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Thread: Making Samurai... tokens

  1. #1

    Post Making Samurai... tokens

    GP was nice enough to let me post my process for making overhead character tokens. In this case I am making a set of tokens based on 4 poses. However with a bit of work I can take these four and create several variations.

    My process is pretty straightforward and uses Illustrator and Photoshop and a healthy amount of pen and ink work. I've used Poser as a base reference for the poses.

    Step 1.
    Visualize what you want the tokens to look like or represent.
    Using poser create a body shape that looks right from the overhead camera.

    Step 2.
    Get some reference. In this case GP provided some great links, plus I'm watching The Last Samurai and the Seven Samurai over and over.

    More soon.
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  2. #2

    Post

    Step 3.
    After getting the sketches and reference together I draw the lower legs, torsos and heads separately.

    I draw the parts on tracing vellum, over my reference or rough sketches.
    I then scan in the pieces and in PS clean up the work. Adjust the levels to get a nice contrasty image, then I select the white and delete it making the background transparent. Using a large red layer stroke I find all the crap that is partially a result of having a dusty scanner. Selecting the background again and then increasing the selection by 1 pxl usually removes most of the crap.
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  3. #3

    Post

    Step 4.
    I've put the bodies away for a bit, since the next step there is to head to illustrator. I've taken my head template and made a nice b/w version of it.
    Then duplicating it 8 times make a template to create my samuarai heads.

    Truly top down tokens would rarely show the face, so here I have taken a bit of an angle so that facial features can be seen so that the tokens have a unique look to them.
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  4. #4
    Community Leader Facebook Connected Steel General's Avatar
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    Cool stuff Devin!

    I could never draw/sketch people worth a darn.
    My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...

    Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.



  5. #5

    Post

    Thanks.
    I'll post more as I work on it. I have very little time right now but will see this thread through the completed color tokens and some variants.

  6. #6
    Administrator Redrobes's Avatar
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    Awesome - always did want to see how you did it. Repped naturally...

  7. #7

    Post

    It's been a while but I need to get these Samurai done in the next week or so.
    So using the templates I have made clothing for them, and using the head template sketched up a few kabuto (helmets).
    With the kabuto I have several pieces that will overlap with the head. These are traced from my sketches in Illustrator. Most of my stuff is live traced, but with things that require a lot of symmetry I will trace them with the pen tool from half the object and then reflect it.
    I will be doing weapons today and will post those later.
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  8. #8

    Post

    Here are the weapon images.
    I almost have all the parts ready.
    It's taken 18 8.5x11 sheets of sketches and tracings to get this far.
    I will start posting some images with color soon.
    -D
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  9. #9
    Community Leader Facebook Connected Ascension's Avatar
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    Good stuff DN. I always like to see character studies.
    If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
    -J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)


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  10. #10

    Praise Looking good!

    Great looking tokens so far and I like the methodology. Thanks, DK!

    GP
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