Character - Alien Character Development

Character - Further Character Concept Development

After talking with Justin on Tuesday about my characters, he suggested that I redraw my characters in a more dynamic pose so that I could better understand how they would look in 3d space. As I had already drawn my alien character in that way, I have now drawn my two plant characters like this. I intend to do more drawings like this as I test the possible changes that could be made.

Plant Character 1 (Agile) 

Plant Character 2 (Strong)

Character - Improved Alien Concept

As I struggled to create a definitive alien concept previously. I did some more sketches and was very pleased with the final result (bottom left). I now feel that I have three unique characters that I can start to work on more thoroughly in order to get the details right.

 

 

Character Session 9

 This session was our last we ended it on a group commission task. We were split into threes and given a sheet of paper detailing character bio's and environment details for a game. We had to split the work between the group and create concepts for all of the characters and environments. However, at regular intervals we were given additional tasks to complete with short deadlines. For instance, early on we were given the task of designing the logo for the 'Galactic Aviator Force'. In the end we decided on using my design.

Overall I enjoyed this session greatly and I am pleased with most of the concept work I created for the game.

 Our Logo for the Galactic Aviator Force.

Character Design for LX-ER 

Character Design for Dr Kromar Zun

 

Environment Design for the Splicing Chamber

Character - Refined Character Designs

After using specific character silhouettes as reference, I have drawn out my characters in more detail, focusing on specific features. In particular I have focused on the facial details of both of the plant characters as they will share traits such as mouth and eye design. My alien invader character still requires more work and I have not settled completely on a single design. I may need to do another set of refined ink silhouettes gathering all of the best features of previous work into cohesive designs. I have decided to work mostly in ink for these designs until I make them into digital concepts. This is because I do not want to lose some of the details that can only be achieved through ink work.

 

Plant Character 1

 

Plant Character 2

 

Alien Invader Character 

Character Session 8

In this session we had to design a game based on a specific card that we were all given. I was given the 'robot' card and I designed a card game about two mechanics racing to build their robot before the other, stealing their opponents cards and sabotaging their progress to get ahead and win. We had to design emblems and small details in order to get across information such as health, damage and other traits to our audience. I found this very helpful and it will no doubt come in handy when designing for my own card game.

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Character Session 7

In this session we all individually talked to Justin about our progress so far and how to improve upon our work after the OGR. He suggested multiple things I should consider and some useful points about each of my three characters so far. During the session I also looked into possible card layouts and themes. I am quite happy with the ones I have tried here, but I think that it is something that will be much easier to do once I am finalizing my characters and environment concepts.

 

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Character - Early Plant Character 1 Concept

This is a quick sketch working from my silhouettes of character 1. I was trying to visualize what kind of features this creature might have and how it may function. This is only experimental but I think this sketch is headed in the right direction for my character concept.

Character Session 6

In this session we were working on combining multiple animals into one animal. I found this session to be really useful, as I'm sure I can use some of the techniques taught to strengthen my own game characters.

 

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Character Session 5

I really enjoyed this session. We were using each other as models and trying to get the basic curves of the pose down on paper. I found it really useful and the more poses I drew the more I felt I was getting the hang of it.

 

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Character Session 4

In this session we were first given a character and asked to design environments to fit with the character. I was given Mario and at first I struggled to come up with specific ideas, nothing interesting came to mind. I talked with Justin about some specific aspects I could use to influence the environment, he suggested using pipes as the main inspiration for the environment. The environment on page 3 is what I designed after talking with Justin, I am very happy with this piece compared to my previous efforts.

 

After that we were given specific spaces and were asked to think about the feel of the space and how it would fit into a game storyline. I was given 'Abandoned Laboratory'. My ideas were that this laboratory was a turning point in the story where truth of sorts would be found. This would either happen at the end of the story and reveal the ending, or it would be in the first half of the game and the truth it reveals would change the perception of the game world and propel the narrative forward afterwards. I found this character session very interesting, especially as I found designing the environments very difficult at first.

 

 

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Character Session 3

In this session we were put into groups of three and given a piece of paper detailing the premise for a game. We then had to design characters for this game and discuss how this game might function. I found this session really informative and useful. 

 

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Narrative - Small Sketches

Below are some more sketches to start to think about our environment and how the fish will change over the course of the animation.

 

 Sketch of the 'underwater ravine' environment.

Sketches of the fish getting covered in its environment.

Character Session 2

In our second character session we were given a game character and we had to alter their look according to one of our keywords for our project. I was given Atlas and Pea-Body from Portal 2. I used my word 'light' at first. Then I used my word 'mutation', this seemed to give me better results and I had a much clearer idea of what to draw for this.

 

After that exercise we were given a character type and we had to draw silhouettes for them that could be instantly recognized. I got 'knight' as my character type and below is what I drew for the exercise.

Narrative - Fish Body Thumbnails

As our current story will be quite metaphorical overall, we have decided to create fish characters that would be read as a general fish, not as a specific kind of fish. Below I have created some thumbnails of early ideas for the overall shape of our fish. Many of these are quite rough and are just there for ideas for further concepts.

Initial Character Ideas and Character Session 1

Below are the two pages of initial ideas I had for my character project. As my notes may be hard to read I will transcribe them below each image.

Character Project - Game Ideas

Fantasy
Mutation
Light

-light as a mechanic, use the light to burn the mutations (doesn't include fantasy)

-(card game) choose from a selection of bizarre animals, you use cards to evolve and mutate them and you face off against your opponents. Based on natural selection, aka the strongest survives.
perhaps either going against opponents or a series of trials.
you could pick up a trials card or a 'mutate' or 'evolve' card.
(doesn't include light)
you could pick up bad mutate cards (comedic)
not all trials cards are bad.

- viruses in a computer system. you have to either save the computer or help infect it.

- you are an animal of some kind, you have to consume or merge with other animals to move forward aka get bigger and move to a different stage (larger world).

perhaps light is an enemy, beams of light could be the obstacle.

(idea may be too close to the game 'spore')

- you are a scientist/sorcerer that can merge animals together/mutate them using light maybe?

perhaps this is an app mostly for a casual fun gaming experience.

(notes after talking with Justin about my ideas, mostly about my card game idea)

- colours of light causing mutations, different colour cards for different types of mutation aka strength, agility, cunning

- think about the world, create the world for the game

Below is the game I had to morph into a different game type. I had to change the computer game 'Counter Strike' into a board game.

Character Project Session 1


Counter Strike as a board game.

A top down environment that is sorted into tiles places. you would control a team (counter-terrorists or terrorists) and use dice or cards to move you team or switch weapons. As a lot of the game is strategy this fits right into a board game.

- May have a problem with visibility of enemies. Might need a 'fog of war'. possibly an app or tablet game?

Still Life Exercise - Sketchbook Scans

Pg1

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Pg3

 

Sadly I did not have enough time to complete my 4th developed thumbnail and my final sketch. I am particularly pleased with 'Alternative Aspect Ratio 1' on page 2. Overall I really enjoyed this session, especially working on the alternate aspects ratio thumbnails. Using more extreme aspect ratios for thumbnails and images isn't something I usually consider or use in my work, I will definitely try to keep that in mind for future work.

1st Life Drawing Session

 

I really enjoyed the life drawing. I had done some previously but only with human models and not objects like this.