Unit 12 – Evaluation

Final Evaluation for Unit 12 ‘Outer Worlds’

For this project I have collected different types of research. For primary research I used a picture of my uncle who was in the army as my main demon character wears a general’s uniform so I can reference that picture. Also, I used one of the pictures I took of a castle for the environment in my poster, I traced round the image of my castle except using different colours and having less detail. For secondary research I created mood boards on Pinterest so I can gather some general ideas and basic concepts for characters and backgrounds. When I was drawing my characters I always used reference like for when I was drawing my hellhound I used a picture of a wolf to get the proportions right. One of the artists that I had looked at was Satoshi Kadowaki who is the artist for Seraph Of The End which is an animated show. I took inspiration from him as I liked the way he designed the characters and that you could easily see their personality from the way he drew them.

One of the problems that I encountered was when I was producing my final outcome. I wanted to try and do the poster just using a shade of red and the picture would be encased in an outline of the main characters head. I tried to do this a few times but every time something just looked off so I restarted and went with my backup idea. Another problem that I had was designing the background as I didn’t know what to really put in it except from a castle. To overcome this I looked on Pinterest at Castle posters and saw that they had mountains and a landscape in front of them. Also, when I was drawing my character I had some input from my peers who helped me get proportions and colours right.

Whilst I was doing my project I was planning what I was doing next throughout my blog when I had posted research and early stages of development. I showed that I had a specific task that I wanted to achieve next and how I was going to do it. I also had my tutor go through my folder mid-way through the project where I was given a sheet on what I have done and what I needed to do next. I think I timescaled my project quite well as I had most tasks completed with a week left of the project, but I think I could have let more time at the end to tie up loose ends if I hadn’t completed anything.

I didn’t use many different practical skills as I only stuck to some painting and drawing. I wanted to try a technique called Photobashing where you use a lot of different pictures to create one big image or background. Unfortunately I couldn’t do this technique as you have to use photos that you took yourself and I left it too late in the project to try it out. I did most of my work digitally using a graphics tablet, I mainly used this when I was finalising ideas and concepts to give the drawings a much cleaner finish then doing it by pencil. When I was painting I tried to use watercolours for the first time instead of poster paint because when you use water colours you can have multiple shades of colours and are able to create a different finish then poster paint. I also had to use a bit of perspective when I was testing out what my background could look like but in the end I just stuck to drawing the castle facing forwards.

Throughout the project I have reflected on my work using my blog. I did this so I can see what went wrong and right for each part of my project like with the character designs. So when I did a post I reflected on what work I had just done and what the next step was, and when I was using my blog I used the correct grammar and tried to use professional mannerisms and technical terms when describing my work. If I was to revisit the project I would leave myself more time to do the final outcome as I only had two weeks to complete it. Also, I would also delve deeper into different practical skills and mark making so I can use the marks in my backgrounds

Unit 12 – Target Audience Responses

I asked some of my family members the same three questions about my project and above are there answers to what I had asked them. The first question was Would you play my game? The second was What do you think about my characters? The last was What do you think about my environment?

Unit 10 – Evaluation

Final Evaluation for Unit 10 – ’Lost and Found’                                                                                         

For the secondary research that I have gathered in this unit I have created some mood boards on Pinterest to gather some basic ideas together and I did this for the characters and environments that were similar to the things I wanted to create. Other secondary research that I gathered was from reading books that we had in our cupboard. For primary research I took some pictures of old and new houses to see how to create the background and I documented all this information on my blog. By using the photos and books that I read I created more accurate buildings to show how an abandoned house would look. The min designer that I looked at was Philippe Morin who was one of the level designers for Outlast which has a similar background to one I wanted to create. So I looked at how he designed the haunted asylum and village in Outlast 2. In these backgrounds that he created the lighting that he used makes the scene scarier and most of the environment is dark and has little light which I also did in my final outcome.

One of the problems that I encountered whilst doing this project was when I was trying different colours to use for my background. I wanted to do the colours dark because there won’t be any light in the scene except from a flashlight. Also, because there were a lot of wooden planks in the scene I had to use colours that compliment brown, and to adjust the brightness problem I just used the brightness effect on each layer. Another problem that I had with the background was that I couldn’t get the perspective right so I had to try different angles out. Another problem that I had was getting the proportions right on the antagonist that I drew as I wanted him to be quite toned, to fix this I used a book that we had in the cupboard which shows how to draw each different body part.

For some of the planning I wrote down some tasks on post-it notes which I needed to complete, I did this so every time I opened up my folder I knew I had so goals I needed to complete. When I was working at home I had reminders set on my phone to tell me what tasks I had to do. I have put screenshots of the reminders on my phone on my blog and wrote some annotations to go with them. For timescale I could have planned my project out a little better as I finished most of my final outcomes with a few days left so I could have left some days near the end if anything ever went wrong. Whilst using my blog I wrote what I needed and planned to do on some of the posts like the character and environment design so I know what I needed to do.

In my project I didn’t really try different practical techniques as I just did drawings and tried some painting out but it didn’t go well. For drawing I did all the sketches and initial ideas on paper and then finalised the idea and put all the colour and shadows on in Photoshop. In my ideas I tried out different colours and blending for each character and the environment to test out what fit the project best. For my background I tried out different colours which would work well with brown as there were lots of wood elements in my background. When drawing the wooden planks in my project I used a thin line throughout the wood plank to give them texture and I gave them slight cracks to show that they had been there for a long time.

On my blog I posted my designs throughout the project and in the posts I critiqued my work saying what I could’ve done to improve the piece, also whilst I was working I had my peers help me by saying what I could’ve improved on especially on the anatomy and proportions of the body as I struggle with this. I changed a few ideas and poses based on what me and my peers thought about how it looked mainly for the antagonist of my story as the changed a lot throughout the project. If I as going to to do this project again

I would spend less time on the character and environment designs because I took too long on them always trying something new. I would also get more primary research as I didn’t have too much to go off like buildings and the body,

I have tried to achieve a high level of presentation in my work by sorting all of my work in my folder into a specific order so anyone can pick it up and know what is happening and on the pieces of work that I have done I have tried to make them as neat as possible so they look aesthetically pleasing. On my blog I have used good quality photos of my work and when annotating the work I have not just done one word sentences as I went into detail about what I wanted to do next.

Unit 11 – Portfolio

This is the home page for my portfolio which I created on the Wix website. On the homepage I wanted to keep it simple so I have buttons in the top right which link to my other pages and at the bottom I have a simple description of what I’m doing at the moment at college.

This is the Year 1 page on my portfolio which includes art from different units that I did like Life Drawing, character illustrations and my Final Major Project.

This is the Year 2 page on my portfolio which includes my character design work, environment design and some life drawing but later on I can include my fmp work on here.

Unit 12 – Final Outcome Poster

For my final outcome I wanted to create a poster. I wanted to create the look like the main character is opposing anyone who tries to take his castle. For the castle in the background I traced over a picture of a castle that I have taken myself, and I drew the trees in the foreground so you can kind of tell how far away the castle actually is. For the sky I just used the gradient tool and added some clouds using a dark red and the brush tool because it looked empty without anything there

Unit 10 – Shadow design

For the design of my shadow character I wanted to draw a character that somewhat looks humanoid but has extended limbs and because he is a shadow is black but with white glowing eyes.

I first tried the character with a straight outline around the character but I thought the sketchy aspect would suit the character better to make him look more like a monster. For the eyes I wanted them to be pure white but glowing and I did this effect i nphotoshop with the outer glow effect and when the character is placed in a dark background the eyes really stand out.

Unit 10 – Final animation assets

This is the design that I used for the flashlight. For the main body of the flashlight I looked at some designs online and then drew my own out in Photoshop. For the light effect I used the brush tool and set the hardness to low and same for the opacity so the background could come through simulating a light.

This is the final design for my environment. I created this in photoshop using the brush tool and shape tool to create the straight lines. For the colours all the wood sections are all brown so for the walls and curtain I wanted to use the opposite colour of brown which is purple. But because this is meant to be a horror game I needed to make the scene darker and I did this by going into image, adjustment and then brightness to make the scene dark.

Unit 10 – Final Outcome

For my final outcome I had to create a gif which was instructed in the brief. A gif only has to be a few seconds long that’s why I only decided to only do one scene which involved the character lifting and turning on a flashlight then a monster appearing as a shadow in front of him. To create the gif I used photoshop where I put all the assets into the background and just turned off if you could see certain layers to make the animation.

For the sound aspect I went online and downloaded free sound effects and went into an app called Sony Vegas to edit the video and put the sound effects that I downloaded into the video.

Unit 10 – Character Design

This is the final design for the main antagonist in my unit 10 project. The main character is a blind samurai who was killed in battle by his own commander and therefore remained a spirit because of his thirst for revenge. The blue fire on the left shoulder and left-hand side of the face is to show that he has the mark of being a spirit. For more annotation read the sheet above.

This is the final design of my main character for my Unit 10 project who is a teenage boy who finds his way to an abandoned house and has to find his way out. He wears a simple pair of black jeans and shoes and a dark blue hoodie. Fir more info read theres annotation on the sheet.

Unit 12 – Poster

For my final piece I am going to do a poster. The dimensions for my final outcome are a3 which is a standard size. The final outcome will all be hand drawn with a castle in the background and the main character stood in the foreground.

I saw this piece on Pinterest and it inspired me to do something similar with the drawing being held within a wolf and all being the same colour just different shades.

I tried to do something like this in Photoshop but I didn’t think it looked that great so I decided to change up my idea to something similar and not just use one colour like I did before.