Now that I have pretty much finished all my design work and have churned out some rough thumbnails for what my final piece could possibly look like it was time for me to move on and create my last bit of university work ever which was honestly kind of a sad and scary thought. Not only is this piece a culmination of everything I have learnt over my three years of university it is also a piece that is going to be put up on exhibition and viewed by the general public and members of the games industry. This meant that I was going to have to work really hard on this piece and make it the best it could be but because I am so wrapped up and excited by my project and characters I didn't find it difficult to gain motivation to work hard as I was really eager to make this a piece I was proud of.
Thinking about the environment
So because I had already chosen which sketch I was going to work on from my thumbnails and build up into my final piece, which was the selfie sketch, I had a good idea of what my characters would be doing and could picture in my head what sort of setting they were going to be in but I decided not to just dive straight into it. The one thing I wanted to get down first so I wasn't working it around the characters was the candy environment. Usually I honestly try and avoid drawing environments If I can because I find them difficult but I was determined to draw something good this time and so I decided to to a little bit of research before I started drawing. I looked back over the mood board I made in BA3a that featured looks of different 'candyland' concepts so that I could get some visual inspiration and also just looked up lots and lots of photographs of sweets. Then, as I looked at these bits and pieces of references I started to sketch out some rough environment ideas which can be seen below.
Some candy environment sketches
These obviously aren't anything polished but I just wanted to make sure I was getting some good ideas down of what I wanted the candy environment to look like before hand so I wasn't scrabbling for ideas half way through the piece. I just pretty much drew whatever I thought looked right and fond these little sketches kinda fun to do. Also they were a good way for my to practice being rougher and quicker with my drawing which is something I am still tying to improve on. As well as these sketches I also did some research into the look of 2D candy and sweets, there are some visual examples of these below, just to get some references on shine and colouring and just to see what kinda of methods I could try incorporate into my own work to make it stronger.
Examples of 2D coloured candy designs
The progression of my final piece
After doing this little bit of extra design work It was time for me to move on and incorporate what I had practised into my piece. I knew that I just wanted to go for something colourful and fun and happy that just shows the audience what my characters are like and the world they live in. I really wanted that to be the focal point of my piece, doing something expressive and cheery so, with this idea in mind I just started to get to work on my piece. So I started off with my basic thumbnail sketch from before and initially noticed that I was very constricted and that I should open up the image a little more to add a less of a narrowed view so that I was getting a good amount in the piece. So I made the canvas that bit bigger and added in some extra bits and pieces like a concept of what the environment would and the bits of the characters body that were cropped off before and I think making this little tweak helped a lot as it allowed me to better visual what I was working with.
Then, with my rough sketch done I had to have a think about what sort of style I was going for with my piece. I had originally thought of doing it in a way that I had done a previous digital piece, my fan art of disgust, were I had no outlines at all and simple gradient shading but honestly that just wasn't something I wanted for my final piece. I knew I wanted to add outlines as I, personally, just think its a better suited style to what I am aiming for as well as the fact that I am far more comfortable with drawing this way and I thought this was really important otherwise for my to stick too otherwise my work probably wouldn't end up being as good as I would be doubting how the piece looked, so I just stuck to what I do best and started working on the outlines. Whether they would remain solid black or I would change them to coloured outlines, which is something I have never done for one of my pieces before, would be decided after I had completed the shading as it was too early to judge at the beginning. Making my line art essentially meant I was neatening up the position and expressions of my characters to make sure they were exactly how I wanted them to look and adding in what the environment was going to look like based off of the sketches I did earlier. I always enjoy this part of the process as It allows me to release my inner perfectionist and make sure all my lines are neat and tidy.
Once the line art was done and I was happy with how it looked I had the fairly quick and job of filling in the colours of my piece. As I already had set colour schemes and palettes of my characters I needed to make sure that the environment colours complimented the one I had already chosen because even if I wanted my piece to be bright and colourful I didn't want it to become a bit of a mess to look at. So I made sure I was happy with the colours I had picked before I even went anywhere near the shading process and had look at the references of sweet food and candy I had collected to make sure the palettes I had chosen were correct.
When this was done I then moved onto getting the shading done which I always enjoy doing as I really think it helps to bring my characters to life. Now more recently for my character pieces I have been really enjoying using cel shading as I think it just gives them a really nice effect but I didn't think this sort of shading would look like on the environment. The environment needed something softer, not big chunks of shading and so I thought using my old method of using gradients and a big air brush to shade would help make it look less rigid and a little more soft so this was something I was up for trying. And, so that my piece would tie in nicely together, I decided to try out using a combination of both gradients and block shading everywhere on my piece, on the characters and the background, just wherever I thought it felt right. I hadn't actually tried using these methods to shade my work together before so this a bit of experimentation on my part that I was willing to test out and If I didn't think it looked right I would try again.
Luckily for me I think this shading technique actually worked really nicely together and managed to give my depth and a nice soft look to it which is what I really wanted and quite honestly I probably could have left my piece like this but I did want to have a little experiment to see what my piece would look like with coloured outlines instead of plain black before I finalised anything. Pretty much as soon as I had changed the outlines to different colours there was no going back, I really loved the soft effect it gave my piece and just made everything look that little bit more natural which was just fantastic. So once I had done this and given my piece one last look over I could officially say I was finished. My final coloured candy selfie piece can be seen in the image below.
Honestly I am unbelievably happy with how this has turned out as I think it is one of my best pieces yet and I worked really hard on it which I think had paid off. I feel like my digital work and use with Photoshop has improved massively since the beginning of university and I am finally starting to make art work I am really pleased and confident with.
My final piece
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