Me - Kekai Kotaki. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.kekaiart.com/about-me.html. [Accessed 08 May 2017].

Thinking about the my work

 I have looked at further research about red pandas and cats that I will show later in the blog. For my piece that is inspired by Kekai's artwork, I created a unique creature from a mixture between these 2 animals.  Please find the sketch of it below! 

As you can see here, I have managed to create a creature by merging a cat and a red panda together while adding my own tweaks into it to make it look more interesting and vicious.  I added a human scale on the right to show you the difference in size between the player's character and the creature. The creature is huge and wild.

I have faced anatomy difficulties throughout this piece but unfortunate I don't have anything to show since I erased the errors and forgot to take a picture of them.  I found drawing the body of the creature difficult at first since I did not have proper reference to it.  I think painting this creature will be more difficult since I never painted using Photoshop my whole life especially with Kekai's painting style.

The art of league of legends Research

Researching the art of League of Legends

Hello guys,

Today I am going to show you one of my inspirations for my creature art project that I am currently working on.  My creatures are going to be concepts set in an MMORPG (Massively Online Multiplier Game) and they will be inspired by animals, plants, mechas (robots) and artists that I adore.  

 I used their website for inspiration when I have my finished pieces done and ready to present on my website.  Moreover, while researching the website, I was fascinated in the way the artists drew their characters and creatures.  

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League of Legends is a popular game created by Riot Games worldwide played by millions of players including myself.  The reason I chose the art of League of Legends is because I find it unique in how they draw the creatures that are in game and their inspiration mostly comes from animals, rocks, plants and buildings.

Shop Keeper

As you can see in this picture, there is a concept of an animal like creature that is drawn in a human figure.  This character is referred to as the shopkeeper which is the person that sells the items to the player in game.  I appreciate how they managed to give him the look of a shopkeeper by capturing the essence of how a fantasy shopkeeper look like.

Minions

These creatures are referred to as the minions which are the ones that aid players like me in the game.  I think that these minions will be good inspiration for my creature art project since they gave me a sense of how I should draw my creatures since League of Legends is in the fantasy genre and it is close to MMORPGs.  

Creatures of the Jungle

This creature is one of my personal favorites because the creature is carrying the mana liquid on his back like a bag and it is shown how he is made out of mana from the inside since it is flowing in his torso and head.  This concept will definitely aid me in creating a rock type creature since it shows how bulky and huge it looks like even though there is no scale to look at.  

These creatures reminded me of crabs since there is somethings protecting them such as: a rock.  I think that these designs are really creative and they manage to give you a fantasy vibe to it.  

These creatures are set in the dark jungle in the game,  as you can see they are inspired by animals, plants, rocks and buildings.  I like these concepts for several reasons such as: color usage, the style and line work on some of them.  Moreover, I like how the artists managed to mix animals with nature like drawing a lava frog.

All in all, this research is definitely important for myself since this is the first time I am researching about creatures and creating them which I think is interesting and will make me learn and develop my artwork.

I got all the artwork from The official League of Legends website

Moodboard for the Website//Final Show

Mood-board Collaboration with Jaewan 

Hello guys,

Today I am going to show you a mood-board that Jaewan and I did for inspiration for the final show website.  Jaewan and I are both in the social media team where we are responsible for promoting and advertising the final website!

Our theme for the final show is the cosmic theme, so Jaewan and I searched for pictures that can be related to this specific theme.  We managed to find inspirations from cosmic wallpapers in the space, moreover, we got more inspiration from bands such as: Daft Punk and a rock band named Starset since they have a futuristic feel into them. 

I think that making the mood-board was a great idea since it can give you an insight if how cosmic themed ideas look like so these pictures are actually useful for inspiration.

Website Research

Useful Website research

Hello guys,

While I was researching in the Final Show lesson, I looked up the website of my favourite game ever created by Riot Games called League of Legends.  I saw the section of the website where they show their artwork and portfolio. 

Website Link

Here, The website introduces the viewer to what is coming after, it is simple but it looks clean and professional.  

If you press the arrow on the website to your right, an introduction would appear with an animation talking briefly about the game and how it will never stop evolving.

If you scroll down the same page, other content is shown on the website which I think is a really cool design for showing artwork, sketches, steps and more.

After you navigate to your right again, artwork starts to appear which shows that the website is neatly separated and simple to navigate.  Moreover, the website has sections that you can Jump into. 

Other sections in the website showing different artworks such as: environments.  The first artwork section showcased some of the game's champions.

To make the website easier to navigate, when you put the courser of the mouse on the arrow without clicking on it; it will show you what is coming after it without navigating to it. 

This is one of my favourite website on the internet since it is straight to the point, with a simple yet attractive design, easy to navigate and has cool animation effects.  This is how my final project portfolio will look like as well.  

This website managed to show me creature art as well that managed to get me inspired by it since my project is a creature art project.

Building a marshmallow and Spaghetti Tower//Final Show

Teamwork to build a tower 

Hello guys,

In our first class, Jaewan, Jessica and I worked as a team to build a tower from 1 marshmallow and countless dry spaghetti to win a competition in which team can make the highest bridge.

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Unfortunately, our bridge collapsed after we took the risk of making it the highest bridge, so we placed last out of all the groups.  Of course, the victory went to the architects!