Research into the second Art Test

Looking at the game 'Fable' 

The second Art Test I decided to look into was the Concept Pre-Visualisation Test. The title is a little misleading so what the brief actually entails is creating a citadel that could be found in the any of the series of games, 'Fable'.  The citadel will be where the four different fractions or the world meet to socialise, manufacture and trade. This will be done by creating 2D environment art of the city, designing such things as docks, religious or commercial sectors, forges and living quarters. This all has to be done by using the art style of the game Fable and much consider things such as the time of day and what the season will be. All of this also has the capture the mood and feel of the lived environments. So this brief is a little more lenient than the other Art Test I looked at but there is still a large amount to be done to actually pass it.

The whole idea of this test is to create artwork that fits in with a already existing and well known style which is something that concept artists would have to learn to do when joining a company. Although in this test we are allowed to add our own personal flare to our pieces to make is a little more personal but I have still have no clue how I would achieve that. To be honest this is the Art Test out of the two I picked which I am feeling less confident about as I don't have a lot of experience with drawing environments of any kind . Completing this test would be a new challenge for me to try and over come, which is a little worrying but also important for me to keep in mind that it would be a great opportunity to expand my skill set and learn some new artistic techniques instead of just sticking to character design. I did rather like the sound of the brief so I decided to do a little research into the game we would be focusing on as I have heard a lot about it but never had the chance to play it.



FABLE 

The original Fable is a single player role playing, open world and action video game that was released on the 14th of September 2004. It was released on various platforms such as  Xbox, Xbox 360, Windows PC ans Mac OS X and was the top selling game September 2004, selling more than two million units by 2007. The original game was developed 'Big Blue Box' with a group of more than 150 people working on the project but as the games popularity increased and new games in the series were released, 'Lionhead Studios' took over development for the games.

 In Fable you play in a third person perspective and take control on the main character, called 'The hero of the Oakvale' who can interact with objects, the people you bump into in your travels and any dangerous foes that cross your path. Similar to the style of many other role playing games such as 'World of warcraft' or 'Dragon Age Origins', your goal is to complete all the quests and missions you have to be able to continue the story line and advance in the game. As well as following the main story there are many side quests for the player to pursue so they can discover the world they live in and meet new people, ultimately building up your characters reputation and skill. Each quest completion gives the character a sum of gold which the player can use to go and buy new weapons or items to use during the game which can effect how certain characters will react to the hero. But weapons aren't your only choice, the hero can also learn how to use spells to help ward off foes and build their strength. There are many different personalised option for the player to choose to help make the story more personal to them and feel like they are effecting the story.

Fable also have a few interesting elements to it's gameplay which isn't normally found in other role playing games. For example you can change throughout playing the game and completing certain actions, what type of person you want to hero to be. Doing good deeds will increase the hero's likeability and will push you more towards 'positive alignment' but, doing bad deeds will turn your the character into more of a villain, edging towards 'negative alignment'. There are also elements such as clothing and habits which can change the hero's persona or appearance. If you eat too much then the character will gain weight or if you wear a certain piece of clothing it can make you look more attractive but if you were darker clothing then you are more likely to appear more frightening.

 Below is a collage of screenshots from the original game and two YouTube videos. One is of the trailer for the game and the second is the first 10 minutes of gameplay from Fable.

Due to the popularity of the original game, several other additions were created to add to the series, each one building onto the iconic world, plot and style of Fable. The Fable series has a very recognisable art style compared to many other role playing games that have been produced which mainly stick to looking more realistic, for example 'Dragon Age' or 'Skyrim'. This game however has a more distinct and cartoon looking art style which manages to make the game appeal to a different range of people who may be looking for something a little different from your typical quest game. With unrealistic, colourful and soft designs it looks like the game has been aimed at children but with elements such as sex and violence, all the games in the Fable series has received a 16+ age rating which is clearly aiming the game at an older audience. The original game in the series sticks to a very soft colour palette and environment style, keeping everything airy and fresh but as more games were produced, players were introduced to darker looking levels to explore, adding a new element to the game to make a little different from the first.

Everything perfectly falls in place with the cartoon theme in this game. Apart from it's creative environments designs there are a wide array of different stylised characters for the player to interact and talk to who help to build to the area the player is exploring. An example of Fable character concept art can be seen in the first image below. Although there a are a large amount of elements that build up the world of Fable, the area that the Art Test is focusing on is the environment designs. Although there are many different cities, towns and small areas out side the populated areas that the player will discover throughout the game to the stylised cartoon theme that Fable possesses and help bring the game to life. An example of  2D piece of Fable environment concept art can be seen in the second image below.

Now that I have done more research into the game to actually find out more about it's game play and stylised art style, I am less cautious about choosing the Concept Pre-Visualisation Art Test as there is something very appealing and almost comical about the environments and character designs used in Fable which has managed to peak my interest and possibly steer me more towards completing this test. I am actually excited about the idea of doing some 2D artwork that I know is going to have a cartoon style to it, which is similar to the art work I do already. The only thing that is really holding me back at the moment is that the fact that I am not very experienced with drawing or designing environments and buildings so this would be a big challenge for me to over come. I am just worried that the work I will produce for the test just won't be up to scratch and it will affect my overall grade which is making me lean towards the 2D character concept Art Test as it is something I feel more comfortable doing.

However if I do decide to choose this Art Test then I will do a larger amount of research into each of the games in the series. Also I will spend a good amount of time to find reference images and closely look at the environment/building design to make sure I start off on the right track.

Research into the first Art Test

Looking at the game 'Speedball' and '2K Games' 

Before I settle on which Art Test I want to focus on for the next three weeks I decided to do a little research into each of the given games that the two briefs cover to help me choose between the options available and finalise my decision. I want to make sure I am choosing the right one as I would hate to start working on one and then realising that I had made the wrong choice so hopefully doing the research will help to guide my choice. The fist Art Test I decided to focus my attention on is the Character concept art one as at the moment it is the test that is most suited to my artistic abilities. I started off the research process by looking into the unfamiliar video game 'Speedball' which the whole brief focuses around. I hadn't heard of the game before so I was curious to have a look at it and see what its style, play through and graphics were like.



SPEEDBALL

Speedball is a long running sports/action video game which rewards players for violent play and scoring goals. The games play style is influenced heavily by popular sports such as handball and ice hockey which gives the player a little bit of familiarity to activities that already exist instead of getting the grips with a whole new sport. There have been several games in the series, many of them reusing a replica of the original 2D pixel art game produced in 1988 by 'The Bitmap brothers' and then tweaking the game so it will play on different platforms. The most recent version of the game was released in 2011 and was re done so that it could be played on a android phone or tablet. In between the tweaking of the original game there was also a 3D version of the game released in 2011, Speedball Tournament, in order to try and re vamp the game and introduce it to a new audience.

There isn't really a story in the original game, it simply focuses on the game play of the made up sport. Speedball is a hand ball game that is played by two teams on court with a goal at each end of it. Scattered around the play area are certain things that can effect a teams gameplay for example, power ups and multipliers which are used to improve the teams skill and give them a better chance at scoring a goal and winning the match. Similar the the gameplay found in the popular series called, 'Fifa', a football based video game, the player only has control over one player on a team at any one time and can then switch when the ball has been thrown. The game is available to play against NPC or another player.

Bellow is a collage of collected screenshots from the range of different Speedball games. Also there are three videos below that which show the game play of three of the different games which gives you a good understanding of the graphics and the sport involved.

All of the games style stay very consistent throughout the series, sticking with the cuperpunk sci-fi theme used in the original Speedball. This style covers every aspect of the game, environments, interface and character design.  The players on each of the available teams are made up of either humans in powerful futuristic armour or deadly cyborgs which will make for really interesting character concepts and designs. 

Once I had completed this basic research and got to see the gameplay and art style of all the different Speedball games, I immediately took a disliking to it, especially the moderner re do of it. They all seemed very bland and dull which caused the game to lose a large amount of the 'action' is was supposed to contain for me. I actually preferred the older 2D character designs as they seemed to have far more personality to them compared to their 3D counterparts. Below is an example of the interface and designs used in the second version of Speedball.

This disappointing factor has managed to push me away a little from the idea of completing this Art Test but I do know that in the games industry you will be a given a project that you may absolutely hate and despise having to do but you have to complete it because it is your job as the concept artists. I am keeping this thought in mind so that I don't disregard this test completely just because of the art style. There is one aspect that is keeping my interested in this test and maybe it's saving grace and that is that fact that in the brief it says that the company 2K games has acquired the rights to the game. This means that the style could change rather differently when being produced by this company or barely at all. 

2K GAMES

2K Games is a american based game developer and producer and was founded on January the 25th, 2005. They specialise in 3D computer and video games with a large amount of their most popular production coming later in the companies time line. Two of their most popular separate series of games are 'Borderlands', which was nominated for a BAFTA award, and 'Bio shock'. 

Each of these two games have a rather dark feel to them with is mainly down to their colour palette. plot and the art style used which manages to create a grungy feel to the characters but also gives them a lot of depth. As the Character Concept Art Test brief says, 2K games has taken over the Speedball series which means that they can have their own stylised influenced over the game and push it in a completely new directions if they want to. This leaves open a lot of different design ideas and concepts that could be created keeping this companies style in mind. 

There are key areas of the game that MUST stay the same in order to keep a running theme in the series, so you wouldn't be able to go completely mad and reinvent the game to suit your own style. Areas of the game that must remain the same are the game play and sci-fi cyberpunk theme plus the environments, such as the court, must represent something of the original game other with the sport will be completely ruined and wont function properly. Although that doesn't mean that the art style can't be tweaked a little to make the game look more interesting and stylised compared to how bland it was beforehand. So for example, you could be able to re design the characters in the style of one of 2K Games to give the Speedball the companies flair. Baring this in mind, I decided to do some image research into the two most popular games produced by company to see what sort of designs would be possible to do and if they would fit in with brief. 

Below are images of the front covers of the games 'Borderlands' and 'Bioshock' along with a few bits of their concept art. 

Looking at these different pieces of concept art has given me a good idea of what sort of style I could work with when creating the character designs, especially the pieces that have cybernetic designs in them. I really warmed to the style of  Borderlands the most which was mainly because of its dark outlines, which makes the characters look like a 2D digital drawing and the expressive facial designs. Plus I think I could get some good designs out of using this sort of style for Speedball. It would give it a different creative edge and possibly make it more exciting.  

Now that I have looked into the Character Concept Art Test I can move onto researching into the Concept Pre-Visualisation Test and looking into the suggested game, 'Fable'. This is so that I can make sure I have gone over both tests properly before I pick out the one which I would like to have a go at.

Personal work

A video game inspired piece  


Recently and over the winter break I had been suffering from a bit of a art block which has been rather irritating as I really wanted to get some good work done. So instead I decided to focus on playing the new game I got at Christmas, partly for game research purposes but also because it had been recommend to me time and time again and looked fantastic. The game was Dragon Age Origins, the first in a series of 3 fantasy role playing games developed by Bioware and published by Electronic arts. As I haven't played very many games compared to other students of my course I thought it would be important for me to try out new games to get more knowledge on the subject and expand my library.

After a few hours of playing the game I was instantly hooked. Its game play and art style is very similar to that of the more recent video game Skyrim which I have previously played and enjoyed. Although I had never played a game which had a role playing theme so this was a new experience for me and I have to say that I really enjoyed this element as it made the character you play as feel very personal as you can choose (from a list of options) of what you want them to say. Another element that made the character feel this way was that you were able to customise and edit the avatar at the beginning of the game, changing their appearance such as hair style, facial structure, eye colour ect. This allowed an element of personalisation to the game and made you curious to see how 'your' characters story would grow.

As the game progressed I became more attached to the character as I felt she had a bit of personal flair to her. Finally, with new found inspiration I was able to get a drawing down and turn it into a finished piece which I am rather happy with, Below is the drawing of my Dragon Age Origins character called Elika Cousland.

Focusing on two possible Art Tests

Character Concept Art Test

I thought I would start by looking at the Art Test that I immediately warmed to and felt most comfortable with when I read the description of what needed to be completed. Drawing characters, whether they are my own design or just fan art, is something that I enjoy to do and end up drawing frequently so it is an area I feel confident in. It is also the area that I would like to go into in the industry in the future. Although I wouldn't just be breezing by with this test and it will be a way to test my skills due to the fact that my art style is very stylised and cartoony and the character design in the later versions of Speedball which I am certain we will be focusing on, looks realistic. I will have to challenge myself to draw characters to look more realistic to make sure my designs suit 2K games style of game.  

The reason I was also interested in this Art Test is because it included elements that we were asked to produce in our previous project BA1 so I am already experienced in creating thumbnails, sketches, a character sheet and a final piece which are all elements that are included in this test. I think this makes me more confident to work on this test as than others as I know I enjoyed completing BA1 so I am sure I can have fun with this one too.

Concept Pre-Visualisation Test

As well as looking at something that I knew I would be comfortable with completing, I am also considering stepping out my comfort zone and trying something a little different. The Concept Pre-Visualisation Test in a 2D environment based brief where we are asked to create three finished pieces of concept art of a city that would be found in the video game Fable. A big part of this brief  includes drawing the buildings that would be found in the city and I am not very strong with perspective or designing environments but choosing this test would give me an opportunity to push myself to draw something that I usually don't and to hopefully to improve in the area.

One of the things that is pushing my to try this Art Test is the style of the game Fable. It's concept art and designs are just beautiful and have a slightly unrealistic feel to them which I really like about it. Also the brief says we are allowed to add our own creative flair which means it is far more lenient in design work than the Character Concept Art Test is which means I would be able to add a little bit of my own style to the environments.

So far I am rather fifty fifty with both of the tests and I am not too sure which one to go with. My plan of action now is to do a little research into both of the games that the Tests are based around which should be able to sway my opinion of which one I want to work on. I also believe asking my tutors for advise would be helpful to see what they think would be better suited for me this time around.

A further explanation of BA5

Looking at the tutor given Art Tests

Today's sessions was a further look into BA5 as we were given a clearer description on what the project entails. This was just a basic summary to make sure we all understood what we were supposed to be doing and if we had any queries about the work so far. We also received our first look at the different Art Tests that the tutors had created which allowed us to gain a clearer understanding of the type of work we would need to produce for this unit and what different areas we could specify in. There are actually seven Art Tests instead of eight which gives us less to choose from which I actually think is a good idea as there are a couple I am interested at looking at as possible options. Any more and I would have been spoilt for choice.

Below are the list of different Art Tests that are available for us to choose from. Each test has a written description explaining what you should be focusing on for your project and work will need to be submitted in hand in. Luckily we have been given a wide variety of different areas of the games industry to choose from so we can pick one out that we feel comfortable and confident in completing.
The follow briefs can be seen in the images below. 



OPTIONS TO CHOOSE FROM

• 3D environment art
• 3D character artist
• Character concept artist
• Environment concept artist
• Concept pre-visualisation
• UI designer
• Games designer

From a brief look over each Art Test I am already being swayed by two of the 2D concept art tests that are available to choose from which are the Concept Pre-Visualisation Test and the Character Concept Artist test. The reason for this is that I believe that this is the area I am more suited for and have the most confidence in as I creating and drawing out designs and concepts. I am also wary about any of the 3D options as 3D really isn't one of my strong points as I worry that any work I produce in this area wouldn't be strong enough to submit. But this is just a first impression at the moment, my course of action now is to read through each options carefully to make sure I am choosing the correct Test to work on as I would hate to have to change my mind later on in the process.

The beginning of a new year and university term

BA5 and my first thoughts on the unit 

Today was my first day back to university after the Christmas holidays and it felt great to finally be heading back in lessons as I felt very demotivated to complete any sketches over the break which I am still really kicking myself about. Luckily I came out of the lecture today feeling inspired and excited due to our new brief as it just sounds fantastic.

This BA5 project is a brand new brief that hasn't been completed before by any previous year groups and our class is the first to give it a whirl which puts a bit of pressure on our year to do well. Over the period of six weeks we will be give two different 'Art Tests' that we will have to complete and hand in at deadline. Originally I was freaking myself out a bit as I thought that, from the name, it would be a written exam about the history of art of something along those lines but my fear was soon extinguished when we were given a proper description of what we would be doing. An Art Test is a type of brief that is given to interviewees in the induction process of applying for a job in the game industry at a certain company. It is a test that can be made up of many different parts and range in difficulty and specifications depending on which company you apply for. It is essentially testing the candidates to see if they are up to the standard they are looking for. It is a very important 'test' to take as is shows the employer things such as the artists art style, speed at which they work, ability to follow a brief etcetera to make sure they hire the correct candidate and that there is now plagiarism used. This is a very daunting process that artists must go through when applying for a job and many of them are unprepared for this hurdle but our course leader, Marie Claire, decided that this is something we MUST be prepared for in the future and thought she should give us a nudge in right direction and hopefully the upper hand against other candidates.

So there are around sixteen different art tests to choose from in BA5 and all of them are completely different and cater to different types of art specifications and styles which is a hell of a lot choice when it comes to choosing which one you want to do. Eight of have been created by the tutors of our course and the last eight have been created by different existing companies, ranging in size. For example one will be from the global and successful media company, Sony. And on top of this we were told that members of the companies will most likely be coming in to look at our work in person which is very nerve racking to think about. From the large choice we will be given to choose from we will be asked to pick something we feel confident in doing and choosing an area that we would focus on in the future so I was very excited to hear that there will be a 2D character concept art test that we can choose. I am really looking forward to reading that brief through and seeing weather it is from one of the larger companies or not. If it is a brief from Sony Picture Animations from example I would be extremely excited to complete it but also terrified of letting someone from the company assessing my work!

Overall I am really looking forward to the briefing we will receive tomorrow as it will be going through everything in far more detail and we will also be allowed to discuss which our tutors would our preferred artistic area is and will be allowed to read the tests through. I already know that I want to complete one of the 2D tests as it is the area I want to go into if I am employed by a company in the future so I am really interested to see what the specifications will be for the character concept one.

But with all this excitement for the new brief, there comes a huge bunch of nerves. I am a little worried about completing two different art tests in a period of six weeks, it seems to be a Deja vu of BA4 when we were given a huge amount of work which managed to stress everyone out a lose track of what we were meant to be doing which is something I really don't want to happen again. Also since I managed to get scrape a first for BA4 which I was really pleased with, I know have the pressure of keeping my grade at a similar level and work even harder to get a higher grade which is going to be really tricky for this brief as we have just so much to do and the whole area is completely new to us. Our course leader even said that this brief is very difficult and will be a challenge for us to complete but, negativity aside I am enthusiastic to work hard on this project and try my best to get another good grade and learn a lot about this process.

Going onto BA5 ...