Concept Development and Digital Application Evaluation
For this assignment we were tasked with creating a
character, a prop and an environment. This was a great assignment to start
with, I was able to fully immerse myself in the characters world and think
about different scenarios, why he would do or use certain objects and about his
character and how it changes in general. It also gave me the opportunity to get
the hang of Photoshop for the first time. Before this I’d studied fine art at 6th
form so was accustomed to using pencils, pens and the more traditional methods
so being thrown in to using digital application was new and a little daunting but
I felt that I picked it up quite well.
I enjoyed creating an alien character, the initial idea came
to me before we’d had the whole assignment brief so my environment is based on
my character idea, and my prop is based on the environment. I just wanted to
make an amphibian like creature, I did a quick sketch-skeleton of his body and
a detailed sketch of his face and the rest followed on. I like working like
this as it means my ideas can flow in the moment instead of stressing about it.
The only problem with this is finding flaws in my character as I work on them.
For example, I thought that clawed feet and fingers looked cool, but the more I
developed my character as being peaceful and amphibian the more I realised that
it didn’t suit him, so using images of frogs as reference, I gave him more
bulbous appendages. Similarly, the more I worked on his body, the more I
realised that he didn’t look right being very stocky and tall, so I went for
the stereotypical slim alien.
I quickly found a body and face that suited him so began
working on colour. I knew that his planet was going to be very dark and swampy,
so his skin colour wouldn’t be bright and vibrant as that’s typically found on
smaller animals. So, I looked more at toads and their skin colour. Toad skin is
mostly very dark brown or beige so I used these colour schemes on my character.
These dark colours influenced my environment and how dark my swamp would be.
One thing I did find difficult was a pose that worked, and
how his body would move and still seem natural and not forced. Also with
perspective, things like his backwards legs were challenging because I had to
work out what they'd look like going back, but also coming forwards again for
his feet. In my initial concept, i gave him ridges that extended out and over
his head purely because I thought they looked cool, but then when i thought about
it, it could be used as an extra tail/fin for swimming or even a flotation
device. All in all, i thought my character worked well as a design but also as
a character the player could enjoy.
For my environment, I knew I wanted to have some kind of
swamp but also a wreckage for my characters to work around. My initial concept
was my final beauty shot, my characters using parts of plane to cross the
swamp. My only concern with the final shot is that, considering it's an alien
planet, the trees look to earth-like. It wasn't much of a problem as I used
vine trees in order to create a more spooky feel to them. The rest of my shot i
thought was fine, in my spare time I'd like to work more on things like the
reflections and as my lecturer told my, the tree canopy was too light.
I thought having my characters in the environment would help
to give perspective to the swamp as well, it shows that the trees were large
and the plane was large. I would have included more detail in the trees at the
back of the image, but when my hard drive ate its memory all i had left was a
JPEG image so couldn't work on it as a separate layer.
I wanted to make the canopy look real as well, so i used a
mix of actual images of tree canopies, and also different brush types to dapple
different colours to give it different areas of shading. One little bit i was
proud of was the lighting from the fire at the top of the plane. As the image
was all greens and browns i felt that it needed some more colour, looking at
the different plane segments i chose the central one as its in the viewers
focus a they're looking at the two characters but also means they see it first
and work their way out. It also made it more enjoyable for me, similarly with
the characters, being able to work with different colours.
For my prop, i was aware that my character wasn't violent person, so he wouldn't be using an
offensive prop, more defensive or for survival. I was also aware that he would travelling
the jungle. This is why i chose to use a machete. It's practical for the
purpose of getting through a jungle, it can be used to harm if need be but
doesn't have to be. It's still shiny and clean because it's never been used
which reinforces how violent my character isn't. Being of amphibian nature, and
living close by to swamps and watery areas i felt that as a secondary weapon
the trident would also be useful in terms of survival, for fishing or catching
things. It's able to slide in and out of the main handle so it doesn't cause a nuisance
or get in the way while my characters are travelling the jungle. Being a
modification the my character added, the hilt and the trident are scratched and
battered as my character has had to find a way to include them in his rather
basic machete. Also, as i was designing it, i thought about including little
tribal designs but then decided against it, it doesn't have to look pretty if
it's for hacking through a jungle. So long as it's practical it should be
absolutely fine.
If i were to do this project again, I'd back my work up
properly. That's the only thing I'd really change. I like the way work looks as
I've had to re-do and fix it all but if it had been backed up properly it
would, i hope, have looked even better as I'd have had more time to work on it.
And the lecturers were brilliant, they really helped me to learn different techniques
to make working on the computers easier for someone who never had before.
