Tuesday 18 February 2014
Emailing different gaming companies
After getting all my key research done I decided to should email a couple of people working in gaming companies and ask them a few questions as It would be nice to hear from them personally.
The first person I emailed was Ken Wong, the art director who worked on the game 'Alice Madness Returns'. This was a little nerve wracking for me as I am a huge fan of this game, but I wrote a polite and, as professional as I could make it sound, email about a role of a concept artist working at 'Spicy Horse' and then waited for a reply. Ken replied surprisingly quick explaining that as he was the art director he only did a small amount of the concept work and gave me the email address of his friend Luis Melo who was one of the artists who worked on the game as well. After thanking Ken for his response I set about emailing Luis. Unfortunately I still haven't heard anything back and I knew I couldn't hang my whole essay on waiting for his response so I had to move on.
The second company I emailed was 'Split Path Studio' as I wanted to know a little more about the role of a concept artist working in a indie company. Similarly with my previous emailing attempt there was so sign in getting a response soon so I cracked on with my essay, working with all the information I had already collected and I ended up with a word count of 1098. A day after writing my essay, Dom Littler from Split Path Studio finally got back to me. What he told me was really good solid information that I knew I needed to add to my essay but as my word count was so high and I wanted to keep everything I had already written I had to do some serious editing to squeeze a little more information in bringing my word count to exactly 1100.
Dom was very kind and said that I could pop his email to me on my blog as reference to research so here it is,
"Hey Harriet,
Sorry this reply has taken a while we are all mega busy. if i miss anything or if you have any more questions though do ask!
We are quite big for an indie start up (there being 7 in the core team with a couple of extras for contract work), so we are by no means a typical example. In fact, there is rarely a "typical example" at all when it comes to indie studios, you just do what you have to to make it work. We don't have anyone who's job title is "concept artist" because like i said, the team does what they need when it is needed. We have two people who are designated as "2D artists". which is probably the closest thing to concept artist. There's myself (Dom Littler) and i'm lead artist (but that means i guide 3D as well), i think i went over my role a bit at our talk to you guys, and Lee Gregory who is a 2D artist. However we both do our fair share of 3D modeling now the "concept" stage of our pre-production pipeline is done. it all depends what part of the process the game is in. most of the concept art for a game is produced before production of the game itself stars to get the visual design and art style worked out.
We still do mood paintings and sketches occasionally when they are required to put an idea across quickly though. We call ourselves just "2D artists because we don't just produce concept art (by which i kind of mean mood paintings), i also gather reference images, determine the art style of the game, thumbnail and silhouette painting, everything a general concept artist would do. but we also do texture art, Character/ creature design and sculpting. 3d modelling, we all have a bit of a hand in the story and game design, though being a lead i'm a bit more involved in that, in fact i end up spending less time actually doing art than the other 2D and 3d artists. We also handle the visual aspect of stuff like UI design, logo design, art guides for stuff like the website. Lee also animates the animatics for in game cut-scenes and trailers which we both do the storyboards for.I hope this helps, sorry it might be a bit jumbled up, i just rambled onto the keyboard.
Dom"
Contextual Studies Lectures
During the course of our project we were given the opportunity to attend three lectures to help us prepare and collect research for our essays. I found these extremely useful as it's always nice to hear information from people who are right in front of you instead of digging around on the internet.
Split Path Studios
Our first talk was from the group 'Split Path Studios' who are a small independent (indie) game company still attending Norwich University of the Arts and are in the middle of producing their first game. I had no idea how a indie company worked and until I went to this lecture, for some reason I believed that everybody worked together to create the concepts and animations and programming but what I didn't know is that the group is actually split up and different people are assigned roles that cover a lot of key areas in the game creation process. This is information I really wanted to put into my essay as it would help show the work load that a concept artist has to complete working in a smaller company. Also an Indie company is where I could essentially end up working in the near future so I got down lots of notes on the advice they gave us.
Lothar Zhou
Our second lecture was from one of my teachers who works at the University. Lothar has had a lot of experience in the gaming industry and his knowledge and advice was really good to hear as it would help prepare me for my possible career in the gaming industry. Lothar told as about his experiences at the many different companies he worked for as he progressed as an artist and how this helped mould and shape him as an artist and a person. It was really interesting to hear what he had to say about the difference of working in a bigger company compared to a smaller one and also companies from abroad in which Lothar said he has the best experience working at.
Chris Goodswen
Our last lecture was given by an Character artist working in the large gaming company 'Crytek' which is also where Lothar spent some time working at. I learnt from this lecture that there is a big different from a character artist and the concept artists at 'Crytek' which I didn't know before and just assumed they were the same thing. This also helped me learn about how many different roles there are in a bigger companies compared to smaller ones where one person would take on a multitude of responsibilities, which gave me the opportunity to do a little comparison work in my essay between 'Crytek and 'Split Path Studios'. Chris's also spoke about the industry and gave us a lot of advice for the future which I wrote down. I was going to upload all my notes I took during all three lectures but I wasn't sure if any of the information I wrote down could be shown on the internet due to the topics covered, Chris's lecture in particular so I decided to leave them off.
Split Path Studios
Our first talk was from the group 'Split Path Studios' who are a small independent (indie) game company still attending Norwich University of the Arts and are in the middle of producing their first game. I had no idea how a indie company worked and until I went to this lecture, for some reason I believed that everybody worked together to create the concepts and animations and programming but what I didn't know is that the group is actually split up and different people are assigned roles that cover a lot of key areas in the game creation process. This is information I really wanted to put into my essay as it would help show the work load that a concept artist has to complete working in a smaller company. Also an Indie company is where I could essentially end up working in the near future so I got down lots of notes on the advice they gave us.
Lothar Zhou
Our second lecture was from one of my teachers who works at the University. Lothar has had a lot of experience in the gaming industry and his knowledge and advice was really good to hear as it would help prepare me for my possible career in the gaming industry. Lothar told as about his experiences at the many different companies he worked for as he progressed as an artist and how this helped mould and shape him as an artist and a person. It was really interesting to hear what he had to say about the difference of working in a bigger company compared to a smaller one and also companies from abroad in which Lothar said he has the best experience working at.
Chris Goodswen
Our last lecture was given by an Character artist working in the large gaming company 'Crytek' which is also where Lothar spent some time working at. I learnt from this lecture that there is a big different from a character artist and the concept artists at 'Crytek' which I didn't know before and just assumed they were the same thing. This also helped me learn about how many different roles there are in a bigger companies compared to smaller ones where one person would take on a multitude of responsibilities, which gave me the opportunity to do a little comparison work in my essay between 'Crytek and 'Split Path Studios'. Chris's also spoke about the industry and gave us a lot of advice for the future which I wrote down. I was going to upload all my notes I took during all three lectures but I wasn't sure if any of the information I wrote down could be shown on the internet due to the topics covered, Chris's lecture in particular so I decided to leave them off.
Contextual Studies Research
Websites
For my contextual studies project I decided to look into the role of a concept artist in the gaming industry. This is mainly because when I first started my course here I had no clue which route I wanted to go down to find a job in the future but after completing my projects I realised the 2D designing definitely is my strong point and I find it a lot more interesting than 3D modelling.
But even with this is mind I actually didn't know that a lot about what a concept artists job was so I needed to do chunk of research to get at understanding of what I was looking into.
These are a few of the websites I read through just to get a basic understanding of what an concept artists job was exactly.
I then started to read through the books I had at home, looking for more quotations and information I could use to plan out my essay as I didn't want to get all my sources from the internet. I stumbled across a quote about 2D and 3D concept art which I liked and thought I could use it to help break up my essay a little. It was from the book 'How to become a video game artist. The insiders guide to landing a job in the gaming world' by Sam R. Kennedy. It had some other really useful information in it about the gaming industry in general so I would recommend it to any other Game At and Design students.
The second book I looked at is 'The art of Alice Madness Returns' with a introduction by American McGee. Alice madness returns is my favourite video game I just had to purchase the concept art book as I fell in love with the art style and concepts as soon as I started playing it. I knew that I would want to include a section about 'Spicy Horse', the company that produced this game so I read the introduction to see what I could find. There is a lovely section on the artists and how they were introduced to the game and from the sound of it is seems that 'Spicy Horse' would be a great company to work for and is now somewhere I am considering applying to in the future.
For my contextual studies project I decided to look into the role of a concept artist in the gaming industry. This is mainly because when I first started my course here I had no clue which route I wanted to go down to find a job in the future but after completing my projects I realised the 2D designing definitely is my strong point and I find it a lot more interesting than 3D modelling.
But even with this is mind I actually didn't know that a lot about what a concept artists job was so I needed to do chunk of research to get at understanding of what I was looking into.
These are a few of the websites I read through just to get a basic understanding of what an concept artists job was exactly.
After looking through these I realised that the job is actually quite varied depending which company you go into so I decided to make this the theme of my essay, looking into the different roles and responsibilities of a concept artist. Whilst continuing my research I found two interviews which I liked the look off and took quotes from to use in my essay.
Books
Monday 17 February 2014
Personal Drawing
Facial Study
After looking through my recent life drawing sketches I realised I was struggling with realistic drawings as I was so used to creating cartoon inspired pieces. So I decided to have a crack at drawing a realistic human face as it would help me with proportions and emotions when it comes to character designing. It was supposed to be just a regular drawing of female face but I noticed the head was at a slightly creepy angle and after playing a lot of 'Alice Madness Returns' I felt inspired to draw something a little odd so began by giving her lifeless eyes and slightly sad smile. Then I just went a bit crazy and started adding in android pieces along with a tag looped through her ear, representing she is the first of a line of human experiments. This piece is a work in progress and I'd love to import it into 'Corel Painter' and paint over the top. I do prefer drawing my concepts in pencil to begin with as I feel more comfortable with this method and I am able to express myself better when it comes to my designs.
After looking through my recent life drawing sketches I realised I was struggling with realistic drawings as I was so used to creating cartoon inspired pieces. So I decided to have a crack at drawing a realistic human face as it would help me with proportions and emotions when it comes to character designing. It was supposed to be just a regular drawing of female face but I noticed the head was at a slightly creepy angle and after playing a lot of 'Alice Madness Returns' I felt inspired to draw something a little odd so began by giving her lifeless eyes and slightly sad smile. Then I just went a bit crazy and started adding in android pieces along with a tag looped through her ear, representing she is the first of a line of human experiments. This piece is a work in progress and I'd love to import it into 'Corel Painter' and paint over the top. I do prefer drawing my concepts in pencil to begin with as I feel more comfortable with this method and I am able to express myself better when it comes to my designs.
Life drawing in the castle
I got a little distracted ...
After my life drawing session I decided it would be a good idea to go up to the castle and do a little drawing as for the previous sessions we were outside and didn't get the chance to go there. This gave me the opportunity to wander through the galleries and see things I had missed the first time like the main hall and the dungeons. After a lot of walking around, looking at things I remembered that I was supposed to be doing some drawing so I found a bust of a Roman lady in the new section they had opened up and I set myself a time limit of 10 minutes. I then made my way into the Natural History room, which is probably my personal favourite and did another 10 minutes sketch, this time of a zebra. I am definitely planning to head back there soon and do some more drawing in the near future.
After my life drawing session I decided it would be a good idea to go up to the castle and do a little drawing as for the previous sessions we were outside and didn't get the chance to go there. This gave me the opportunity to wander through the galleries and see things I had missed the first time like the main hall and the dungeons. After a lot of walking around, looking at things I remembered that I was supposed to be doing some drawing so I found a bust of a Roman lady in the new section they had opened up and I set myself a time limit of 10 minutes. I then made my way into the Natural History room, which is probably my personal favourite and did another 10 minutes sketch, this time of a zebra. I am definitely planning to head back there soon and do some more drawing in the near future.
Drawing studies
Outside drawing
During the course of our project we have extra classes to help us improve our drawing skills. For the fist week we went to the forum in the centre of Norwich to practice our outside drawing. I still struggle quite a bit with realism in life drawing and I also need to practice drawing more quickly as I didn't get it finished in time so I am not especially pleased with this piece but I did get most of the basics line work down and can always return to the same spot to complete it.
During the second week we were focusing on drawing water. Water is one of most difficult things to try to draw, traditionally or digitally so it was important for us to give it a try. Despite the draw back of being outside in the cold for so long that my hands went numb I actually really enjoyed this exercise as I think it went a lot better than last weeks drawing session and has convinced me to try doing some more realistic looking drawings as I really think it's going to help me improve.
Life Drawing
Session 1
I must apologise in advance for the photo quality, if I had done them any lighter the glare off the paper would have been too much so this is the best I could do.
For our first life drawing session of this term, we took part in similar activities that we did last project. To begin with we did some quick figure sketches that we had about 3 minutes on each . I am happy that I got the main shape of the model into the drawing but I would have liked more time on each one to be able to go back and add more detail as I am not pleased with how these turned out. I think anatomy really is something I struggle with and is something I hope to improve on.
Next we worked on expressions which is something I am a little more comfortable drawing due to my style being rather cartoony. Again I found time restraints of under 5 minutes frustrating as I like taking my time with a piece and getting in all the details and making it look the best I can be. Similarly with the more detailed facial drawing below, although we had more time I didn't feel comfortable drawing this as I would have liked to have gotten the key features in properly instead of just roughly sketching them. I don't like this piece at all as I made her look much older than she actually is. I know I feel quite negative about my life drawing but I am positive that it is something I can improve on.
Session 2
For our second session we started similarly to the last session we had, starting with anatomy study and figure shape but this time we were given an ink pen to use. Sadly I wasn't really a fan on this pen as we had around 3 minutes on each sketch and I spent most of that time reapplying ink to the nib. Doing some anatomy is something that is really going to help me improve so it needs to be done.
After this we were started looking at hands and even though they are notoriously hard to draw I actually enjoyed this more than drawing the model. We had a little more time on each one and I think they turned out quite nicely even though the fingers are looking a little chubby. We did do a final piece but unfortunately I used a yellow pencil for a part of it and it just isn't showing up in the photo so I left this one out.
I must apologise in advance for the photo quality, if I had done them any lighter the glare off the paper would have been too much so this is the best I could do.
For our first life drawing session of this term, we took part in similar activities that we did last project. To begin with we did some quick figure sketches that we had about 3 minutes on each . I am happy that I got the main shape of the model into the drawing but I would have liked more time on each one to be able to go back and add more detail as I am not pleased with how these turned out. I think anatomy really is something I struggle with and is something I hope to improve on.
Next we worked on expressions which is something I am a little more comfortable drawing due to my style being rather cartoony. Again I found time restraints of under 5 minutes frustrating as I like taking my time with a piece and getting in all the details and making it look the best I can be. Similarly with the more detailed facial drawing below, although we had more time I didn't feel comfortable drawing this as I would have liked to have gotten the key features in properly instead of just roughly sketching them. I don't like this piece at all as I made her look much older than she actually is. I know I feel quite negative about my life drawing but I am positive that it is something I can improve on.
Session 2
For our second session we started similarly to the last session we had, starting with anatomy study and figure shape but this time we were given an ink pen to use. Sadly I wasn't really a fan on this pen as we had around 3 minutes on each sketch and I spent most of that time reapplying ink to the nib. Doing some anatomy is something that is really going to help me improve so it needs to be done.
After this we were started looking at hands and even though they are notoriously hard to draw I actually enjoyed this more than drawing the model. We had a little more time on each one and I think they turned out quite nicely even though the fingers are looking a little chubby. We did do a final piece but unfortunately I used a yellow pencil for a part of it and it just isn't showing up in the photo so I left this one out.
Saturday 15 February 2014
Progression of my Zbrush model
1. The Head
After having a little trouble with the symmetry I finally got it sorted and started working on my characters head, starting off by using Zspheres and working from there. I find that the ZSpheres are a really nice starting point to create a model and are so easy to use. As my design was in 2D I had to work out how all the pieces on her head would work and have to be placed to make it look like my concept. This took a lot of moving and placing but I finally got there.
After that I created a adaptive skin and just keep tweaking it to make sure I was getting the right shapes and that each piece was smooth. I then had a little trouble with remembering how to add the eyes but I got there eventually and ended up with a piece I was happy with.
2. Creating the body and adding the head
I found working on the body fairly easy as I have already had a go before which didn't turn out so well but this time I managed to get it right. Once the adaptive skin was turned on I was able to change the size of the waist and bust to make it fit the design I drew up as they were a little thicker than I would have wanted.
Once I was happy with what I had made I added the head I had previously created in as a new sub tool. The sizing was an issue as I found the 'move' and 'scale' tools very difficult to use this time around as they were never consistent and kept doing what I didn't want them to do. I managed to work it out in the end, only to find that the symmetry on the body I had created has gone slightly off so my tutor Mark had to help me sort it out.
After these string of problem were resolved I was able to mask off an area of a body and create the dress. Unfortunately some of the 2d elements didn't come across brilliantly in this part of the 3D sculpting process but I made do and I am still pleased with how it looks.
After having a little trouble with the symmetry I finally got it sorted and started working on my characters head, starting off by using Zspheres and working from there. I find that the ZSpheres are a really nice starting point to create a model and are so easy to use. As my design was in 2D I had to work out how all the pieces on her head would work and have to be placed to make it look like my concept. This took a lot of moving and placing but I finally got there.
After that I created a adaptive skin and just keep tweaking it to make sure I was getting the right shapes and that each piece was smooth. I then had a little trouble with remembering how to add the eyes but I got there eventually and ended up with a piece I was happy with.
2. Creating the body and adding the head
I found working on the body fairly easy as I have already had a go before which didn't turn out so well but this time I managed to get it right. Once the adaptive skin was turned on I was able to change the size of the waist and bust to make it fit the design I drew up as they were a little thicker than I would have wanted.
Once I was happy with what I had made I added the head I had previously created in as a new sub tool. The sizing was an issue as I found the 'move' and 'scale' tools very difficult to use this time around as they were never consistent and kept doing what I didn't want them to do. I managed to work it out in the end, only to find that the symmetry on the body I had created has gone slightly off so my tutor Mark had to help me sort it out.
After these string of problem were resolved I was able to mask off an area of a body and create the dress. Unfortunately some of the 2d elements didn't come across brilliantly in this part of the 3D sculpting process but I made do and I am still pleased with how it looks.
3. Adding the back piece and finishing off the model
The back piece of the dress was something I was looking forward to creating as this was actually concepting in Zbrush instead of sticking with the design. I needed to make sure it look nice and fitted well at the back so I started off with Zspheres again to get the basic shape and smooth it down.
This worked out nicely and I was then able to add it as a new sub tool and sort out the sizing issue to make sure it wasn't to big. As my character is a ghostly spite I wanted her skin to be smooth without any bumps except from some of the 'wings' which have a outlined pattern on them which I had to add in.
After a little tweaking and making sure everything looked right I had completed finished my final design. Overall, for a first model, I am very pleased with it. It has turned out pretty much exactly how I had planned it too.
ZBrush modelling mess up
After I learnt how to create ZSpheres and apply I adaptive skin, I started working on the main body of my nature sprite. This started out really well and I was getting the exact shape I needed and I hoped once is was finished I would be able to start sculpting into this. Unfortunately when the body shape was finished I noticed that the symmetry was no longer central and had gone off to one side. When I first made this error I had no clue what I had done and was incredibly frustrated that I had to redo the whole thing, but looking back on it I think I had pressed the 'perspective distortion' button which had caused it to lose the perfect symmetry. This is something I will have to remember for next time.
Saturday 8 February 2014
Second ZBrush Practice
Practice at sculpting a face
So before I started making my final sculpture for my project I wanted to get a little bit of practice in so I was used to the software. Instead of going a little crazy like I did on my dragon head, I decided to practice making a female face in my art style. This usually consist of big eyes and a small button nose so I started working on these element first.
As you can see this is far from being finished as I need to work out how to add eyes to the sockets and then add more clay to create hair and eyebrows. I will definitely keep working on this as I am really pleased with how it's turned out so far, even if it does look really creepy at the moment.
So before I started making my final sculpture for my project I wanted to get a little bit of practice in so I was used to the software. Instead of going a little crazy like I did on my dragon head, I decided to practice making a female face in my art style. This usually consist of big eyes and a small button nose so I started working on these element first.
As you can see this is far from being finished as I need to work out how to add eyes to the sockets and then add more clay to create hair and eyebrows. I will definitely keep working on this as I am really pleased with how it's turned out so far, even if it does look really creepy at the moment.
Wednesday 5 February 2014
Zbrush Practices
Zspheres
These are a few random practices I did using Zbrush to get the hang of the Zspheres which I will be using to create the body of my character so I thought it was important to have a little experiment with them.
For the first two I was practicing with creating a seahorse as I thought the structure of it would be nice and easy to start off with. This is a model which I may go back and complete if I find the time. The middle pieces are just me mucking around with different creature designs but 10 - 13 are of a stylised human body I was having a practice with creating. I think it turned out quite nicely for a first try at creating a body in Zbrush and could be a design that I carry on in my free time.
These are a few random practices I did using Zbrush to get the hang of the Zspheres which I will be using to create the body of my character so I thought it was important to have a little experiment with them.
For the first two I was practicing with creating a seahorse as I thought the structure of it would be nice and easy to start off with. This is a model which I may go back and complete if I find the time. The middle pieces are just me mucking around with different creature designs but 10 - 13 are of a stylised human body I was having a practice with creating. I think it turned out quite nicely for a first try at creating a body in Zbrush and could be a design that I carry on in my free time.
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