Morning

New untitled game project ^_^
Plus it's the morning, and I'm feeling awfully chipper.

Oh What A Night

So I attended the Griffith Alumni Awards night tonight, which presented the very first alumni awards to games students (^_^). Our course convenor Matt Ditton advised we go, mainly for the sake of being the first alumni graduates in games design, plus the chance of networking, plus the free food and booze.

And I'm glad I only had the one beer, because Matt managed to introduce me to Peter Yong, a concept artist that had previously worked with him at Pandemic, and has since worked for other companies around Australia after graduating as an animator at the very same uni I'm attending at now. A really cool guy with a great art style (he also created his very own art book call "Violent Fridays"). Peter use to work under Milenko Tunjic, another concept artist working in Brisbane who also attended the event tonight, and who is also good mates with Matt (funny that >_>), he also happens to have agreed to become a supervisor/mentor of mine for my honours degree.

Trying to make light conversation with a person you admire is a struggle for me, and as I was doing my best not to freak out at the fact that I was able to talk to Milenko, he ended up telling me that if my work didn't show any possible potential, he would have passed on supervising me (I forget exactly how the sentence was said, mainly because I was stuck in a surreal moment). Milenko's words, as well as talking to Peter Yong and Jim Woods (studio director for Sega/Creative Assembly International) brought my fire back. For the last few weeks I've been questioning my situation and whether the fields I wanted to get into were the fields I was going to be good at, which resulted in a drop of motivation, inspiration and general happiness. After tonight, I feel I can punch this year in the face, power through my work so that I can produce concept art that will help me in the long run.

Whew, now that I've got that off my chest, here's some stuff done for Dominance war, Illustration for design, and the game me and the boys are working on for Albert Sciamma:

Dominance War face ideas

Goddess of Joy concept outfit no.1

All in good practice

Hey guys, I've found a neat Fantasy Character Generator that I'm using to help me practice.

Fantasy Character Generator
http://nine.frenchboys.net/fantasychar.php

also check out:

Fantasy Name Generator
http://nine.frenchboys.net/fanname.php

Outfit Generator
http://nine.frenchboys.net/outfit.php

Meanwhile in terms of Dominance War, I'm now working out an outfit for my Goddess and refining the composition.
And in terms of my exegesis, I'm in search of a concept artist that I can interview, 'cause for my research method subject, my assignment is to do a presentation on a practitioner in my field of focus....so far no luck, but keeping thy chin up.
Also starting to elaborate on my project, which I might ramble on about here once in a while.

And as for practice, I've been doing portraits of friends on Facebook, which in turn is going towards another assignment. Check it out:

Dominance War: planning

Had enough motivation to start planning out my Goddess:

Oh and Saturday 2nd April I went to Supanova at the RNA Showgrounds with a few friends, I don't remember it being so popular (or so hot and sweaty).
I ended up checking out some comic artists in another pavilion (which wasn't so hot and sweaty). The sketch pads and printed work was mind blowing, especially from an Aussie artist Jon Sommariva. I decided to ask him how he manages to stay motivated to draw, which has been my main problem since my birth.
And he pretty much said "Everyone has their good days and their bad. There are some days where you get depressed and stuck in a slump, but you got to keep drawing. I personally think back to how lucky I am to be doing what I'm doing, but the more you force yourself to draw, the less of those slump days you have, even if you just keep drawing until you're happy with one good one, it helps".

Said it like a boss, I don't think I'll ever forget that.
Meanwhile, I managed to ninja-shot a picture of him. Sorry Jon!

Check him out:

Blogspot

Deviantart

Dominance War V update

So I've entered in this year's Dominance War V as an experiment towards my Honours. If you haven't heard of it, click here
The theme is 'Gods', meaning we can create any kind of god we want, and the competition has .It's my first time doing it, and so far it hasn't been smooth sailing. Trying to relax and draw is hard when juggling other assignments, but this week (hopefully) I'll be able to nail down a design I can start refining.
At first I was going for something along the lines of dark, tormented gods, which lead me onto doing ether a God of Depression or God of Wealth. But as of yesterday I was observing the concepts from the other contestants, and I noticed that most of them have a very similar design: Broad shoulders, lots of plating, crazy stuff coming out of the back, dark and scary. Then I thought "why try and do something that'll possibly blend in with the rest?"
So I've decided to do a more cheery god, and if it doesn't get anywhere near the finals, I'm super cool with that, cause I'm not expecting anything to come out of this besides experience.
So here are the initial scratchings:

And last night's idea, which has to be refined a lot more with added joy! Rainbows, unicorns, cherry pies and teddy bears. By the end I'll probably be sick with cuteness.

Count Olaf

My other final design for Illustration for Design with accompanying concepts.

The Gruffalo

My final design for Illustration for design with accompanying concepts.

Research Methods - Writing Task Week 4

Research Question:

How pre production concept art affects the creation of a memorable video game boss level?

Consider Other Questions:

-How did computer performance and capability effect creating art for a game?

-A concept artist can't work on their own, how does a concept artist come up with ideas?

-Why is communication with other departments necessary?

-What kind of medium processes does a concept artist go though?

-What inspired artists to create bosses in past video games?

-Why are memorable bosses memorable? Looks? Difficulty? Story personality trait? Fun level?

-Although some game mechanics are similar, how does the character and environment make the gaming experience different?

-What kind of references do concept artists use when considering a look for a boss depending on the game's genre?

-What is the formula that divides the boss from regular, disposable enemies?

-How does the unison of gameplay mechanics and character creation form a unique boss?

-How/why can controversial boss battles become memorable?

System for Organising/note-taking/weekly reflections or analysis.

. Evernote for Windows: captures all thoughts ideas inspirations, keeps track of all saved searches with Evernote Webclipper.

. Evernote for Android phones: Allows me to keep mental notes and ideas for exegesis while on the go.

Research Methods - Writing Task Week 3

Refining research question:

How has pre production concept art affected the evolution of creating a memorable video game boss level?

Uniqueness of boss levels between previous video games.

• How boss characters and their environments in past games differ from each other visually, scrutinising similarities and originality. Why are they memorable?

Brief history of game development in terms of concept art.

• Explore the evolution of concept art through backtracking video game history, considering the technological capabilities that were available then and now.
  
  

Thought/creative process of developing a boss and its environment.

• Exploring the fundamentals in character and level creation, keeping in constant communications with designers and how this affects the outcome.

The significance of concept art within the games industry.

• Researching how past artists' methodology, work flow and thought process is used towards developing concept art for games with differing criteria/genres/stories.

Search Terms:

Concept art, pre production art, video game history, boss level/character creation, art of the game.

Organisation:

Every reference found will have its details saved in a word document, with a date and location of when and where it was found.

Successful search terms will be written down along with important forums, blogs and professional websites