Starting MA Games Design

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 have practiced traditional art for around ten years. In 2015 I wanted to merge my interests in games and art and started my studies at UCLan in Games Design, after a break I returned in 2022 to complete my degree.

I think illustrations can really bring worlds to life, and there are many artists within the games industry and outside of it that I find interesting. I will include some images below to show some examples.

League of Legends Promo Art

Source: The Art of League of Legends

Bloodborne Illustration

Source: Hidetaka Miyazaki's Art

My initial idea/why I am on the course

I came back to do a postgraduate to expand my portfolio and improve my skills. Character design and illustration are highly competitive, so I really want my work to stand out.

My initial idea is to build a world and use illustrations to showcase that world and the characters within it. While characters are a strong focus for me, I want to be able to build up the world by also creating environmental illustrations, to tell the story of the world I create.

I think an area where I lacked in the undergraduate is in research and inspiration, I didn't explore references and other artists work enough. So I definitely want to try to do more research on other work going into this project and throughout.

What things will I look at and why it is important

I want to look at how to use illustration to build worlds, how illustration can be an effective way to introduce the viewer to an idea and immerse them. I want to look at other games and how the artists working on them were able to grow their ideas into believable, interesting worlds.

I think that illustration is an important part of building worlds and stories for games, they give a snapshot into how the world and its characters might look, inspiring players to explore those worlds.