Games Design Masters

Today I wanted to get a bit of a plan for what I would do with my essay, so I started out by gathering all the Q&A portions of my emails and messages to industry professionals, and I put them all onto my Notion for easier reference and access. Below is a screenshot of these notes are laid out: Now these are easier to access, I put the quotes and questions into my essay to get an overall look at word count and what I am working with, the guide word count we should aim for this section of the essay is 1000 words. I definitely have a lot to work with! So now it will be a case of reworking the quotes I have and inputting my own thoughts! I started to rework the quotes, including smaller snippets to allow me to add my thoughts, I will include screenshots below of progress so far: The word count is definitely looking a lot healthier now! Though it will likely need reworking further after inputting the third industry artists quotes. I also need to add in more of my own thoughts and some g...

Continuing with my industry discussions, I got a response from Senior 3D Artist at Blizzard, Ben Erdt. I wanted to ask him his perspective on what concept art should include to be effective for a 3D artist. Below is screenshots of the conversation we have had.  It was really interesting to get a 3D artists insight, and I think a lot of his advice will be really helpful in my concept work.

After finalising the brief today and doing research on Pinterest I got started with some face sketches for the blacksmith character, I wanted to explore hairstyles and facial hair. I also wanted to see what facial features could be altered to give an unapproachable/intimidating sort of look. Next I will be explore the characters body and outfit, but below is an image and time-lapse of the face ideas.

After reflecting on areas to improve I have set myself the next brief as a base guide to creating the next character. I have included images of the brief below, I have also pinned any research relating to this character on to the same Pinterest board for this module, the link is here;  https://pin.it/4PkgqLw9l

Before looking at setting my next brief, I looked at other work created by concept artists to see what I could improve on going forwards. I wanted to look at how other artists render their concept art, areas I could save time on and how they present their work in their portfolios. Artist: Ilya Golitsyn Link:  https://www.artstation.com/artwork/dl4vX Ilya’s work here demonstrates that rendering the back of a character lots isn’t always necessary, here Ilya put detail into showing how the material of the skirt works at the front, but doesn’t repeat this on the back view as we already have been shown how it would look. Similarly with the character above this, the material doesn’t need to be rendered the same way as it would just waste time, we already know what it would look like based on the front view. Ilya does detail the metal slabs hanging down from the shoulder, and around the waist, but again it is still quite minimal rendering compared to the front. The work is displayed in t...

I spent part of yesterday and the day before working on choosing colours for the character and doing some rendering. While it is still faster than I usually work, I definitely think I still spent a bit too much time on rendering. I also think I still rendered as though it was an illustration, when I probably in hindsight could have found ways to better represent materials of the outfit with photo bashing etc. I am still happy with how it turned out, it is definitely going to take some time to adjust to shifting my focus to communicating design ideas rather than just making something look nice.  Below is a time-lapse of the rendering and colouring process, as well as an image of the final result. I may change the background when it comes to putting it into my portfolio but I will think about that down the line when I come to upload it.

Following on from the last update on the baker character, I spent some time over a day choosing what parts of my ideas to bring forwards into the final design, before going on to draw a front, side and back view for the final concept. I worked on the majority of this process over one day, spending today when writing this just reworking parts of the concept and doing the side view.  I will be doing a second version with some colours and minimal rendering, just to give a better vision for how the final character would look. But below is how the no colour version of the finished concept looks: I have included a 30 second Timelapse of the process below, just a heads up there is flashing at the end of the Timelapse as I decide what background colour to go with. This process has been really interesting to go through, I definitely got a better understanding of how concept art works, I had to rework things throughout where I didn’t think about the design being functional or making sense b...

I was struggling to hear back from more industry artists, and realised a few of them don’t seem to use Instagram often, so I chased a few up on LinkedIn, and one of the artists got back to me the same day! Jørunn Agnes is a Concept Artist at Sumo Digital, she does a mix of creature and character concept art and I think her work is a great showcase of high quality concept art. Below are screenshots showing the conversation we had:

I got a response from the artist Jack Eaves, and it was an incredibly insightful email - he even offered to take a look at my concepts once I am finished with them which is amazing. I have included screenshots below of his email, along with my response: I have been a big fan of the Fable series since the release of the original in the series back in 2004, so to be having a conversation with someone working on the newest instalment is quite surreal. I am really happy Jack has given me some of his time, a lot of the advice he has given is really interesting. Hopefully, more industry artists get back to me so I can get even more insight!

Unfortunately, my mental illness has gotten in the way of completing this brief in the timescale I initially set myself, but today I was able to make progress on the concepts. I will firstly recap my progress before today and since setting the brief, as mentioned, I was only able to work on the project a few days as I have been unwell. I began to sketch out the proportions for the bakers body. Then building shape on top of this rough guide to get to the body type I was aiming for. Then a bit of general cleanup of the sketch and adding in the face. I didn’t want to worry too much about it looking perfect as this would just serve as the base to build my ideas from.  I then created my initial concept for how the baker character might look. I started to sketch out some ideas for what his headwear might look like, as well as the trims on his pants. I continued on with another hat idea, as well as looking at different types of branches I could incorporate. Lastly I did a few sketches of ...

As I am between flats at the moment I haven’t had my sketchbooks with me, and I thought it would be useful to sketch more often again, sketching in a physical book sometimes feels like there is a bit less pressure to make work perfect. So I bought a new sketchbook and some essential supplies, this update is some of the sketches I have done over the past few weeks when I have made time. A page listing my goals I always find quite useful to refer back to, it helps me to keep my focus. The second page I scribbled all over, to get over that fear of making the very first page perfect. The next two pages I drew some baked goods in colour pencil, it was difficult not being able to erase mistakes, but I think it was a good practice. I used a white paint pen to make the highlights stand out more. This is the page that made me realise the paint markers I had with me were on their last legs. It was a real struggle making the colours look how I wanted here. But I think I (sort of) pulled it off, a...

For my essay I need to talk to people in industry, both for the professional links that it will give me, and to ask questions in relation to my practice for reflection in the essay. I was really happy that just a few hours after contacting, Senior Concept Artist at Playground Games, Jack Eaves got back to me saying he was happy to answer some questions! He has done work with Rebellion on the Zombie Army franchise, and is currently doing work with Playground on the Fable team. As a current project I am working on for my other module is heavily inspired by Fable, this is a perfect chance to get some insight from someone working on the next instalment!  Below I have included a screenshot of the email I sent, the response I received, and the questions I asked. Once he responds I will put another post on this blog.  I am not sure if I need to clarify this on my blog, but in case any external evaluators look through these posts, whilst my legal name is Amy, I go by Kit, hence the si...

As our next essay will require us to speak with industry professionals I wanted to get ahead of contacting people before getting started on the essay itself. So I did some research on artists I would like to speak with, while we only require two or three discussions with different professionals for the essay I decided to contact a larger number as I assume some will be too busy to get back in touch - the worst case scenario is that I get too many responses, but even if they are not included in the essay it will help in my personal practice having the advice.  Below is a screenshot of the people I have contacted today, I have done this primarily via Instagram and email. I am tracking this information in Notion to make it easier to see when I contacted each artist as well as how I contacted them.  I also listed out some initial questions to ask the artists, though I will add to this more questions and likely personalise them a bit more to each artist as they respond.

Today I set out a design brief for myself to create character concept art for a baker character. Below are screenshots of the design brief I set, while some things I may change during the design process this will help me to stay on task. Below are some additional websites I used in establishing an age and name for the character; https://edouardjanssens.com/art/1-to-100-years/men/  - This site shows various people at different ages which helped me to visualise a rough idea of where this character would fall based on the desired look I wanted. https://blog.reedsy.com/character-name-generator/medieval/old-english/  - This site helped me to generate a fitting name inspired by Old English times.