My work so far

Discussing my project with my tutor



Although I had a fairly solid idea of what I wanted to produce for BA6, I still hadn't had a opportunity to run my idea past any of my tutors which meant I could essentially be working on something that was completely wrong. So I decided to book a meeting with my Tutor Nigel so I would be able to discuss my project with him and make sure that I was on the right track.

The meeting I had with Nigel wasn't incredibly long but was packed full of really usual feedback and resources for me to take on board and look into. He seemed to be really pleased with the idea I was choosing to focus on and we were able to discuss a large amount of the concepts I was thinking about in a lot of detail due to our common interest in the topic. As well as discussing different inevitable situations that the human race find themselves in, Nigel also recommended two different pieces of media for me to look into if I wanted to do a little more relaxed research on futuristic interpretations of mankind. These were the 1995 sci-fi movie 'Species' and the 2004 Canadian series 'ReGenesis'. Each piece shows a different variation of what the future of mankind could become so these could help to give me a few situational ideas and more inspired designs later on in the process. Although he did warn me not to research too much otherwise I may make the mistake of BA5 and not leave myself enough time to complete the artwork.

Advertisement posters for 'Species' and 'ReGenesis'

Nigel was able to talk to me about how I could possibly go about producing my concept art for this project and gave me loads of useful tips on how I could keep my work and designs following as well as what different techniques I could use to help try and improve my particular style and drawing skills. One example he gave me which I thought was really useful was how I could go about different iterations on a characters face so for example if I was wanting to work on things such as facial expression or details such has hairstyles, I can draw a base head which is of fairly simplistic design and then copy and paste it a few times so I have a good selection of them and then just begin to paint on top of them, adding in different design features on each one. This is a great time saving technique and will allow a lot of different important design iterations in one big chunk. It will also help to stop me from going into too much detail and wasting valuable time when I am in the creative process. An example of this technique can be seen below.

Art by Loston Wallace 

Nigel also spoke to me about how much detail I actually needed to go into when I create my design work. He and I both know I have a bad tendency to spend far too long trying to perfect my work and drawings, making them incredibly neat and getting them to a stage where I am pleased with them. He told me that the way I have to look at is that dictionary definition for the  'concept' is 'idea', this means that concept art is actually meant to be fairly rough, not a big polished final piece. Many of the work produced by actual concepts artists is very quick sketches and ideas dotted down into on paper. All the 'concept art' you see in the art books for games or films are just all completed final piece of art that have had a large amount of time spent on them and are produced nearer the end of the production process. They aren't the original concepts that kick started the ideas or designs. Artist in the industry don't have time to make ever single one of their concepts polished to perfection, like the artwork you see in the art books, those types of piece are produced simply so that they can release them to the public and get them excited about the piece of media being released. Most potential buyers wouldn't be impressed or temped to buy the product if all that is released are the rough scrawls and sketches of the original concept art.

I think this is a really important thing that I will need to bare in mind when I get onto the design side of my project and hopefully it will motivate me to be a bit quicker and rougher with my sketch work instead of being extremely anal about my line art. All of the advice I was given by Nigel during this session was really helpful and now I feel a lot more confident about producing the concept art with the ideas I am going with and have more clearer mindset of what work I want to produce now that I know I am on the right track.

Starting with the basics

Videos focusing on the future of the human race 

After watching 'End of the world night' I felt like I had collected a large amount of information, details and facts on the topic I wanted to focus on for this project but I did feel like that wasn't enough research for me to be able to use to get some solid design ideas. So what I needed to do next was to start off at the beginning with my research on this topic so I can go over each area in enough detail so that I understand it a little better. 

I decided to begin my further research into the inevitable end of mankind by starting with a looking into brief generalisation of the subject, trying to find information that doesn't just focus on one subject like nuclear war or pandemics, I wanted to get some more facts about the subject in general. Seeing as last time I was able to get a learn a lot about the future mankind by watching a television programme and I usually find that I learn things easier if it is showed via a video instead of just reading off a screen, I decided to have a little browse on YouTube to see if their were any videos on this certain topic. Luckily as this is an ever developing and constantly current topic there were plenty of different videos for me to have a look at. 

Unfortunately not all of the videos I watched were as good as each other and obviously weren't all on a professional level. Some of the ones that I did find with a lot relevant information in I have posted below so that I am able to refer back to them in the future. The most interesting videos I found on the generalisation of the future of mankind featured The American futurist, theoretical physicist and popularizer of science, Michio Kaku. Kaku is a Professor of Theoretical Physics at the City College of New York and has been awared a 'Klopsteg Memorial Award' in 2008 for his studies into the future of humanity. He has also written three 'New York Times Best Sellers' based on this topic which are 'Physics of the Impossible' (2008), Physics of the Future' (2011) and The Future of the Mind' (2014).  He is a scientist who as dedicated a large amount of his life to studying this topic and that clearly came across in the videos I watched of him. He had some very interesting theories and points to make in each one which has helped me think about which 'future circumstances' do I want to make designs for? I can't pick all of them as that will take far to long. 

There are also a lot more talks and articles that Kaku has produced will I will be able to watch later on in this project if I still need inspiration. 

Looking into the future of mankind

Basic knowledge and learning the facts


The next stage of my research process is to begin looking at the more scientific side of my chosen project, which is focusing on the many different futures that could await man kind. Even though I have a pretty solid and clear idea of what I am focusing on and want to produce, there is a lot of information on my chosen topic that I don't actually know as a large amount of it is based on statistics and scientific fact which means I am going to have to do a large sum of research to make sure that I am getting all of the right information down about each threat that mankind could come up against. As my designs are going to be based off of the information about each of these future situations it is important for me to look into as much as possible so I have plenty of information and ideas to inspire my work.

Over the Easter break, which I was spent mainly relaxing, I noticed there was a programme being repeatedly advertised on tv which was a documentary doing a countdown of the most likely thing in the future that was going to wipe out a good deal of mankind from least likely to most likely. The programme was called 'End of the world night' and aired on Channel 4. This seemed to be a weird bit of fate as I had been hoping there would be a programme focusing on a topic similar to this which I could simply watch and take notes from instead of raiding the web for information in the first place. So I sat down with the programme that would usually last around an hour and a half but as I was pausing it constantly to write down notes, it lasted a tad longer for me, roughly around 3 hours but I did managed to get down a huge chunk of information that was given. I did hand write these notes originally but I thought it would be simpler for me to type them up and put them on my blog so I can have all of my references and research all in one place. The notes I made are typed up below.

My notes from the programme 'End of the world night'

Channel 4

• Humanity has been on earth for 2,000 years.
• ‘Deep Impact’ (1998) – FILM
• Different ends to humanity could possibly be global pandemic, nuclear accident, climate change and asteroids.
• Oxford’s the future of humanity institute
• Founder is Nick Bostrom 
•  Look into the term existential risk
• Dr Anders Sandberg – works at the institute at oxford martin school
• 90% chance of mankind being around at the end of centaury
• Cambridge studies the elements of an existential risk
• Martin Reese, ‘Astronomer Royal’, quotes that “I think we have a bumpy ride through this century, an important maxim is that the unfamiliar is not the same as the improbable”  

Alien invasion

• ‘War of the worlds’ (2005) – FILM
• The British ministry of defence had an UFO bureau which closed down due to a lack of evidence.
• The SETI Institute in California spend around 2 million dollars studying for intelligent life in space
• Alien invasion is very low on the probability scale
• Panspermia – Life brought on a comet
•  It is a possibility that mankind is actually an alien species that arrived on earth as bacteria on a comet.
•  Prof. Chandra Wickramasinghe, director, Buckingham centre for astrobiology quotes that “there are around 1.4 billon habitable planets exist in our galaxy”
• Aliens are the least of our worries besides other events that could affect us

Asteroid strike

• ‘Armageddon’ (1998) - FILM
•  One Asteroid strike has already wiped out a group of creatures, leading to a mass extinction, the death of the dinosaurs. Could this sort of event happen again?
• It has been 65 million years since dinosaurs roamed the earth
•  Prof. Christopher Riley, University of Lincoln quoted that if we were to be hit by a asteroid “we would get an advanced wave of debris that tends to be surrounding a comet as I gets closer to the sun”
• A debris cloud would look like a meteor shower from earth
• Martin Reese quotes that “there are a million asteroids in our solar system that have a potential to  strike earth and destroy a city”
• Rosetta mission (2004) was a mission to land a craft on an asteroid which succeeded
• One in a million chance of an asteroid wiping out mankind

The sun dying out

• ‘Sunshine’ (2007) – FILM
• The plot of sunshine is that mankind sends a nuclear device into the sun to try and reignite it as it quickly starting to die.
•  The colour white helps to reflect the radiation and heat of the sun
• The sun is around 5 million years old
• The earths sun is very slowly burning through its hydrogen reserves
• There are roughly around 5 billion years left until the sun dies out so mankind being wiped out by this event is a long way into the future so mankind will actually end up ‘killing itself’ before the sun will be able to

Super Volcano

• ‘2012’ (2009) - FILM
• There is a super volcano under yellow stone national park in North America
• This volcano hasn’t blown for around 640 thousand years which means this volcano could be ground zero for a natural Armageddon
• Super eruptions happen every 5,000 years or so
• There is a hazard centre at university college London
• Pompeii is an example of a large scale and devastating eruption.
• The 2010 volcanic eruption in Iceland managed to effect a large amount of people around the world, with flights having to be halted because of the ash it through up
• Prof. Clive Oppenhelmer, University of Cambridge, studies these type of events
• Sulphur gases spread globally when eruptions occur
• A super volcano is Toba, Indonesia, which erupted around 70 thousand years ago left a crater which is 62 miles long which has now become a large lake
• This eruption cooled the entire earth by 10 degrees
• It also plunged the earth into a volcanic winter that many have nearly wiped out mankind due to how deadly it was
• It is said that that this eruption and its side effects caused a dramatic reduction in the number of humans on earth at its time, it possibly reduced mankind to a few thousands individuals for a few centuries
• We would be powerless to stop a super volcano eruption if one happened in this century

Nuclear accidents

• ‘The china syndrome’ (1979) – FILM  
• 12 days after this film about the danger of nuclear power plants was released there was a real life nuclear accident at a spot called 3 mile island which was 11 miles away from Harrisburg Pennsylvania.
• In this event, the cooling systems failed at the nuclear power plant on 3 mile island and the staff were then accused that they acted irresponsibly and weren’t paying attention properly.
• All nuclear accident have been less apocalyptic than people have imagined.
• The world’s worst nuclear reactor accident was at Chernobyl and only killed 50 or so people even though the gravity of the event seemed pretty awful as the whole roof of the power plant blew off and released harmful gases into the building and area outside
• Now that time has passed and the area is now clean, people can go walk around the inside of the building to see the damage caused and go deep into the rooms were the radioactive materials were leaked as it is no longer a harmful room to be in.
• There were no strange mutations to be found that is an event which is normally portrayed is in pop culture when there has been a nuclear accident or radiation leak
• These type of accidents shouldn’t be taken likely though, they could still be a real hazard if they are on a larger more deadly scale
•  Nuclear fission is the earth whereas nuclear fusion – Sun

     Artificial intelligence and android uprising

• ‘Terminator 2: Judgement day’ (1991) – FILM
• Artificial intelligence could be very dangerous for mankind
• Stephen Hawking quotes that “I think the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race”
• We need to make sure that ‘unfriendly’ AI does not happen
• Murray Shanaham, Professor of cognitive robotics, imperial college London quotes that “the concern is that AI could go wrong in an all manner of ways”
• Bristol’s robotics lab is at the for front of creating intelligent life
• A member of staff looking into and creating robotics in Bristol is Prof. Alan Winfield who works at the University of the West of England
•  First generation robots are kept away from humans and go jobs such as building cars, appliances like washing machines or do more flashy tasks like exploring different planets
• Second generation robots work alongside humans
• ‘Baxter’ is a robot designed to be a smarter and safer robot. It can learn by example rather than having to be programmed by code
• The robots we have now ‘aren’t very smart at all’ but it is said that we will have super intelligence in robots or other machines before the end of this century

      Zombies

• ’28 days later’ (2002) – FILM
• ‘Zombies’ are more possible than aliens
• Manmade viruses could cause a serious and deadly pandemic if released
• A manmade pandemic could be caused by accident and, hopefully, not on purpose
• In 2002 researched at stony brook university in New York made a synthetic form of the deadly ‘Polio’ virus. The scientist involved in the creating process said  it was almost ‘too easy’ to do as they simply order all the parts they needed to create the virus and have it sent straight to them
• This experiment was intended as a message, a warning, to show the world that this could be done
• The worrying thing now, with how quickly technology has improved and how much more accessible things have become, very small groups of people could be creating or experiment and create something deadly which could then be potentially released either by accident or on purpose and which could possibly kill hundreds of millions of people
• In 1995, there was a horrific case were 12 people were killed in Tokyo by the deadly Sarin nerve gas. This attack was the work of a small cult who’s leader was Shouko Ashara
• ‘Bioerror’ or ‘Bioterror’ could easily wipe out or badly infect the human race

Climate change

• ‘The day after tomorrow’ (2004) – FILM
• Climate change is a real and happening threat which is effecting earth
• It is an event that can’t easily be pin pointed which makes it rather unpredictable
• Climate change warning first surfaced in the 1950s as an initial pre warning to mankind and has only continued to grow and become far more serious as time went on, leading us up to present day where people still aren’t paying attention to the warnings given
• The weather has gotten pretty drastic and dramatic in recent years and the threat of global warming only continues to grow
• By the end of the 21^st century the best case scenario is that the planet will have warmed by an average of 2 degrees
•  In the case of global emissions we are just above the worst case scenario. We are dangerously close to several tipping points and we will be seeing huge shifts of weather patterns and temperatures in just a few decades
• Humanity can help to see off climate change if we take drastic action NOW but, unfortunately, there is still a large amount of people who believe this is an over dramatization and the earth really isn’t sinking into more and more trouble

      Natural Pandemics

• ‘Outbreak’ (1995) – FILM
• Natural pandemics are a real threat. These have been occurring over and over again throughout time and the growth of humanity
• Ebola is a natural virus that is happening right now
• Imperial college London has a department that studies these types of viruses and one of their top scientists is Prof. Wendy Barclay, chair of influenza virology.
• David L. Heymann, Professor of infectious disease epidemiology at London school of hygiene and tropical medicine is also one of the top in his field when it comes to natural pandemics
• Many pandemics originate from animals
• Hospitals mainly seem to amplify infections or pandemics even though, ironically, they are trying to cure the people who are infected
• Airborne diseases are the most deadly as they can travel anywhere they want and usually travel over large distances, infecting everyone in its path. They are the worst case scenario
• The Spanish Flu was a natural virus that surfaced at the end of the first world war and killed an estimated 50 million people, far more than the amount of people who died In the war itself
• The modern world is making the threat of natural viruses even worse  
• Overcrowding, which is what the earth is suffering from at the moment, is a key problem when it comes to pandemics. It allows the virus to spread faster from host to host is people are in a close proximity
• A natural pandemic is one of the events which is most likely to kill a large amount of the human race

      Nuclear war

• ‘Dr Strangelove or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb’ (1964) – FILM
• This was a dated movie which focused on the frightening but completely possible idea of a nuclear war
• One of the closet threat mankind has had to do with nuclear war was the Cuban missile crisis in 1962
• Basically it was a war between America and Russia about the possibility of Russia hiding nuclear weapons on Cuba, which is extremely and dangerously close to Americas soil
• Nick Cook is a write and defence analyst who is the studying the different possibilities for nuclear war and how it could happen
• Nuclear conflict is a constantly growing threat and ranks the highest in a scale of what event will most likely wipe out mankind as more and more countries are constantly adapting and enhancing their nuclear arsenal for possible use against their enemies
•  Pure luck has kept this nuclear away so far and no one can predict when it could happen which is one of the things that makes it so terrifying  

Overall I found the programme really interesting to watch but, to be honest, also quite morbid as it went into a hell of a lot of detail about the many different ways in which man kind could possibly become extinct, either in a few centuries time or as a year. This was pretty frightening to hear and learn about but I found all the information that was relayed really helpful as I now have more detail on each situation I was thinking about creating designs for, such as a pandemic or nuclear war, instead of just a vague understanding. My next stage of the research process now is to look into each topic that was covered in this programme in more detail, making sure I learn as much as possible so that I have properly influenced and sensible designs later on in the project.

Looking at more character designs

Focusing on existing game characters 


After doing some image research into different 2D character designs of different art styles and mediums I thought it would also be important for me to do a little research into different characters from video games. As what I am designing later on in the creative process would, theoretically be used in a video game which could be made up of 3D animation, depending on which route I choose to go down, it is important to keep this aspect in mind when I am creating my designs so I don't end up with flat designs. So baring this in mind and had a little think about the different games I have played previously and to try and pick out which characters stood out the most to me and stuck in my brain either design and personality wise.

There were a few characters in particular that I had really liked from different games I have played in the past and a few of them can be seen in the images below. Each one of these characters interested me in different ways as they all had their own merits and individual personalities mixed in with a deep and detailed plot. I always seem to find that in a many different mediums, it is always the characters that are the part I focus on or like the most, whether it is a TV or film, or book and this was certainly the case with the characters I have picked out below as they really made the game exciting to play in my personal opinion. For example one of the main reasons I enjoyed playing 'Alice Madness returns' so much is because the main character, Alice Liddell has such a bizarre twisted personality with a back story that was a mystery to the player at the beginning but, as you progressed through the game, you would unlock parts of her story to reveal what happened to Alice in her past. This was a key part of the gameplay that motivated me to keep progressing level by level as I was curious to find out what had happened to Alice to caused her to become this twisted and sour little girl. All of this was simply based off of the fact the she was a interesting character.

It is a well known that a powerful character design can really make a game and build some ones interest to want to play it. This is something I must bare in mind when I get into the creative side of my project and start producing my character designs. I must also remember that supporting characters, may not be AS important as the main protagonist, but they still play a crucial role in adding to the game's story and feel.

Connor Davenport from 'Assassins Creed 3'

Alice Liddell from 'Alice Madness Returns'

Lee Everett from 'The Walking Dead'

Lara Croft from 'Tomb Raider'

Morrigan from 'Dragon Age'

The beginning of my research

Looking at 2D character art 


As for BA6 I have decided to be focusing on 2D character art as my specialised area I decided that I should start off very basically with my research and have a look into different 2D pieces. This would help me right from the beginning of the process to help me to get some artistic and creative inspiration as well as starting thinking about how I want to go about my project, what art style will I be working in, what medium will I use ext. I started off by simply having a browse through the collection of artists pieces I had Favorited from the site 'Deviant art' and picked out a few that were of 2D characters and then put them into few mood boards so I would easily be able to refer back to them if I wanted to use them as a reference for anything. Not all of the pieces I choose were typical characters designs, which usually consist of showing a full body figure so you can see their full design in detail, some of them were simply head and torso pieces that I liked either because of the colouring or expression or just the design in general. Either way, each piece I have picked will become some sort of inspiration to me when I come to designing my characters.

Once I had completed this, I thought about a different aspect I could briefly have a look at. Instead of just looking at character concepts by other artists, I wanted to make another small mood board but this time it would be of different character designs from Animes I have watched. I have spent quite a large amount of time watching Anime as it is my favourite form of 2D animation and one my absolute favourite things. It's many different shows and stories always seem to interest me and make me feel inspired. I had a brain  storm through the large amount of shows I have seen and picked out some images of characters I had liked the most. This aspect will also allow another element of design ideas for me to consider when I get to the creative process.

Now I have completed this small bit of artistic research to begin with, I am going to move onto the more scientific side of my idea, looking at the different circumstances earth could be up against in the future which is something I need to pin point and get done before I continue with anything creatively  design wise.

Focusing on the project brief

What I am thinking about doing for BA6

Today was the second instalment in our introductory lectures to BA6. We weren't really told any extra information on the project itself, it was more of a group discussion were we went round the room and each person was able to explain to the class what their idea was and get feedback from classmates of our tutor Nigel. Unfortunately when they got round to me, like a few other members of the class, I still had no clue what my concept was going to be so I wasn't really able to discuss anything with my peers. Once we had been round the room we were given a little free time to work on whatever we had though up so far and get Nigel's individual help if it was needed. This allowed me to have some time to brainstorm what I could possibly do for 2D character art. 

I remembered from our first lecture Nigel mentioning that we can include a theme to our work which would help give our project meaning right off of the bat, some of the ones mentioned I believe were things alone the line of global warming, sexism, abuse, emotions, ect. These are just random topics that would could use a starting point and then expand from there as Nigel said if you game doesn't have meaning from the beginning, you are pretty much destined to failed this unit. Baring this in mind I started to have a little think about what my concept for BA6 could possibly be.

After a mental brainstorm and scrolling through a few pages on Google, I came to the conclusion that my project would be focused around the ‘the future of humanity’. The future is something people are constantly thinking or fretting about and this is simply because no one really knows what is going to happen. We can only predict the events that will occur in many years to come but until we get to that point it time it will only be speculation. These speculations of the future are thoughts that people have everyday of their lives, whether it is something small and petty such as thinking about what they are going to have for dinner tomorrow, or predictions that are on a much larger scale and effect a far wider range of people, such as what will come on humanity in the future if an epidemic breaks out and kills hundreds of thousands of people? There are many different growing issues that face the human race at this current place and time which could very easily spiral out of control and end with a large amount of the Earth's population being wiped out. These complications are either repeats of past events such as a epidemic break out or a natural disaster such as tsunami, or they are a rapidly growing, overwhelming new issue such as the theory of global warming  or how the earth is going to be effected once our sun dies and transforms into a nuclear radiating ball white dwarf. So, what will happen to the humans when one of these future events take place?

What I would like to focus on is the how the humans of Earth are going to adapt to their new, possibly lethal and very advanced environment in the future. Each possible speculated event would affect them differently which means there are many different cosmetic or design changes that could happen to a human. This is an area that I would love to focus on as it holds a wide range of different possibilities for me to create an come up and I believe that it would be really interesting to envision the humans of the future in different situations. 

Now that I have my creative idea in mind it is up to me to think of what work I would realistically like to produce by the end of the unit so that I have a clear goal to work towards through out the project and am less likely to change my mind part way through. Although I don't have a final idea set in stone of what I want to produce, I know it is going to revolve around creating 2D character art so this is my starting point. From here it would be wise of me to research into pre existing piece of 2D character concept art for inspiration and stylistic ideas. 

The beginning of BA6

The new brief 


Now that the small break after BA5 is officially over it is time for us to move onto our newest assignment, BA6. We were all told very briefly what it is we would be doing for this unit a pretty long time ago so a refreshment lecture was in order for us all to learn probably what it was we would be doing and what work we needed to complete. 

In our most recent group lecture we were told that BA6 is all specialism project. This essentially means that each student much choose a certain artistic area that they would like to focus on for the duration of this project. It must be fairly specific and be a medium that the student feels most comfortable with and is most likely to continue to focus on in the future. This could be anything really, from 2D environment art to 3D modelling, as long as it links in with game design, we can choose it. We must then, after our specialist area is chosen, create a small project to our own specifications that must include an important and key aspect which is to strongly focus on the meaning behind the project work we are producing. We mustn't simply come up with a concept and then have no other basis behind it, it must be a detailed and thought through idea that has a strong and understandable premise. This project is very strong focused on making sure we are creating meaningful work so when I start thinking about a concept I must bare this factor in mind. 

Overall although we have only been given a very brief introduction as to what we need to focus on for this unit, with more expansive lectures to come in the next week, I am really looking forward to this unit. It looks like it is fairly open so I will be able to work on something that I feel comfortable and happy with which with hopefully keep me motivated through out. I really do not want a repeat of what happened in BA5 so it is crucial for me this term to keep up to date with everything I am doing and to not let myself fall behind or become overally stressed. I am a little worried about how I am going to keep myself motivated over the three week Easter break we have coming up but hopefully I will find a way to be able to balance work and enjoying the holiday at the same time. 

Right now I am not really sure what I want to do for this project.I know that I am most comfortable with 2D character design so that makes sense for my to be focusing on as my specialist subject but then I don't really have a meaningful concept to work with at the moment. So my goal by the end of this week is to have a solid idea which a good am mount of research behind so I don't find myself lost and losing focus throughout the 3 week break. This also means that I will have an opportunity to talk to my tutors about it too and get there feedback so that I can make sure I am focusing on the right thing because there would be nothing worse than me coming back after Easter and realising I had been doing completely the wrong thing. The next stage for me now is to have a good think about the concept I want to work on and what I want to be able to produce. I have posted the brief for BA6 bellow so that it will be easier for me to refer to as I work though my project and check the specifications of what work I need to produce.