Games Art - Review

Looking back on this project I realise I could of done much better than I have. I feel I was distracted by the games project to the point of neglect to this one and that suggests my time management needs a lot more work to it and thus is an area of failure within this project. I would of liked to have done at least two ares fully done. In regards to my artistic skill I do feel like I have learnt during this project at least. My use of photos has improved, since I didn't use them before, and my spatial awareness is a little better. Yet I am disappointed with my images. I can't help but feel that if I had more time I would want to redo nearly every concept in this project. This is not to say that I dislike the ideas. I just dislike how I portrayed them. However these are all areas I can use to improve myself for future projects and concepts. A better focus on perspective, composition, and colours would improve my skills to no end. And as such I believe I will go back to a drawing a day with a focus on each of these areas. But in the end the time limit has been reached and I must completed this project as it is.

Games Art - UI Elements

Placeholders
Whilst developing the code I used some placeholder border I made quickly in photoshop which can be seen in the linked video. However these felt a bit out of place. Furthermore the map itself was critqued as being too bright so I will try change these in the final version. of the project.

Games Art - Unity Code

In regards to coding the project there was a fair few areas to consider and thus I will write about each individually below.

Icons

Creating the map icons to be interactable was just a matter of setting up a OnMouseEnter trigger to enable a button with the locations name on it to appear. This would then disppear when the mouse wasn't on the icon again. I then made use of the OnButtonDown of the button to change the canvas by turning the locations one on and the current one off. This is essentially also how the exit buttons work as well. Just moving in the opposite direction within the heirachy.

Menus

The menus again use a simple OnMouseEnter and OnMouseDown to translate the menu between a seen and unseen position respectively. Again not a hard set of code to do.

Enlargement

The enlargement of the model sheet was the hardest element. I had to set it to resize whilst lerping it to the middle position. This feels a bit buggy but does the work. However this is a section of code that I am not so happy with.

Games Art - Dragon Render

From my recent work on the demon costume and studies of masks and new year dragons I decided to get a concept of the costume set up fully. I wanted to try get the face shapes sorted as it is the most fundamental area of the costume itself and generally the most detailed. I also wanted to work out what colours would be best.

Training - Face Render

Managed to get started on the hair on this one now. Not sure how its coming out at the moment. Will leave it for now and come back to it and see how to improve it as and when! Working more and more onto this painting. I think i'm beginning to get a bit more of an understanding when it comes to light and colour but no where near the level I need to be. A step at a time!

Games Art & Training - Demon Festival Costume Ideas

Just threw together some quick demon costumes trying to draw elements together from both the Chinese dragon and Tibetan mask aspects. Not entirely sure how i feel about these atm. I don't really like any of them either as a concept or in terms of the actual drawing. I will come back and try put some more ideas together if a single idea does not strike me as correct.

Training - Face Rendering

Day 8. I took the face painting from yesterday and tried to render it up a bit more. Sadly wasn't able to finish it today but I think i'll try continue this and bring it to completion. (included the original painting at the bottom for comparison purposes)

Training - Faces

Day 7. Started a bit late so didn't get to finish the painting. Will come back and keep working on rendering the face out. Will just post how it is at the moment.

Training - Desert Landscape

Day 6. The broken desert. Another landscape practice working on values and the like. Got to work on detailing/rendering more.

Training - Landscape Thumbnails

Day 5. Some thumbnail landscape practice, playing around with colours mainly. Shapes need some refinement.

Game Art & Training - Tibetan Masks

Day 4. Further development directed at at uni project. Some Tibetan mask studies. Further study will most likely be required before I can merge the masks onto the Chinese new year dragons.

Game Art & Training - Chinese Dragon

Todays training was a study on Chinese dragon costumes used in festivals. I wanted to get a feel for the way the faces flow and how the puppeteers might stand. The next study will take into account different masks and the like which I can then apply to a drawing using the things learnt from todays study to create a demon-god festival icon which works similarly to the Chinese new year dragon.

Training - Face study

Another face study today! I chose a much harder pose, one that I normally would shy away from, and also one with very interesting lighting. I had a lot of fun doing this one and there are points of refinement that could still be made to this study but it was interesting thinking about how little "light" areas are actually needed to brighten the lighting of the overall face.

Info
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Ref - uk.pinterest.com/pin/527906387…
Time - 1 hour

Games Art - Plaza Piece

After getting some critique for my previous city piece I decided it would be best to use that image as a learning curve and leave that as is while starting a new image. One of the issues with the original image I wanted to bear in mind was the perspective. In the previous artwork the perspective felt very forced with a very wide and dramatic angle. I decided the best way to avoid that from happening this time was to do a quick mock up 3d model in maya and then overpaint it. This method would allow me to produce rendered screens with correct perspective and would help cut down on mistakes. I have chosen to do a market scene or plaza as it were. This will act as the center anchor of the city with an element within to be made into a model sheet.

Model screenshot

Once I had the screen shot I started putting in rough colours and trying to build up a snowy city feel. I wanted to avoid photos at this point in time as I wanted to try focus on values and not get bogged down in the details of a particular area. I decided that instead of a large obelisk-esk element, in the middle of the square, that I would make a statue of one of the demon deities. As this is a demon city. This started giving me ideas for maybe developing a festival like feel. Similar to Sung  Choi's dragon festival image.

And so I started trying to add some colour in to get a more festive like feel using tent like cloth and an emphasis on the market. I then introduced some foreground elements such as the sign and the dog and tried to section the image using shadows. But it still needed more.

I added more festival elements such as the dragon and stilt walker along with some watching children to try fill up the image some more as well as removing the yellow cloth as it obstructed the image a bit too much. Furthermore I tried to fill out the background some more.

At this current stage I feel the image is a bit too cluttered with no clear focus. I think the best way to approach this is too leave this piece of a bit and get to work on the model sheet of the dragon costume for now. Then come back to this and use shadows and light to pull our elements more and try and direct the eye to the correct locations. 

Training - Pose and Face Render

Some basic practice poses and a face render all based on ref. I plan to try and do a page like this each day or every couple of days as a means to keep improvement going. However the content drawn/studied will most likely differ. In regards to today's study I was having a bit of trouble getting the face colours right specially with the shadow its interesting how colours react when placed directly near a dark shadow, the contrast meaning some hues come out really light.

Games Art - Trial Piece

I decided to try my hand at photo bashing in this project as it was an area of concepting I had not really done much with before. I feel like the results were actually really good for a first try. The lighting was a bit off but overall it had a strong feel sense to it. However this image was doomed from the start due to a bit of unconventional perspective work I fell victim too. In regards to perspective I must work much harder on it and study it more whilst using 3D shapes and renders to capture the initial line flow better. I will still use this in my project to portray the gates and inn. But it won't become the main piece as I will try and get a better sense of perspective and scale into the main section. 

Games Art - One Sheet

Before doing the One Sheet I realized I had to down size the project. The entire map idea would be too much and more of a post-handin concept. I came up with the idea of just doing one city, that I would name Dawa Norbu, and try develop different areas of the city itself. This would lead to a smaller area. But one which I can focus on much more so. As well as allowing me to focus on further backstory development to the area, 

Games Art - Sketches and Ideas

A collection of sketches I have started to develop in regards to this project in no particular order. These helped me to establish initial ideas and cultural forms for further development. The idea of the people being very religious emerged here with all the large statues and mystic rocks. I further tried to play around with the environment to come up with more ideas.

Spring Project - Prison Room

Spring Project - Monster Concept

Spring Project - Crystal Room Concept

Spring Project - Initial Room concepts

Games Art - Research and Artists

A collection of research.

Guild Wars 1

The map structure in GW1 is very similar to the style of world map I have in mind. With a very painterly style but with areas annotated to show towns, cities, outposts, and general features. Furthermore when clicking on an icon a brief description shows of that areas before travel. I want to try take this further and expand on the available information.

Sung Choi

Choi's art style is something that I really want to try aim towards and keep considered whilst developing areas of concept. The use of colours and environment are visually stimulating and work well together and showing the culture of the area in question is again something I need to try achieve in my work.

Games Art - Speedpaints

Spring Project - Environment Idea Sheet

Games Art - Initial Ideas

Approaching this project I had in mind that I wanted to try and do more than what the brief entails. The brief itself only really consists of making thumbnail sketches, a full concept piece, and a model sheet. I feel that I could try stretch myself further than this and incorporate skills from other areas.

Keeping this in mind I came up with the notion of an intractable environmental map. Presented within unity to make use of my coding knowledge to allow enable icons to show or direct the viewer to different pages which would present a concept of that area. Then an aspect of these areas would have a model sheet of it. For example, a forest scene with a wooden hut. Click on the hut and an expanded page with a hut model sheet on it would appear. Making a map of the world and then cities would give me a project that can be continued even after the hand-in date. And could make a very interesting portfolio style of a built world.

This project would then feature environments, characters, creatures, building, and cultures. However due to time I should aim to do one section to fulfill the brief first and then create further expansion when time allows or just hint at expansion.