Sneak Peek: Feather Collection (GW Brand Identity Exploration)

Upon seeing the name of my shop, some people have asked me, "So uh.... do you make wings?" I admit, the name of the line can sometimes be misleading. I named the store after my avatar name, as most designers do; but my av name isn't something ordinary like Lucy or Cassandra (it's GryphElyse Wingtips, which just happened to work out perfectly to a phrase that made sense). Then again, I never intended GryphonWings designs to be ordinary!

Still, I've recently realized that GW has a collection of designs that, while lovely, are somewhat "confused" as a whole - e.g. no common theme, and nothing immediately recognizable to the brand identity. There really is no GryphonWings "style", besides the visual elements of Photoshop painting and shading. So I decided to work on a series that could be immediately recognizable to residents as "Oh, that's a GryphonWings design." This series will cover a variety of clothing styles but is held together by a few elements and motifs:

- Natural elements like raw leather
- The color gold (black and gold, brown and gold)
- Feathers, both prim and painted (pretty!)
- Variations on the new GW art logo, a silhouette gryphon in flight (see sketchbook excerpt)

Not every piece will have every element. I'm somewhat mixing the Feather Collection with the Altitude series because they just go so very well together; any item from the Feather Collection with raw leather and/or prim feathers in it may also be featured in the Altitude series. Who wants the Altitude Boots with some prim flexi feathers? I do! :D On the to-do list.

Dying with curiosity? Here's a sketchbook excerpt with PRETTY! (Click for full view - large.)

Ohmigod isn't that gryphon awesome? I'll be doing up a nice clean silhouette in Photoshop and putting together a texture with alpha so I can "paint" it on the wall of the store somewhere. It'll certainly be going on a few clothing items, and gift boxes, and and and... *falls over out of breath*

Note to my loyal customers, present and future: I am planning to offer the cowl-neck top (middle - gold feather motif) and jeans in the black-and-gold color set FREE, as a way for me to express my undying love for you all! I'm also considering having the asymmetrical buckle top free, as well. Updates on that. These will not be "freebie" quality, but actual QUALITY GIFTS to you, the customer, because I genuinely do appreciate you guys. I do it all for you. <3

Currently, my progress in all this is very... early. I'm working on a broad shading template that I can apply to a number of different clothing items to speed up the design process so I can get stuff to YOU faster. Screenshot:

As you can see I use AvPainter when I need to work on both top and bottom meshes at once; for some reason I can't get my precious Modo to separate the UVs correctly. AvPainter's painting tools are somewhat... disappointing... so I really only use it to match up the waist seam and draw basic elements. What you see above is the product of a little shadow baking in ZBrush and then a LOT of painting and tweaking in Photoshop and AvPainter. It's not even quite finished yet; plus, for each separate piece of clothing I apply it to, I'll do a lot of tweaking. For example, the cowl-neck I'll be starting on next will be hip-length (jacket layer yay!) so I'll be adjusting the leg shading around there, adding folds, etc.

Next step after shading is all tweaked and smoothed out is to put together a basic cowl-neck template with nice sweater-y texture and cloth shading, to which I can then apply lots of different goodies as my whim desires. I'll be experimenting with trying to get a "foil" look for cloth decals; let you know how that goes.

To-do list:

- Flesh out shading template. Add cloth folds on separate layer.

- Draw up arty gryphon-silhouette logo, as well as a few feather motifs.

- Texture up a sweater and the cowl-neck sculpt I already have.

- Liberally apply b) to c). :D

IT BEGINS!

~ GryphElyse Wingtips

GryphonWings Designs