blog entry 8 - trouble ahead

After finding out last week the entire production was behind schedule towards completion of alpha stage for all projects, we had to pull our figure out and race to the the finish with all assets complete in time before beta.

This week involved me creating a lot of character textures for organic characters. For space team I was required to texture the two protagonists Alex and Ali while for Free World I was tasked to texture the main character "Oliver".

It was important to keep in mind these textures for all models and props only required base colours as place holders therefore when the beta phase starts, more details can be applied.

The week also marked my end as a concept artist for project Space Team, it was very sad to depart from the design I had a lot of fun creating character designs and logo design for their film and game. Leaving Space Team also had its positive side; this meant I can focus more on the production team’s tasks.

I did get to draw some awesome cereal boxes for Space Team’s brand.

At the end of the week we were delighted to know all assets for alpha phase had been successfully accomplished and ready for Beta phase which will soon begin at the start of week 9.

Blog Entry 7 - All by myself

-        This week I was left as the only 2D artist for the production team while the lead 2D artist was attending GDC (Games Development Conference) in California. The week involved myself taking on all 2D work from User Interface to UV texturing. This week involved me creating UI designs for the project FreeWorld. FreeWorld still had a lot refining to fixing so creating the UI was a very long and tough process. The UI designs theme were a cross between futuristic hacking equipment which kept close to a 80s feel of technology, I used tones of blues to give with slight highlights to give an overall appealing design which is not intense on the viewer’s eyes.

Other work created this week involved more UI designs for project space team’ game; the game required myself to created small icons which would be used to manipulate the game’s environment. Not much work was required to complete these tasks thanks to my lead 2D artist starting the base of the icons which only required myself to colour and export to the game.

 Space Team logo design 

For my Concept artist role project space had given me the task to redesign the logo for their project. I took the original design and created small thumbnail renditions of the letters found in the centre of the logo. After much feedback from the story world director and production manager I soon started work on colour variations from the pallet used from the original logo. The new logo design was soon sent off to one of the other concept artists from the team for refinement.

Overall this week had been incredibly tough as the only 2D artist available this week, I am disappointed my workflow gained too big to carry on completing Space team’s logo however I had to prioritise my work.  

blog entry 06 - Let's get started

So!!! this week finally commemorated the beginning of actual production. We were presented with three projects which required to be developed, these project will require both the contribution of the design team aaaaaand the production team.

Here are the the projects:

Project 01 - Melt Down

Concept art by Jack Stollery 

Film – This project follows the story of a Polar bear named “Gus” whose home is melting around him. To stop his home from melting he goes on a hunt to assassinate big corporations threatening to melt his home, during Gus’s adventure he teams up with a tree loving hippy to take down the corporate fat cats.

Game – The game involves Gus reach a Bar in order to complete the level, The player will be responsible of guiding Gus through the level avoiding penguin, tourists and any other obstacles which stand in his way. 

Project 2 - Free World

Free World concept art

Project Free World film follows 2 main characters Oliver and Erika in a futuristic setting where society has become full of rules and norms which suppress people’s emotional outbursts i.e. expressing intense emotions. Citizen log into a game world where they can channel all there suppressed desires and emotions through their avatar.

The objective to the game is to guide the player through the hallways and reach the end. The player can activate traps, tamper with cameras, distract guards and hack computer terminals. The game if viewed from a top down perspective allowing the player full view of the entire map.

Project 3 - Space Team 

Space team character art Ali and Alex

Film – Space team follows a young alien girl named Ali and a human boy called Alex. These two go on adventures around the universe together trying to stop Ali’s evil aunt from taking over the throne.

Game - In the game the player can contribute to the TV show by creating planets, the player creates and customises their own planet adding foliage, mountains, rivers and cities and other items which allow their planet to stand out from the rest.

-          This week I had been painting textures for the Project Melt Down. The textures created this week were for props and characters who could feature in the film and game.

-          For the Space team I created ship designs for Ali’s ship, and Pilot seats. The production manager and story director really like the concept of a floating chair and wanted me to continue down this concept for the ship too. I was very happy they appreciate my concept designs.

So that's this week done and dusted. Next week is going to tough being the only 2D artist available since melead will be depart for the week. Let's hope I survive!!

Blog entry 5 - The end of prologue

Today marks the end of the prologue phase, unfortunately the end products were not complete on time. It saddens me we did not finish the film and game before the end of this 5 week phase. Despite not finishing on time it did help production prepare for the actual development. I felt I learned a lot working as a 2D artist. I learned how to pass content on to the next phase of production and most import; I learned how to work to very tight deadlines.

A lot of other exciting and interesting things happened this work too on the design side. I spent a lot of time design villain characters for one of the projects, basically I had to create a octopus character inspired by the Disney villain Ursula.
I worked on concept for a space cowboy planet, the planet itself would act as a mercenary hub where the toughest of the toughest come together to share stories. Here're the results!

The aim was to have half the planet to be shrouded in shadow this half would be the dessert while the other half would be covered in cities which would be in the light at all times.

On the production side I helped the modelling team adjust textures for character models for both game and film tie ins. It was a tedious job due to visible seams, but I did triumph!

Overall this week was useful teaching us valuable information relative to the production pipeline i.e. naming conventions, File management, working with other smaller teams. I did get to learn new skills Unwrapping UVs and to mention speeding up my workflow.

blog entry 4 - Multi Tasking

This week I worked on a variety of texture styles for the characters roles. I created 2 examples to show to the modellers; the first texture was a very clean gradient from one tone to another while the second texture had a painted texture with a painty style. The Painted texture was much favoured over the gradient due to it's more stylistic approach.

This week was also a very special week for myself, I was brought onto one of the design teams as a concept artist, I'm still working as a 2D artist for the production depart despite being a concept artist now but I'm still very excited. As a new concept artist, first role was to design and create character and environment art for a space cowboy planet for the game’s universe.

Now that I'm part time concept artist I couldn't be more thrilled about the new role! I look forward to the coming weeks producing both concept art and 2D art for both Design and production. It'll also be very interesting to have a incite how both departments communicate and run

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