Facing a challenge

Re thinking my designs and starting with the value studies


Once I had completed my sixteen thumbnail sketches, I knew that it was time to move onto my value studies but I was struggling to understand what they actually consisted of. I knew they were design images which shows the lighting of a scene but I wasn't too sure how detailed they were meant to be. Were they simply supposed to be made up of block colours or something more detailed with a larger amount of shading? As I didn't want to start them and end up doing the wrong thing, I thought it would be best to ask my tutor Nigel about it as he was the one supervising all the 2D Art Tests.

I manages to chat to him during one of our most recent classes and showed him what I had been working on so far and that I was thinking about moving onto my value studies. He immediately explained to me why I have probably been struggling and this was because my thumbnail designs were just far too detailed. They are meant to be quick, rough and loosely drawn sketches which give a very brief example of what you are trying to portray in a scene. None of them are meant to be highly polished as they are only a starting concept and artists only add detailed when it comes to a final design or painting. For me, the thumbnails I did were very rough as they were each done in five minutes and drawn straight onto Photoshop using a tablet which to be honest, I really didn't enjoy doing as I am very used to doing hand draw designs and taking my time on pieces, making sure that they line art is correct. I had even decided to re do my thumbnails with neater line work so that they looked far more appealing and so I would feel more comfortable with creating the three final pieces a the end of the process (an example of the neater thumbnail sketch can been seen on the first panel of the second image below.) I has also been sketching out a house in Fables art style, which can be seen in the image below, so that I could improve my drawings and keep the style following through my designs.

Unfortunately Nigel told me to shoot down my preferred art style for this Art Test, which meant losing the time I spend on my work and the use of line art, so that I could focus on getting the thumbnails done quickly and roughly as they aren't supposed to be highly detailed designs that we spend a lot of time on. This proposition immediately made me feel worried as not only would I be working on environment art which I know isn't one of my strong points but now I would have to completely change my art style and technique to something that I am not to comfortable of knowledgeable about. Nigel gave me a gentle push and told me to start working on my value studies in class so that he would be able to see them and see if I was going down the right path. After drawing out a brief study which can seen in the second panel of the image below, I was soon told that it still wasn't what I was supposed to be producing and I should be far more lose and rough with my design work. He drew out a quick example of what my value studies should be looking like and that is what I needed to aim for. It was very rough and lacking in detail but he explained that it is like that so that you can pick out shapes that are very exaggerated and obviously there. This way you will get far more design ideas out of just one concept.

After I saw Nigel sketch and he showed me what brushes I could use after a little tweaking in Photoshop I began working on my value studies which are the six final images which can be seen in the image below. To be honest I only really like one of them which is the second one on the right hand side but apart from that one I think they look a little stodgy. Although Nigel said they are a lot better than what I had been doing before so it seems that this is the style I will have to continue to use when I move onto my colour studies. I will hopefully be able to use the advice my tutor gave me and make sure they remain quick and rough so that I don't spend too much time on each one.

Moving onto drawing

Completing the thumbnails

After my most recent session where I received feedback from my tutors, I started to focus and push forward with the more artistic side of the Art Test. I could have done a much larger amount of research into the subject of environments and districts but as I was starting to fall behind a little when it came to work load, I decided to press on. I moved away from research into Fable and starting thinking about my thumbnail designs, where is the citadel located? What season will be depicted? What is the layout of the city? These where all things that I needed to consider as I sketched out my concepts as thinking about the location was a big part of the test.

I knew to keep my work flow going and the quicken my drawing speed, I was going to use my tutor Nigel's technique of taking 5 minutes on each sketch, so that I don't spend far too much time on one and neglect the others. Whilst I was thinking about my thumbnails designs, I was also considering that fact that I am working on an area which I am not particularly used to and that I should keep this theme going. I was originally planning to hand draw all of my thumbnails in a sketch book which is what I am comfortable with but for this Art Test, as I was testing myself already, I thought I should try drawing them digitally with my tablet instead.  Using this medium mixed with Nigel's technique, helped my to produce sixteen quick designs which can be seen below.

Over all I am not too keen on how these turned out which may be due to the fact that I am used to drawing concepts with pencil to paper or the fact that environments are not my strong point but I do have something to work with here so I am now able to move onto my value and colour studies and keep progressing with the project.  

The feedback i recieved

Moving away from research

Recently we had a fairly simple session where we were allowed to work on our Art Test in class and also receive any feedback from our fellow students or our tutors, George and Nigel. As I had been ill for the past five days, I had fallen behind on a bit of my work and had missed out on similar sessions so I wanted to take this chance to be able to talk to my tutors about my progress and to make sure I was on the right track. I got the opportunity to talk to my tutor Nigel, who specialise in 2D artwork, which is relevant to the Art Test I am doing so I am pleased that I managed to grab him for a few minutes.

I was able to show him my blog so that he could see what I had been working on over the past week and explained where I was planning to go from there. He immediately told me that I had done plenty of research and did not need to expand in this area, even though I did want to look up some image inspiration for different fractions but he said this wasn't necessary so that saved me doing some extra work which, in the end, would have been time wasting. He said the most important thing for me to do now is to move onto my thumbnails otherwise I would end up getting swept up in the research side of things and neglect the actual art side of the test. I was then able to ask him a few questions about the thumbnails we needed to produce and whether he had any techniques for drawing them. He told me that I should draw out nine boxes in rows of three and then spend five minutes drawing out a environment concept in each one, timing myself as I went along. Once I had completed this the first time, I was to repeat the process again and again, going over the same sketches each time and adding more detail every time I did. This way I would end up with nine detailed looking designs which I had spent a good amount of time on. 

I really like the sound of this technique as I think it would help me to push myself to work a little quicker and rougher so that I am not spending unnecessarily long on just one thumbnail, giving it to much detail on the first go. I think I will start off by trying this method on paper first and then completing a further nine thumbnails on Photoshop so that I have used a mixture of methods and, hopefully, will end up with some different results.

Thinking about my thumbnails

Image research into different environments 

Before I attempted to sketch out any thumbnails designs I knew I should start off by considering the location and layout of the Citadel we were supposed to design for this Art Test. When I was reading through the brief I noticed in the first paragraph that it said 'The hub is a citadel that sprawls from deep within the earth to the clouds above'. This means that different sections of the city could be located in different environments such as in the mountains or in underground caves. This also means we will have to be able to draw these different areas if we want to give variety to our designs. Baring this in mind I decided to do a little image research into a variety of environments found on earth so that I would be able to have references and inspiration when I started drawing out my concept art. 

Below is a collage of different photographs that I really liked and will hopefully come in handy if I need some inspiration for colour, lighting or just something to draw later on in the process. 

Looking more into the 'Fable' series

Environment design

Once I had a looked at some unrelated 2D environment art pieces for inspiration for lighting and composition in my designs, I moves onto looking into the specific area we were focusing on for the Concept Pre-Visualisation Art Test. I began to research into the different environments that have been featured throughout the series of Fable games to make sure that I got a broad range of designs and concept to work off of. So I started off at the beginning of the process, finding images of hand drawn environment concept pieces for Fable. After scrolling through Google images I found a collection of sketches that I knew were going to help me capture the feel of what the buildings were like throughout the game so I chucked them into a mood board, as seen bellow.

It was really nice to find these initial concept art sketches as it gives you a very clear example of what the style of the game and environments are from earlier on in the process. It was really good to find some clear and detailed images of the different homes and shops found in Fable as the buildings will essentially be the building blocks of the concept art I will be making. Structures such as buildings help bulk up an environment and change it into a different area, so for example having one building shows that its a remote, quiet area but having 5 - 10 shows a snapshot of possibly a large town or city.

The first thing thing that stood out to me when I looked at these sketches was the styling used and the perspective of the buildings drawn. Everything about them fits snugly into the cartoonist unrealistic style that Fable possesses, making the buildings look like they almost have life of their own. The structures all look very top heavy and chunky but none of them are made up of straight lines of perfect symmetry. Each building looks a tad wonky, as if it is slightly leaning over to the side which could be showing an example of how older structure warp and shift in time but I believe it is focusing more on the cartoonish style so this aspect is more to give the buildings more character than to do with anything logical. This is a good news to me as it means that means that my lines and perspective don't have to be deadly perfect which is something I usually struggle with when drawing structures but I must still consider things like sizing and how the buildings is going to work with the objects around it. These are really nice sketches to work with for inspiration and I think they will really help me to capture Fable's art style and feel.

Once I had done some image research into 2D environment concept art I soon moved into looking at what the environments actually looked like in game and how they translated from sketch to a 3D model. I made sure to look at levels from each of the different games in the series to make sure I was getting a full variety of the different designs used. I really loved looking at the different in game snap shots as their is a some really beautiful uses of lighting used throughout the game which gives each environment a different warm feeling. I chose a selection of my favourite environments and made up a mood board which can be seen in the image below. Even though this Art Test is 2D based and shouldn't be focused on any 3D concepts, these images were really helpful to look at they have given me a lot of inspiration for examples of colour and composition that have been used in the different areas of Fable which will hopefully translate in my three final pieces of concept art. 

I also decided it would be a good idea to see some video footage of the environments when in game as it would help me see another aspect to the designs instead of just 2D image inspiration. After a little browsing I managed to find a few videos on exactly the sort of thing I was looking for which were really helpful to watch. Again these were really helpful to look our for a clearer idea of the different composition and layout each area had which will hopefully translate into the work I complete. The videos I found and watched for research, I have posted below. 

Now that I have done a fair bit of research into the 'Fable' series of games and have also looked into different types of 2D environment concept art for inspiration on lighting and  composition I believe i ma ready to move onto different areas of the brief. One of these will be looking into the possible different fractions could be included in the game and what influence they would have on the environment which is something that is mentioned on the brief that we should look into. Secondly I could look at some photography to do with the different seasons to branch out my options of different setting in my concept art along with what time of the day it is set it which will included look at photography of night and day. This will also help my get the right lighting and feel for the scene depending on what I am trying to create.  Accompanied by this image research I can start off completing my thumbnail sketches so I can really get the ball rolling with the designing part of the Art Test.

Looking at 2D environment concept art

Pieces of concept art, speed paintings and tutorials. 

Now that I knew what Art Test I was going to be focusing on for the next three weeks of the project I decided that It would be important for me to do some research into 2D environment concept art in general. This was mainly to get myself into the mindset of creating this particular type of artwork as it is very different from drawing character designs. I knew I would have to flush the craving to draw people out of my system for a little while so that I would be able to focus on the project I have been set. Initially to kick start my research I started off by looking back over my Deviant Art favourites page to find environment designs that I had liked and saved in the past. I had quite a collection of images which meant a lot of scrolling but below are two mood boards with a selection of some of my favourites designs.

Usually for me I don't really go for just one particular theme of environment design so for example sci-fi or fantasy. I like a wide range of art styles and concepts, I think it all really depends on how talented the artist and what their taste for lighting and colour is in their pieces. I will admit that my preferred art style usually is Anime, something with a element of a cartoon style thrown in or a unrealistic drawing which can be seen in the images below. This is why I am quite excited about drawing Fable concept art as I think their designs are almost a mixture of those three things I like to see in artwork.

After collecting together examples of environment concept art I liked I started thinking about what I was going to do for this Art Test and how was I going to improve in this area. I know that this is an area that I will struggle in and will have to work on to get to a good enough level so I thought about looking up whether there were any tutorials for people who are in my position. Being told something step by step is is a good way to learn to learn something new so I went on YouTube to see what sort of selection they had. Unforutantly there wasn't a vast array of different tutorial videos so I just picked out the ones that seemed most useful and went through the artists work piece by piece. There were however a large amount of speed painting videos for me to look at so I choose a few that I believed would be relevant for this project. All the videos I have looked at for research are below.

Now that I have researched into a variety of different 2D environment concept art pieces I can finally start to narrow it down and focus on the style and designs used in the Fable series.

My final decision

The Concept Pre-Visualisation Art Test

During the first week of the new project we were told that we needed to know what Art Test we were going to be choosing and to start completing the necessary research we needed. At that moment of time I was still very confused and stuck about which test I actually wanted to complete for this part of the project. It was in-between going with something I felt more confident with completing as I am very used to drawing character designs, or trying to go for something that would be more of a challenge for me and not guaranteed that I would do to well on. As I was very in-between the two choices I decided that I needed to ask my tutors what they thought would be the best plan of action for me instead of choosing something and then realising that it was the wrong one for me to do. I had a quick talk with my tutor George about the two 2D concept art options I was in-between doing and asked what his opinion was on which one I should complete.

 He instantly told me that I should do the Concept Pre-Visualisation Art Test as it would be a opportunity for me to try and draw something different instead of just character design and would help to expand my artistic capabilities. I explained to him that I was worried that my environment designs wouldn't quite be up to scratch as I am not very used to drawing that sort of thing but he quickly explained that the art wasn't the important thing in this project, its the research. As long as I complete a large amount of research and then the others elements that the Art Test is made up of them I shouldn't have a problem with this project. Speaking to my tutor helped clarify to me which Art Test I should focus on for the first three weeks of the project. I think he was completely right when he said I should try something different as my art work doesn't have a large amount of variety and I know that that is something I need to work on in the future.

Overall I am more than happy to begin working on this project as it will be something a little different for me to work on and I would like to see how much I can push myself and if I make any improvements in the process. The next stage for me now is to do more research into the game Fable, especially to do with the environments and buildings included in the game to make sure I heading down the right path when it comes to actually drawing out my designs.