Games Design Masters

In this post I will go through my process of how I created my illustration, with multiple screenshots showing each stage.  I wanted to show a whale oil extraction taking place in an unhygienic room, my thought process was that although whale oil is distributed on mass, I thought there must be some unofficial suppliers who try to profit from it. I thought of a room with blood and whale oil on the floor, suppliers that do not follow any sort of regulations. Initial sketching and line-work I started with some general boxes in perspective to understand what the room would look like and what I would include. I then started to sketch out the contents of the room, the whale being hoisted onto the ceiling and various furnishings in the room. Blood covering the floor. Next I created cleaner line-work for the core elements of the illustration. I wanted the viewer to understand something is being harvested from the whale, even if they are unfamiliar with the Dishonored franchise. Shading and ...

For my initial illustration test I want to use a pre-existing game world to base it on, I decided I wanted to base my illustration within the world of Dishonored. It is a game that I think really immerses players into its setting, even just through the concept art and environment illustrations for the game, the tone is set really well. I used the website below to gather images of the art created for Dishonoured to refer back to for inspiration: https://www.creativeuncut.com/art_dishonored_a.html I also put these images together onto a mood board for quicker referencing back: I used the Wiki for Dishonored to get more of an understanding of the world, though I have played the game myself I wanted some more insight into the setting. I also wanted to understand the plague within the world more and the use of whale oil for power.  The following links are what I used to get a better understanding: https://dishonored.fandom.com/wiki/World   https://dishonored.fandom.com/wiki/Rat_Pla...

Reading a thesis on world-building I wanted to have a further look into world-building to understand the principles, and how to effectively build an engaging world. So I looked into Google Scholar for articles on world-building in games to get some further information. Even though the articles will largely concern the actual games themselves, I think I will be able to apply some of what I learn to my illustrations.  The thesis I will be reading and taking notes from is “Worldbuilding in Games: Creating a Functioning World For a Role-Playing Game” by Roope Sorvo. I have included a link following to this thesis: https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/126785/Thesis%20Roope%20Sorvo.pdf?sequence=1 Notes from reading the thesis I learnt about the terms ‘extradiegetic’ and ‘intradiegetic’. Extradiegetic is part of a story that is not told within the world, it usually refers to background information to a story or artistic elements that might help in setting overall tone. Extradiege...

Creating a mood board Before starting to sketch my ideas, I went through all of my saved images on ArtStation and put together a few of them on a mood board. This will help me in being able to quickly refer back to pieces I like at a glance.  I want to create an environment painting, so the images I put on the collage are all environments rather than characters. I have included the mood board I created below. I definitely see a theme in the type of work I like,  I have saved a lot of forests and nature based environments. A lot of what I have looked at seems to also be medieval/fantasy themed so I think this is definitely something that will inspire my work. Sketching process I wanted to start out by sketching some initial ideas and play around with making and environment. Because of the number of illustrations that I saved which were themed around forest areas, I wanted to make my initial sketch a forest. I will walk through different stages of the sketch process below. I sta...

Overview For my first project I want to create an illustration of an environment, I want to make the environment visually interesting to make the viewer want to learn more about the environment and feel immersed in it. I will do some initial sketches to get my ideas for what I want the scene to consist of, then I will do a larger more detailed painting. Objectives I will try to break down my objectives for this project:  - To create an illustration which engages the viewer and helps to build an image for what the world within would look like - To develop my skills with digital art and challenge myself creatively  - To continue to refer back to other art and research throughout for inspiration  This project is important as I think illustrations have the ability to draw players in, they can make the viewer want to learn more about the world of a game before even having played it. Illustrations are a great tool for world building and can offer a quick snapshot into a world. ...

I began to look for inspiration to kickstart my initial project and to give me some ideas. I looked at a variety of illustration work on ArtStation ranging from character art to environmental art. There were a few rough criteria I had in my mind when saving art. The first thing I wanted to look out for was art that showcased a high level of technical skill, I want to improve my skills with painting so I think referencing back to great examples of art while I work will be useful. As I want to look into world building using illustrations, I also tried to save pieces that I felt made me interested in understanding more about the character/world. Generally I wanted to save work that I liked the style of, over time this will help in influencing my own style. While looking at work I definitely noticed that there were types of art I leaned more towards. The following link is the images I have saved so far on ArtStation: https://www.artstation.com/cosynoodle/collections/2499248 So far I have s...

Skills I bring and previous study Previous to starting this course I studied an undergraduate in Games Design at UCLan. During my time on the undergraduate I chose to focus on a blend of illustration and character design, creating initial ideas for characters and carrying them through to finished illustrations. I am also familiar a variety of software, ranging from; Photoshop, Unreal Engine, Maya, ZBrush, SketchUp etc. While my the bulk of my work in this year will be done using software like Photoshop, Krita and with traditional art mediums, it is useful understanding the software involved in the game development pipeline. It also gives me other ways to express my ideas. My interests and inspiration My interest primarily are around gaming and art. I love retro games and collecting past consoles, I take a lot of inspiration from older games. I also like to stay up to date with modern AAA releases and indie releases.  I have been a digital artist for the past five or so years and ha...