CDDA Evaluation

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 6^th 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.