Friday 11 December 2015
Thursday 10 December 2015
Management evidence and evaluation, Organisation, positives and negatives of product, action plan for self improvement (1000 words)
Joseph Shaw
P13202443
Throughout the style matrix project I chose to specialise exclusively in doing 2d character concepts, I did all three character concept briefs within each of the three style guides. The reason I chose to do this is simply because character design and concepting is something that I have always enjoyed, and is something I wish to pursue and specialise in further alongside improving my drawing ability and draftsmanship. I also saw these projects as an opportunity to learn and prepare for my final major project, which I had already decided was going to be heavily character oriented. Doing these projects allowed me to pinpoint my strengths and weaknesses and what I need to consider most when tackling my FMP.
I generally started each of the three projects in the same way, by first doing some kind of research, whether in the form of collecting reference material or looking to existing artists and concepts for inspiration. After that, I began concepting initial ideas by doing quick sketches and plenty of thumbnails to work up from. Along the way I would implement reference as I saw fit. I would also look at the way other artists had used design language to communicate an idea in order to understand how or why something worked or didn't work and to see how I could put similar design tools and theories into practice within my own work. I found that this was an effective way to gage the level of my own work and concepts and be analytical, however sometimes resulted in work that looked more derivative than original.
For the most part, I was fairly pleased with the final outcomes of each of the three projects. However, after reflecting on the work I can see a lot of room for improvement, both in terms of actual idea and technical execution. One the main areas for improvement that I could see which was also picked up on by other people, was giving more time to the development and generating of ideas earlier on. During the style matrix projects I often stuck closely to an initial idea, without giving myself room for play or experimentation. This was mainly due to the relatively short time span of each project, however doing this only hindered potentially better ideas from growing. Before starting my FMP, I am going to take into account the amount of time I need to allow myself for experimentation and development of an actual range of ideas in order to give myself a lot of material to work with early on. Likewise, something else I need to consider when creating characters for my FMP is how long it is going to take me to produce a ‘finalized’ outcome, as well the level of finish I am aiming for with the fully realized concepts. This is very important as it is a determining factor in how many characters I should aim to produce in the given time.
When producing my final outcomes I constantly thought about how I could achieve a finished look in the most efficient way, that also fit the style guide. I needed to develop a reliable method or approach that I could use when creating a finished character. Having a specific method to painting characters in each project definitely helped to keep the characters styles consistent. For example, in the highly stylised Nano pirate project I used flat colours with single shadows to achieve a cartoonish look. For the most part however, the success of a character design was not determined by the method or style but in the actual application of fundamentals and design ideas. In the heavily armoured character project for example, it was very important that the character looked realistic, and I achieved this by using more realistic proportions, anatomy and poses in I comparison to the stylized nano pirates project.
I thought one of the main positives of my final outcomes in the three projects were the characters themselves. I was able to put solid understanding of anatomy, gesture and shape into practice, to create characters that were convincing and conveyed some sense of actual character through posture or body language. I also made an effort to try and create different and interesting value structures, looking at ways to use a range of values within my characters.
In the case of one project that required twelve characters I reached a point where some of the designs started to echo each other and look too similar. Most of the twelve characters in my nano pirates project had very solid shapes that made them distinct from all the rest, however several of them recycled similar design language and could easily be taken as a different or weaker iteration of the same character. This is very important to consider as I plan to design at least fifteen characters for my FMP . If all my characters are all going to be executed in the same style I will have to think of ways to make each character unique and distinctive, through not just shape but also colour, gender, archetype or ethnicity etc.
In summary, the key thing I have taken away from the style matrix projects is the importance of allowing time for development of ideas, and allowing time to fail and experiment early on. Doing so does not only help narrow down a successful design but also gives me a lot more material to work with later on. Generating concepts is as much about finding out what you aren't looking for as what you are looking for. Something else I have learned is that while it won't improve your design any further, it is a good idea to develop a solid and reliable method to stick to when executing the final concepts. Doing so helps your concepts to remain consistent with each other and within the style guide. When beginning my FMP I plan to use a calendar to allocate time periods for each stage of the project, beginning with initial research, concepting and exploration, and then allocating individual time slots for each unique character to be realized and ready for presentation. I will also have to allocate time for putting the work together as a book, poster or development diary, ready to be printed and presented as a final outcome.
P13202443
Throughout the style matrix project I chose to specialise exclusively in doing 2d character concepts, I did all three character concept briefs within each of the three style guides. The reason I chose to do this is simply because character design and concepting is something that I have always enjoyed, and is something I wish to pursue and specialise in further alongside improving my drawing ability and draftsmanship. I also saw these projects as an opportunity to learn and prepare for my final major project, which I had already decided was going to be heavily character oriented. Doing these projects allowed me to pinpoint my strengths and weaknesses and what I need to consider most when tackling my FMP.
I generally started each of the three projects in the same way, by first doing some kind of research, whether in the form of collecting reference material or looking to existing artists and concepts for inspiration. After that, I began concepting initial ideas by doing quick sketches and plenty of thumbnails to work up from. Along the way I would implement reference as I saw fit. I would also look at the way other artists had used design language to communicate an idea in order to understand how or why something worked or didn't work and to see how I could put similar design tools and theories into practice within my own work. I found that this was an effective way to gage the level of my own work and concepts and be analytical, however sometimes resulted in work that looked more derivative than original.
For the most part, I was fairly pleased with the final outcomes of each of the three projects. However, after reflecting on the work I can see a lot of room for improvement, both in terms of actual idea and technical execution. One the main areas for improvement that I could see which was also picked up on by other people, was giving more time to the development and generating of ideas earlier on. During the style matrix projects I often stuck closely to an initial idea, without giving myself room for play or experimentation. This was mainly due to the relatively short time span of each project, however doing this only hindered potentially better ideas from growing. Before starting my FMP, I am going to take into account the amount of time I need to allow myself for experimentation and development of an actual range of ideas in order to give myself a lot of material to work with early on. Likewise, something else I need to consider when creating characters for my FMP is how long it is going to take me to produce a ‘finalized’ outcome, as well the level of finish I am aiming for with the fully realized concepts. This is very important as it is a determining factor in how many characters I should aim to produce in the given time.
When producing my final outcomes I constantly thought about how I could achieve a finished look in the most efficient way, that also fit the style guide. I needed to develop a reliable method or approach that I could use when creating a finished character. Having a specific method to painting characters in each project definitely helped to keep the characters styles consistent. For example, in the highly stylised Nano pirate project I used flat colours with single shadows to achieve a cartoonish look. For the most part however, the success of a character design was not determined by the method or style but in the actual application of fundamentals and design ideas. In the heavily armoured character project for example, it was very important that the character looked realistic, and I achieved this by using more realistic proportions, anatomy and poses in I comparison to the stylized nano pirates project.
I thought one of the main positives of my final outcomes in the three projects were the characters themselves. I was able to put solid understanding of anatomy, gesture and shape into practice, to create characters that were convincing and conveyed some sense of actual character through posture or body language. I also made an effort to try and create different and interesting value structures, looking at ways to use a range of values within my characters.
In the case of one project that required twelve characters I reached a point where some of the designs started to echo each other and look too similar. Most of the twelve characters in my nano pirates project had very solid shapes that made them distinct from all the rest, however several of them recycled similar design language and could easily be taken as a different or weaker iteration of the same character. This is very important to consider as I plan to design at least fifteen characters for my FMP . If all my characters are all going to be executed in the same style I will have to think of ways to make each character unique and distinctive, through not just shape but also colour, gender, archetype or ethnicity etc.
In summary, the key thing I have taken away from the style matrix projects is the importance of allowing time for development of ideas, and allowing time to fail and experiment early on. Doing so does not only help narrow down a successful design but also gives me a lot more material to work with later on. Generating concepts is as much about finding out what you aren't looking for as what you are looking for. Something else I have learned is that while it won't improve your design any further, it is a good idea to develop a solid and reliable method to stick to when executing the final concepts. Doing so helps your concepts to remain consistent with each other and within the style guide. When beginning my FMP I plan to use a calendar to allocate time periods for each stage of the project, beginning with initial research, concepting and exploration, and then allocating individual time slots for each unique character to be realized and ready for presentation. I will also have to allocate time for putting the work together as a book, poster or development diary, ready to be printed and presented as a final outcome.
Friday 4 December 2015
Nano Pirates - HAND IN -
Joseph Shaw
P13202443
P13202443@myemail.dmu.ac.uk
Project title: Nano Pirates
For this project, the brief tasked me to design 12 miniature pirate characters based around the idea of the burrowers; small people that live in and around the house.
For me, having to create 12 unique character designs in a three week period proved to be a difficult task. This was mainly because I had to spend a lot of time thinking about overall design and shape language, having each character be unique from one another yet still be a part of a cohesive whole. I started out by creating a collection of initial thumbnails to work from. I worked these up one by one, sketching rough linework over the top. As I progressed through the project I would constantly go back and revisit the concepts. In order to sell the idea that they were small I tried to give visual queues in the form of small household items that they could improvise as tools or weapons. Their clothing is patched together from scraps or found fabric.
I kept in mind that this project had to be highly stylised. This helped a lot when trying to create visual contrast between the characters. I used a lot of contrasting shapes within the characters designs, thinking about primitive shapes as a basis such triangles, squares and circles. I used a lot of thin to thick design language in the characters anatomy and clothing, placing emphasis on areas where a characters body transitioned from thin to thick such as at the joints and pivotal areas of the body. When it came to colour, I used very simple block colours with a clipping mask over the top to block in shadows. This gives a solid shadow and is an effective way to quickly imply lighting and volume.
In hindsight 12 characters over three weeks doesn't sound like a lot of work, however the hardest part of this project by far was trying to come up with solid character designs that used good shapes and were each distinguishable from each other. I spent a lot of time struggling with trying to make the characters unique in some way. Having the characters be highly stylised definitely helped to push that contrast. I would definitely have liked to have invested more time to exploring and generating more ideas as opposed to sticking firmly to initial concepts.
elow are the characters again with some slight revisions made during week 10
P13202443
P13202443@myemail.dmu.ac.uk
Project title: Nano Pirates
For this project, the brief tasked me to design 12 miniature pirate characters based around the idea of the burrowers; small people that live in and around the house.
For me, having to create 12 unique character designs in a three week period proved to be a difficult task. This was mainly because I had to spend a lot of time thinking about overall design and shape language, having each character be unique from one another yet still be a part of a cohesive whole. I started out by creating a collection of initial thumbnails to work from. I worked these up one by one, sketching rough linework over the top. As I progressed through the project I would constantly go back and revisit the concepts. In order to sell the idea that they were small I tried to give visual queues in the form of small household items that they could improvise as tools or weapons. Their clothing is patched together from scraps or found fabric.
I kept in mind that this project had to be highly stylised. This helped a lot when trying to create visual contrast between the characters. I used a lot of contrasting shapes within the characters designs, thinking about primitive shapes as a basis such triangles, squares and circles. I used a lot of thin to thick design language in the characters anatomy and clothing, placing emphasis on areas where a characters body transitioned from thin to thick such as at the joints and pivotal areas of the body. When it came to colour, I used very simple block colours with a clipping mask over the top to block in shadows. This gives a solid shadow and is an effective way to quickly imply lighting and volume.
In hindsight 12 characters over three weeks doesn't sound like a lot of work, however the hardest part of this project by far was trying to come up with solid character designs that used good shapes and were each distinguishable from each other. I spent a lot of time struggling with trying to make the characters unique in some way. Having the characters be highly stylised definitely helped to push that contrast. I would definitely have liked to have invested more time to exploring and generating more ideas as opposed to sticking firmly to initial concepts.
elow are the characters again with some slight revisions made during week 10
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