Kakashi Custom Playmat

Once again it comes back to spirals it seems. I wasn't even aiming to use them in this image, it just formed as I sketched and re-sketched the first version.

Which as it happened was more than just a few times. I knew the pose I was aiming for but just couldn't get the angle of the face quite right, kakashi's mask hindering matters further as it obliterates most of the usual lower facial structure.   I ended up having to bring a large mirror into my workspace and work from live reference, which is probably why his hand is about life-size (although the rest of him is quite heavily foreshortened after that - you have to assume he's an arms length away from you).

I mention spirals a fair bit in these posts so I figured it was about time I talked a little more about them. There are a number of ways you can lay out an image, for example in photography and film especially the rule of thirds is quite useful to know in order to keep your subjects within the frame. Similarly and what I tend to gravitate towards is the use of the golden ratio, a spiral structure that tends to crop up quite a bit in nature, and which humans tend to find ascetically pleasing. 

You will however probably have noticed the image above doesn't quite match the golden ratio exactly but then I did mention that I wasn't really aiming for that layout in particular so its not a bad approximation, especially since the thumb pretty much rests at the center point. The other nice thing about using this method is you can stack many spirals inside one another all at different angles (mainly 90 degree variations) and all different sizes to build up a composition.

Another obvious thing I should probably mention is that the hands have changed between the sketch and the finished mat. The one in the foreground bothered me because the pose was going to be a right pain to make look right. The shading would have been all over the place, drawing the palm and the backs of the fingers in the same image can end up looking weird. The background hand wasn't at quite the right angle anyway, I knew that from messing about with the image digitally, so when it came time to work on the mat I just decided the ball of lightning would look cooler if the whole hand had just been engulfed. Theres still a bit of a hint of it being there, between that an an implied arm I let the viewers brain do the rest.

As for the lettering, the straight lines weren't much of a problem and I found a different type of tape which seems much better than what I had been using, the S on the other hand...

See, the colour I use for the black backgrounds likes having hard edges to work against or else it wont create hard lines and has a tendency to bleed. On the other hand I'm not going to get a curve with the tape I'm using. In the end i had to cut out a template, in two sections because of the size, and tape them down in the center while holding the edges in place, you cant really use any sort of tack on a mat since it would leave residue or interfere with the colours.

Inside the lettering as the background got progressively darker I worried it might have gone too dark. One of the things about the blues I use however is that they have a tendency to overwrite each other, even the lighter ones have enough pigment to draw over black, so if I wasn't happy with something i could always lighten it again. The finishing touch was adding a variety of other colours into the mix a bit like how space is dark but full of colour, you know, to add interest.

Well thats Naruto mat 3, I could probably spend several more paragraphs talking about how I spent a fair bit of time looking at all the different ways his hair gets rendered media, or all the little things I noticed about his jacket but I think thats enough for now. I do quite like using words as the framework of the layout though so I'm sure we will see this style again. 

Next time I finally 'assemble' a post about a mat I haven't been able to talk about for two months.        

Custom Playmat Retrospective Part 3 Mats 35 to 54

If you haven't seen them yet here are parts 1 and 2 
http://altermidgard.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/custom-playmat-retrospective-part-1.html
http://altermidgard.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/custom-playmat-retrospective-part-2.html

So, so far I have looked at the first 35 mats. from 0 to 34. Today I want to finish the pre 2013 mats off and look at the SWYC mats, EX series, and maybe get though all the 2013 mats as well if we are lucky so lets dive right in.

The one I forgot from last time and should be somewhere in the 20's

Mat 35: Inzektors LINK

Like the Zoroark mat this post features a making of video, also like that mat it turns out videos are quite time consuming to make so you wont be seeing me doing many until I get some sort of overhead camera and permeant workspace. I still have this mat I think the person who asked for it kinda forgot about it, but whatever, I'm sure it will find a home at some point. 

South West Yugioh Champion Series Mats 

Mat 36: SWYC 2010 Stun LINK

The South West Yugioh Champion Series Mats are rather unsurprisingly part of the prizes that are awarded to the winner of the event each year. They are the only mats I do that maintain elements across more than one mat (the text and logo area). This is mostly because I figure if I'm going to be doing hand drawn mats I may as well have each one be as unique as possible.

Mat 37: SWYC 2011 Smash LINK

Interestingly this mat doesn't have a post of of its own, I guess at the time I figured it was pretty self explanatory.  Every year its basically down to me to figure out how to fit whatever design the winner want around the logo and sometimes it can be something of a game of Tetris. Most people who do hand draw mats tend to avoid text, there are very good reasons for that... 

Mat 38: SWYC 2012 Burn LINK

... Primarily its because theres a size threshold that once you go below the colour bleed ends up being larger than the text itself and you have to move over to lines instead. The 2011 mat is the anomaly of the group since its the only one without a bright abstract background. Its also quite obvious from the art style this is one of my more modern mats, I've come a long way in three years.

Mat 39: SWYC 2013 Bump LINK

You know I said may mats are hand drawn and unique? Yeah maybe I pushed things too far, still I'm glad they didn't go with their first idea of having100 Mars bars drawn on a mat, that would have been a tad time consuming. Its also probably the last SWYC mat for a while (no I didn't scare everyone off) since players stopped bothering to attend the other qualifiers if they had qualified already which wasn't reslly the attitude the organiser was looking for. 

EX Series Mats

Mat 40: Mat EX 0001 Lightsworn LINK

EX mats are designs that in some way go above and beyond the rest of the range. It doesn't nesasarly have to be the level of detail although that is most definitely the case in this instance. It can be down to the mat forcing me to use new techniques or learn something new that I feed back into the design if standard mats, or it could just be that i feel like the mat deserves the tag EX. You may have noticed that there is currently only one EX mat which is this one, I have ideas for others but its just finding the right opportunity. The Dragonball Vs Scryed mat should probably be in this club as well since its the mat that served as the experimental platfrom for the way I would be doing the 2013 mats

2013 Series mats

At this point I took the opportunity of a new year to start a new numbering system, mats now get my signature and the year written on their back followed by a 4 digit number starting at 0001. Mainly because the general public probably wouldn't get programmer humour, while i don't think I will do 1000 mats this year one of this things you learn when programming is that its easier to plan ahead than have to go in and mess with properties later because you didn't consider all the possible outcomes, "Program our clocks and date timers to go past the year 2000? why would we do that, it would take up more bits and no one will be using our code by then anyway!" Yeah that worked out well.

Mat 41: Mat 2013-0001: One Piece LINK

I can see why people like One Piece and it has done a lot for the way things are going this year since the panel style has proven popular. That said its not really my thing I think it comes down to the fact that while its only just over halfway finished the author has known the ending since the beginning, don't get me wrong having a strong road map is better than making things up as you go along and hoping you can tie everything up at the end, but if you know the ending why not get it out the way at the beginning and then get on with the important job of telling the story without having to worry about people being disappointed at the end? 

Mat 42: Mat 2013-0002: Muppets LINK

Its not often I have a major accident with the colours, in this instance because it was with black it threatened almost having to start over. Much remover later and things were back to normal but it was tense there for a while. When using this panel style its important to get a good idea of the size of each panel in the small scale sketching phase as it will determine how the character inside will have to be placed and how big they can be.

Mat 43: Mat 2013-0003: Hunders

This mat hasn't had a blog post written about it yet, once these retrospectives are out of the way I can get back to looking at individual mats again, at which point this post will be updated with a link and less generic piece of text.

Mat 44: Mat 2013-0004: Batman LINK

This mat could also probably qualify for an EX tag if it wasn't for the fact the One Piece mat did the panels thing first. Still even without that honour its was one of the most technically challenging and time consuming pieces I have worked on with its portraits of real people and use of lighting. This post is also one of the best places to start if you want to learn more about the way in which I make mats as it has quite a detailed walkthrough.      

Mat 45: Mat 2013-0005: SWYC 2013 Bump LINK

See the SWYC section above for more info. Its funny how these things work out, Having just had to draw realistic people in the Batman mat I get to use the skills I have learnt straight away on another pair of people.

Mat 46: Mat 2013-0006: Raspberyl LINK

All the panels and borders lately have finally got to me and even when I am doing something a bit more standard I cant resist adding something to the edges. I really should get round to playing the Disgaea games at some point, although still have Phantom Brave to finish first. I've been wondering lately how I managed to use up so much red but I'm starting to see where it went.

Mat 47: Mat 2013-0007: ???

Yeah no comment on this one

Mat 48: Mat 2013-0008 ???

Similarly this one also gets some question marks

Mat 49: Mat 2013-0009 Madara Vs Hashirama Naruto Mat 2 LINK

So we finally arrive at mat 50! (remember we started at 0) And its a doozy. The blog post is also quite useful if your interested in finding out how many layers one of my mats has, and on top of all that its only the second mat to feature a third layer of protection, the first being the Ligthsworn mat which served as a test subject. One inch black boarders at the top and bottom of my mats seem to be a theme this season, they certainly add a sense of added style or cinematography to the proceedings anyway. 

Mat 50: Mat 2013-0010: Elite Champion 2013 Brothorhood 

While there may not be any SWYC mats for a bit that doesn't mean event mats are done with and this is the latest, look out for a post about this mat in the near future

 Mat 51: Mat 2013-0011: Muppets Go Yugioh 

Also more on this later

Mat 52: Mat 2013-0012: Keldeo

The latest mat to be completed 

Mat 53: Mat 2013-0013: DMG returns, coming soonMat 54: Mat 2013-0014: Coming soon 

And breath, finally up to date and not only did we reach mat 50 but I didn't even have to include digital mats! I will have to have a think about when the next retrospective should be, covering 50 turns out to be quite time consuming.

Next time we will finally be back to business as usual.

Custom Playmat Retrospective Part 2 Mats 18 to 34

If you haven't had a chance to red part one heres the link  http://altermidgard.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/custom-playmat-retrospective-part-1.html

Where was I? Right we had just got to the Vader mat and while I have been numbering them for easy list making they most likely didn't occur in that order. Still arbitrary or not you get the general idea, and probably a sense that it might be best to keep some form of record.

By about mat 12 I had lost track of what the next number should be and it didn't help that digital mats were part of the order it became quite apparent that I was increasingly going to end up miss-numbering mats, it is for example entirely possible there are two 7's. With this in mind today we start by looking at the Missing Numbers Series mats. While I had been hiding them before now mats would only get a signature and it was more likely to be relatively obvious I will therefore be basing this list on the image date created time stamp.

Missing Number Series

Mat 18: Goodwin Lava Golem LINK

This is still the only mat where I have moved straight from a basic small scale sketch into starting on the material directly. Partly because my mats have gotten increasingly complex and partly because drawing all over a blank mat in pencil is not the best idea especially if your colours are quite translucent.

Mat 19: Boba Fet LINK

I wouldn't be surprised if having ran all my mats though some sort of colour checker you told me the most prominent colour had been orange, Blue and purple wouldnt be too far behind either. A large amount this is because these colours last longer and have more pigment than the pale colours but more importunely its probably because I like orange.

Mat 20: All Hail Starscream! LINK

Poor Starsceam, things never quite go his way, its mostly his own fault to be fair but one cant help thinking that not long after this image Galvatron turns up and blasts him into dust. As for the blog post well if your looking for info on the first few stages of my production process this is the first time I switch from just talking about the mat to discussing art tutorials in general.

Mat 21: Tytannial LINK

Letting a mat sit for a while placed in just such a way as you cant possibly ignore it can lead to some interesting decisions. Primarily it lets your brain work on the problem subconsciously while you do other things so when you do come back to it you can get straight on with improving it. In this post I also go over how it can be helpful to check your designs flipped over so you can pick up on any problem areas.

Mat 22: Kung Fu Pander Vs Snowman Eater LINK

A jade sky makes a nice change from the typical orange and this is another one of those images that I would have never have though of myself, my imagination is good but not this random. User Interface design is very important, even if it is a made up one on a static image,  if your users cant use the program then you have wasted rather a lot of time and money. Its also best to assume people with no computer experience will be using it, this is why Nintendo have susch a good track record with the non core audience.

Mats 23: Zoroark LINK 

I made a video! Well ok more of a time-lapse still it was more time consuming than I would have liked which is why you haven't seen many others, maybe if I had a tripod and video camera I would them more often. My obsession with orange sky's also reaches a peek here so unless someone wants a Sky's of Arcadia mat or something I cant see it being beaten...hmmm.

Mat 24: Dark World LINK

Ohh card zones that doesn't happen very often, well ok twice. Already an anamoly this mat takes things one stage further and sticks to using mainly blues and purples also skulls lots of em its almost like its 40K or something. A quite useful project in the long run since it gave me some experience drawing the dragon that I would need later on.

Mat 25: Walking Dead LINK

Between this and the previous mat I have once again run out of black, It turns out to be a recurring issue and the best way to alleviate it isn't exactly cheap. Working on this mat was interesting because this style wasn't really my thing but then you have to leave your comfort zone if you want to improve. You do have to be carful with the black though, its quite difficult to fix errors.  

Mat 26: Gravekeepers LINK

Its not quite as big an orange sky as the Zoroark mat but close. Posing characters can be complicated, its one of the reasons I spent some much time watching Reborn since I wanted to know the personalities and postures, in this instance I had the opportunity to make up the personalities myself. When you have to get across information with a constrained amount of data its no wonder TV shows tend towards archetypes.

Mat 27: Hellsing LINK

Sometimes things just come together, In this instance I had the pose in my head for a very long time and this was really the first chance to use it. Its also one of those mats where I have to pose myself to help get it right, even if I did somehow manage to get the hands the wrong way round initially. Having seen the mat around the white areas could do with a refresh as they have picked up a pink tint from somewhere, it could be because of the high red concentration I guess, but that would require a substantial amount of rubbing.

Mat 28: FMA Homunculi LINK

Or the seven and a half deadly sins. Ok so sight mistake on the research front but to be fair the female Sloth character model is in brotherhood, just not as Sloth, Wiki is not always your friend. On the other hand the image would have been a tad female light without her and its not like she's taking up anyone else's space so I see no reason not to include her. Especially as several of the other homunculi from the original series are hidden in the background.

Mat 29  Moon Princess LINK

My first vanguard mat, well finished one anyway and by this point my mats are also starting to use a second brand of colours, it has a tendency to flow more but thats does mean you ca cover a greater area and should mean I can do water colour effects although I havent tried that yet. I have also started putting my signature on the back of mats by this point, the earlier ones written in gold while these later models use white.

Mat 30: Persona 3 Nyx LINK

This is another one of my all time favourites and also another one on which I spent quite a bit of time on research. Luckily I was over half way though the game when I got asked to do this mat but the extra hours put into the optional dungeon without knowing I needed new game plus first were a bit of a waste. Its also the first one that uses the second set of colours extensively, they tend to be brighter than the other set which explains the neon orange.

Mat 31: Star Wars Good Vs Evil LINK

After doing the characters on the Nyx mat the scale must have stuck with me since I kept the scale for the majority of the people on this mat as well. Only this time I have to actually draw faces since they are facing forwards and as you may have notices most of the time my characters are about twice the size of theses. Lightsaber glow effects stars that appear and disappear as you move past the mat and a somewhat worried looking 3PO are all features of this mat.

Mat 32: Bayonetta LINK

I did go a tad overboard on the line work on this mat, it had been a while since i had done the lines first and with a new liner I may have done to much detail. Conversely the colours are a little weak and nowadays the mat would probably be a lot darker. This mat is also designed to work either way up, mainly since I figured Bayonetta would prefer it that way.

Mat 34: Goku Vs kazuma Scryed Vs DragonBall LINK

Lets finish for today with something completely the opposite to the Bayonetta mat where in this instance its totally about the shapes and colours doing all the work rather than the lines. Also a good place to end since its more like the 2013 mats than those from 2012 what with being the test mat for the first extra layer of protection. Who would win? I think thats one of those questions that may never get answered satisfactory. 

Thats the main 35 pre 2013 mats covered next time I will look at the South West Yugioh Champion Mats and the EX Series.

Custom Playmat Retrospective Part 1 Mats 0 to 17

I'm closing in on, if not having already passed, my 50th mat and since I have written quite a number of blog posts about them perhaps its a good idea take some time top reflect and look back as well as providing links back to older mats and  posts for people who may have missed them.

If we were to go right back to the beginning everything would begin at what I believe is now called comic con but while that event has many tales associated with it, a transport system's attempts to thwart our progress or a mob of vengeful Yugioh players descending on a hapless Dark Armed Dragon-napper being just two examples, they are stories for other times and places, mat wise we begin here.

MAT - 0: Transformers: LINK

Did I mention I'm part programmer? As such we start things off with mat zero, a mat which I still own. This mat its rolled up and lives with all the mats i've won or acquired over the years so looks essentially the same as the day I finished it and while I still think it needs a companion piece the large areas of while space make me less inclined to create one. I could always add a background of course but somehow thats feels wrong.

Hidden Numbers Series  

Mats one to somewhere around the Star Wars Vader heads mat have my signature hidden along with the date somewhere along the edge of the mat. The main reason I stopped doing this was because it was getting increasingly difficult to hide them in creative ways.

Mat ! (or 2): Twilight: LINK & Mat 2 (or 1) Alien: LINK

These two mats along with the Transformers one are the only three mats that I created from Individual elements recombined at the end of the design process, Turns out I didn't really like working that way and soon after moved to designing them at full scale 1 to 1 and it really shows. The background complexity increases and designs become more holistic you also become more able to use standard layout techniques such as rule of thirds or the golden ratio.

I like to hope the Twilight mat is still out there, somewhere traded from person to person, it may have seen more places and events than I have, which could be a tad depressing i guess, or maby its living a quiet life rolled up somewhere like Mat 0.

Please note that these probably aren't in proper chronological order, they are close but the numbers on the actual mats give the correct sequence.

Mat 3 Dark Magician Girl: LINK

Never was there or has been since a mat with so many problems revolving around getting images of it. The first Design going missing is one thing but only have this one image of the final piece is quite another. Once again we have a member of the minimalist background phase I was in at this point. To be fair this sort of background does still happen occasionally when people don't know what they want or if a design calls for it. I have recently be asked to do another Dark Magician Girl mat so it will be interesting to see how the two compare.

Mat 4 (or possibly 5): Oppression LINK

Ok thats more like it, although thoughts at the time ranged from argh I have to draw a horse to I'm still not sure about the colours. Looking back now its definitely trippy and I guess you could say this is where my tendency towards orange skys starts, theres even teal in it hows that for movie style! Seriously though this thing isn't subtleand I quite like it that way.

Mat 5 ( Blackwings: LINK

How many characters can you get on one mat? We wont find out for a while but this is where it starts getting properly complicated. One of the main features of these early mats is that I am relying quite heavily on the line-work and while the shading is quite good on this one the outlines are very obvious. it could probably do with being a bit darker rin places as well but at the time I didn't have a great range of colours.

Mat 6: Bleach Squad 11: Link

Still a favourite though its seen a lot of use over the years and I wouldn't mind cleaning it and giving the colours a bit of a refresh. Theres definite something to be said for bright geometric backgrounds and primary colours. I am a tiny bit surprised its the only Bleach mat I've been asked to do though, having only watched as far as episode 42 I can only guess people got burnt out of all the filler between this and Naruto at one point in time.

Mat 7: Reborn: LINK 

These days I don't have quite as much time to put into research as when I was working on this mat so don't expect me to watch every episode of One Piece or Gintama! Still definitely an interesting approach to research and its interesting how mats tend to group together in this instance a pair of anime mats. these guys would probably look quite cool done in the style of the One Piece mat.

Mat 8: Stun City: LINK

This is actually probably more like mat 4 or 5 but whatever. The easiest way to avoid issues with scanning mats is not have to many vertical lines or detail that intersects the very center, as you can imagine this one caused problems. Its another mat that I would be fun to go back and add a load of lighting effects on. Have you also noticed my very obvious naming conventions for mats? Its all fine until I ever have to do more from the same series or characters.

Mat 9: Infect Infernity: Link

Its taken some time but we have finally starting to see some proper shading and movement away from the block colours, although this mat may also come before the two anime mats. I don't do MTG mats nearly enough, I keep meaning to do some but some but other design work tends to get in the way.

Mat 10: Naruto back to back: LINK

One of the main things I have learnt recently is that hands are often bigger than you would think Sasuke's are probably a tiny bit too small here. While I like the clean cell shaded look on this mat I could also see it going the other way with strong lighting effects probably blue on the left and red on the right at the time not something I was all that experienced with.

Mat 11: Red Dwarf: LINK

I don't recall what I originally thought this mat would end up looking like but I'm pretty sure this wasn't it, at least not the level of detail anyway. At some point I will have to talk about the use of the vortexes I'm always on about since five of the mats so far have made use of them. Also they are not too big its a trick of the light, and fabric, yeah lest go with that.

Mat 12: Vampire Commander: LINK

And the award for most characters and objects crammed into one design goes to... Putting this one together was something of a jigsaw puzzle, things that could fly clearly go in the top half everybody else down below and size based on a totally made up metric of how useful / cool any given character is. It still holds its record, but thats not though lack of trying on my part.

Mat 13: Star Wars mat 1 or Vader and Friends:  LINK

We will and this part of the list with the first Star Wars mat since it marks the end of one phase of mats and the beginning of the rise of the use of lighting. Still one of my favourite mats everything just seemed to come together as I was colouring it. The signature is hidden as part of the troopers gun. Thinking about it it could also be a precursor to the style used on mats like One Piece.

Other early mats that haven't got a post about them yet include:-
Mat 14: Orkz Party!
Mat 15: Goblin Bombardment
Mat 16: Samurai
Mat 17: Walace and Grommet

Thats it for part one, in part 2 I will cover the Lost Number Series, SWYC Series, EX mats, and Digital.