Abbey Park - Final piece

This marks a milestone for me - my first ever digital painting that is neither a group of random silohuettes or an attempt at authoring my own textures. This has taken me far too long and has frankly put me off wanting to try anything like this again... I clearly didn't know where to obtain these "brushes" I overhear digital painting enthusiats gushing about in class which would undoubtedly have saved me time. I did however manage to fit the public loos into this piece, which is of some saving grace.

I stuck to the "hard edged brush" as I didn't dare venture away from the default selection. The leaf brush that came with the software probably wouldn't have fared particularly well as it appeared to be a Canadian maple tree leaf.

 

Critiques include: theres no differentiation between the leaves on the tree in the background or the ones closer to the front. The picture has no direct focal point at the end of the path. The front of the picture could use darkenning slightly.

 

Abbey Park - Artwork

I hate drawing trees. They take such an awful long time to render and even when I'm done my work looks like concept art for "Revenge of the Killer Broccoli. Underneath I did some sketches, but I always feel more comfortable working in ink or acrylics.

About as bad as it looks - I really can't render trees very well.

Trying to draw detailed trees doesn't get me much further...

If you hold this sketch away from you it doesn't look bad

Much happier working with a brush; these seem somewhat more aesthetically pleasing.

Don't normally use watercolours, as I'm more comfortable with acrylics. Kinda shows..

 

My tree-drawing skills still need alot of work. I found an interesting page which broke down tree-rendering into primitive shapes and layers of detail: http://sibleyfineart.com/tutorial--draw-trees.htm

Abbey Park - Photographs I took

We visited Abbey Park for our first visual design project. I don't normally enjoy drawing trees as I've always found them tedious, but I figured I wouldn't have gotten away with drawing the public loos instead...

Underneath a selection of photographs I took whilst visiting which I thought were aesthetically pleasing:

I like the way the light came through the back of these trees. Contradicting popular belief; not everything turns silohuette against sunlight. In fact, objects in nature are hardly ever black since black itself isn't a natural colour.

First tree I found that started the transition between seasons. I found this interesting as I'd never really seen this much of a contrast on a single tree.

I liked the areas of dark between the branches of the leaves.

Chinese garden #1

Chinese garden #2

Oh my......has it really been nearly 6 months? (Reflection on year one, and ambition for year two)

It's pretty shocking to think I haven't updated my blog in over half a year. It's not that I have little to say or lack the ability to say it - its more my view on what this blog represented, and my whole perception of the course in general I think is what held me back.

When I began my first year of game art design, I felt nothing but disdain towards my current situation. Somehow I had the ridiculous notion that university was the huge party we all can’t wait to get to and I would get to learn how to make that awesome, badass concept art for those games I loved. And dear God, how I let that fantasy penetrate my brain without protection for a good few months after finishing college. I was so wrong. This was horrible, fun-less grime! 3DS Max? What is that and why do you suddenly expect me to be able to use this God-awful, headache-inducing, mind-F***? I can barely get Excel spreadsheet to run! Go draw some decaying archway in the middle of what feels like the next ice-age? Do I look like I can handle fresh air?

　

What the hell is that...?

So overall I wasn’t particularly enjoying myself. My roommates made chavs look like Christian missionaries and I felt somewhat lost and out of place in Leicester. To make matters worse my illness was getting worse and put a permanent dampener on my mood. Despite all this, I stuck with it, I wanted to see if things would get better. One year later and I only realise now that it has and that I realised I can do this!

　

Whoo! It looks like a van!.. except I still hadn't figured out how to render properly by this point.

7 months gone and one septoplasty later I am back for year 2 with a better attitude and work that was more familiar to me. Almost enjoyable! However, I haven’t addressed why I never attempted to take my blog further, and that’s because I associated it with work - which it is fundamentally, but I associated all university-related work with STRESS. This is the first thing I plan to change this year.

1- You know how everything works now, you’re getting used to the workload. Stop associating this work with stress!

I love art. I love drawing, painting, sculpting, the lot! Why was this course stopping me from enjoying my work? I believe it was because I told myself I couldn’t do this, and that affected my work. This year I plan to work on my weaknesses (3D modelling) and improve on my strengths (traditional artwork). I also plan to make time to do things I enjoy doing that are productive, such as practicing my portrait drawing and watercolour paintings. (I guess I should also put some time aside to learn how to use that damn digital tablet as well while I’m at it…)

　

Getting praise for this piece I did on the Guild Hall gave me some much needed confidence.

 

2- Stop allowing yourself to get distracted so easily.

I wouldn’t describe myself as a lazy person, I might have done prior to understanding what being lazy actually was, but now I realise I have a somewhat low attention span. If I was lazy, I would either lay around in bed all day or sit in a corner and do nothing. I rarely do these things. If I allow myself to be pulled away from my work I might be reading, listening to some music that I love whilst doodling or trying to bake macaroons (which never, EVER come off the F***ing baking sheet). What I need to learn to do is focus that energy on my work. When I get into my game art work I do enjoy it; I think I just convince myself beforehand it wont be any fun.

3- Stop neglecting your blog!

Compared to some other people’s blogs mine looks a little bare-bones. This I plan to change. I treated this blog almost like a series of essays; formal, concise and lacking any form of personality. I enjoy writing - it’s something I’m good at. This year I will look at my blog in a different way - as a diary where I can record my progress, post work I’m particularly proud of, talk about artists I admire, and share my feelings and perceptions about the course, the industry and video games in general….oh, and those few mandatory tasks Mike sets us every week of course.

Overall, I feel more confident this year. And in turn, this makes me want to succeed. I realise now I have a great opportunity which I have no intention of wasting. This year I plan to be more organised, push my limits further and enjoy what I’m doing. All I’m missing now is a bottle of cheap smack and my drunken family around me yelling “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” in unison.

Despite being in a sea of promising young game artists I'd like to think theres still something that makes me "Me".

Game Design project "Have fun" - Conclusion

Well, it's not done to a standard that I am completely happy with but here it is, my concept for a gamee called "Maya" handed in 3 hours before deadline (a personal record). Even though I would have liked to have been able to work on it longer (and with more hours sleep inbetween) I feel I accomplished a good amount in the 4 days I had set aside to work soley on this project. I guess if I was able to churn out this much work in 4 days, what could I have achieved in the entire alotted 2 weeks?

Criticisms still include things such as the character doesn't look as if she fits properly with the background and I know I could have produced technically better work if I had the time. However I am pleased with what I was able to do in the time allowed.

Game Design project "Have fun" - Creating some concept art

Because I'm on such a tight schedule with my deadline mere hours away I decided to take previous pieces of work I had made and tweak them in photoshop. Underneath are landscape and portrait versions of my backdrop.

I attempted to work the oriental building into the background, aswell as tweaking some of the colours to make the complex to appear alight. I like the way this has turned out, however, I would have liked more time to be able to work on the structure in the background.

I feel the composition might work better in portrait view rather than landscape as it appears as if the flames are rising from the ground. I then placed my characters, along with some extra imagery over the top of the background to produce a composition.

My main concern is that the foreground does not tie in very well with the background. This perhaps could have been remedied by adding pieces of the environment to the foreground. Overall I think the result is decent.

I feel the piece works better in landscape view. I also placed Maya and the smoke creature to the side of the composition as to seporate them from the background. I feel happier with this piece more than the previous attempt. I also feel the piece reflects on the concept and theme of the game.

Game Design project "Have fun" - A look at character design continued

Underneath are the final concepts for the main character "Maya" and the "smoke creature".

I like how the main character turned out. I wanted her look to reflect water and movement. I created her pose by taking poses from several other characters and piecing bits together (like a weird Frankenstein project) to create a single stance. I also feel her colour palette reflects water nicely.

Okay, the smoke creature looks pretty half-assed, but thats mainly because I was running out of time. But how long does it take to paint smoke anyway? So I suppose I'm satisfied with his design; he is meant to be a faceless character afterall.