Task 1 - Write a research article entitled "What is the purpose of concept art for games?"
What is the Purpose of Concept Art for Games?
Concept art for video games has evolved massively through the industry and has developed such creative and interesting video games from the artwork that cover different movements and genres of art and from using someones imagination can inspire other artists doing concept art and want to cover it as a career. In this article, I will be writing about some different concept artists that inspire me and talking about the different techniques they use and how some concept artists are unique compared to other concept artists in the industry. I will also be talking about the different movements that they may cover and some techniques that other concept artists use that some people may not know about.
The first concept artist that I will be covering in this blog will be Kekai Kotaki. Kekai Kotaki was one of the lead concept artists at ArenaNet working on Guild Wars 2, a popular MMORPG in the gaming industry and a senior concept artist at Bungie who have developed the popular Halo franchise and currently developing Destiny, an FPS MMORPG. Kekai Kotaki is now covering as a freelance concept artist and Illustrator in the gaming industry. I will now be covering some of his artwork that I really like and how he uses different techniques that he uses and how it may follow different genres and movements.The first piece of artwork that I'll be covering from him is this piece of concept art named 'The Shatterer', which is used as a boss in GW2. As you can see from the concept art, it is heavily detailed in every way possible through the different effects such as the lightning you can see from his body and the metallic look of the body also that gives an intimidating look to the dragon. I find it interesting that Kekai has gone with a unique design of the dragon instead of a basic dragon with normal skins with scales and went with his own look making it a lot more unique and interesting and still makes it something that still feels intimidating and very eye-catching at the same time. I also like how the background looks in this picture showing the destruction that the dragon caused and how he has created a wind sort of effect around the dragon. I also like how he has made the ground shatter showing the scale of the dragon and still keeping that intimidating feel.
http://kekai.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/some-guild-wars-2-art.html
The next piece of artwork that I'll be covering from him is this piece of concept art named 'The Ice Elemental", which is another part of GW2 in one of the story-lines As you can see from the concept art, it is focusing on the environment and of the two characters against the giant ice elemental in the background. The environment is heavily detailed and makes it look huge compared to the two characters. The effects in this picture are good also such as the wind effect that you can see on the two people and blowing what looks like their capes which looks like it is caused by the ice elemental which gives it an intimidating feel similar to how it was with the dragon making the ground shatter. The characters and the ice elemental have had a lot of detail put into them as you can see the clothes of what looks like a barbarian sort of character and the other character which looks like a rogue sort of character with a sword. The ice elemental also looks intimidating similar to how the dragon was and looks very powerful from the size and scale of it also. One thing I like about this piece of concept art also is the perspective of the picture how it's seemed like someone is hiding behind something and taking the picture of what's going on which is an interesting look. This is a good piece of concept art that has had a lot of time and detail put into it and
http://kekai.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/some-guild-wars-2-art.html
The final pice of artwork that I'll be covering from him is this piece of concept art that is unnamed unfortunately. Listed on his website, this is a piece of concept art that he developed while he was at the FZD School of Design in Singapore. As you can see from this piece of concept art and his other pieces of concept art in this article, it is highly detailed and has a lot of interesting features in it such as the fist crushing what looks to be a ship and the amount of detail that has went into that along with the person in the picture and how the robot/giant has a lot of detail added to it which, of course, makes it an excellent piece of artwork. I really like the wind effect that affects the ribbon like cloth material in the picture as it is very hard to pull that amount of detail off in concept art and this looks very good for if it was to be some sort of in-game level with some quick time events added to it or as a cutscene/cinematic. One thing I like about these three pieces of concept art that he's done is how he manages to pull off the scale and size between two characters very well to make the big character seem very threatening and to show how powerful it is through doing a certain action such as in this picture he is crushing a strong wooden ship, showing intimidation and something that could wreak more havoc and how defenceless the small person in the air is about to lose his life.
http://kekai.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/fzd-school-of-design-workshop-2013.html
The next concept artist that I'll be covering in this blog will be Mark Gibbons. Mark Gibbons (Also known as Red Knuckle in the community, is one of the main artists at Blizzard Entertainment, developers of the World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Diablo and Starcraft series and are a very famous games company in Games Design. Mark Gibbons has worked on each different franchise as one of the main concept artists and has worked on the Warhammer franchise in the past also. He is still working on these games currently and developing more concept art. One of the reasons why I've chosen Mark Gibbons is due to his style, instead of using programs such as Photoshop and other drawing editing programs, he does it all freehand using just his drawing skills and still makes it look very professional. He is a great inspiration to me and I've been following his artwork for quite a while and I would continue following his artwork and would like to use some of his techniques and abilities for my own concept art.
http://www.sonsofthestorm.com/viewer.php?artist=redknuckle&cat=warcraft&art=11
As I said before, I'm a huge fan of Mark's work and would like to take some of his style and his use of techniques in his concept art and develop this into my own concept art in the future.
The final artist that I'll be covering in this article will be Noah Bradley. Noah Bradley is a concept artist that was quite popular in the free-lance industry of concept art but only recently has left that industry to begin his own work. Noah specializes in environmental design which, as it says, involves environments and landscapes instead of character design, however, some of his pieces of work have characters in them with still very high detail. He's worked with Wizards of the Coast in his previous history, a TCG (Trading Card Game) company that have developed art for many different TCGs, most notably, Magic: The Gathering which is what Noah has worked on when working here. I've been following his artwork for quite a while as I like the different styles in his pictures making some very dark and some seem quite adventurous. He uses mostly Photoshop CS6 to develop his pieces of concept art which is what a lot of other concept artists use also to develop their pieces of artwork also.
http://www.noahbradley.com/
The first piece of artwork that I'll be covering from him will be this piece of concept art that is named 'Our Grasp of Heaven'. I really like this and would consider this my favourite piece of concept art from Noah as it gives such a vast landscape in the picture and uses a range of different colours to make it very vibrant and beautiful. I really like the detail on the characters in the picture and I like how they are positioned as if they're worshipping something or watching something fall. I feel that these sort of pictures are what make concept artists so unique from each other and have their own style and that it makes them stand out. The amount of imagination and detail that has went into this picture is incredible and really shows how good some piece of concept art can be. I would really like to see this in a video game as some sort of cutscene or as some of story that may or may not be important to the main story and could be some sort of side quest. The environment really does stand out in this picture which I think it should and does it very well. Overall, I really consider this one of my favourite pieces of concept art overall and my favourite from Noah.
The second piece of artwork that I'll be covering from him will be this piece of concept art that is named 'The Coming Darkness'. I also like this picture for it's vast landscape as it shows scale very well in this picture by comparing the size of the people to the environment and this allows the landscape to seem so much bigger which is a technique used a lot in drawing environments in concept art. I also like this piece of concept art as it looks like it's telling a story of what looks like they've been on a long journey to reach the city in the background. The environment looks as if a lot of detail has been put into it and really does fit into a game maybe as a free roam sort of area that you can explore around in and see what's going on from different points of the environment. I also like the perspective of the drawing as it makes the environment that much bigger which is what I feel Noah was trying to achieve with this piece of concept art. A lot of detail and though has been put into this piece of concept art and the finished product is excellent. Overall, this is an excellent piece of concept art from Noah and achieves the fundamentals of a good environmental design.
http://www.noahbradley.com/
The final piece of artwork that I'll be covering from him will be this piece of concept art that is named 'Chief of the Ways'. Like the previous picture, this also does the scale technique very well by comparing the size of the small warrior character in the bottom left to the colossal titan/beast ready to attack it or perform some sort of action against it. Like the last picture also, it looks like it's telling some sort of story like the warrior needed to find this beast to either slay it or talk to it. As I said before, Noah focuses on mostly on environmental design and areas rather than character design, but this picture is an exception and shows that he is also good at character design and can create such interesting characters and beasts which look like they have some interesting pieces of story behind them. A lot of detail and imagination has went into this picture and has created a beautiful end piece of concept art that is excellent in terms of both character design and environmental design. Overall, this is a beautiful piece of concept art and achieves the fundamentals of an amazing piece of concept art.
After looking at Noah's work from a friend, I really do like his style and the different ideas he comes up with and a great imagination to really bring his pieces of concept art to life and make them so unique and able to stand out from other concept artists.
One of our lessons, we began by sketching a series of objects in different perspectives and views to learn about different angles and how much it can change when looking from a different angle. This was quite a fun task as it helped us learn about the angles and perspectives as mentioned before. I feel that this was a good technique to learn as it helps for when developing environments and characters also to see them from different angles and how each specific aspect of the environment/character can stand out on different angles and perspectives. I'm happy that I did this task as I feel my drawing skills in drawing 3D objects improved quite a lot and gave me a lot more confidence to be able to draw more. Overall, I'm happy learning about this technique and enjoyed drawing in this task.
I'll next be covering harmonious environments and using examples to be able to more in depth on it. As said before, harmonic environments are quite happy and are quite colourful to the eye with friendly creatures and people in it also. However, you can use this to a dissonant advantage also by using quite happy and colourful environments to be able to create a dark environment with the different aspects going well with each other and creating an environment that could be debated whether it's harmonic or dissonant. As you can see from the examples below, each of the different pieces of media from games, to film and to animation each have quite a happy and colourful look to it and creates a lot of atmosphere for the viewer. Each of these different examples are from games such as Rayman Origins and Super Mario 3D World, animations such as Monsters University and Bee Movie and films such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Covering more about harmonic environments and pieces of art, it can be used to create quite dark and spooky environments which have a lot of atmosphere as well to create an interesting game or environment. Harmonic environments also cover different art movements such as surrealism with the example below of Monsters University. Overall, harmonic environments and pieces of art can be used to create very fun and friendly games and other pieces of media using very happy objects and atmospheric aspects that can create a lot of story for the game or other piece of media and can also be used to create dark and spooky environments that have objects and aspects that match well together also.
Our main final project for this assessment was to create a poster based around a concept art poster for a video game that we may want to create or have an idea for. We first began by doing a mind-map of different ideas that we could use for our poster, mine being someone standing on a cliffside thinking or a person standing outside an ancient door/chamber trying to solve some sort of puzzle to get in along with different ideas also to show development of what my poster could look like as a finished product.
From starting to look at Kekai's pieces of work, I am now quite a big follower of him and consider him a massive inspiration when it comes to making concept art in the future.
The next concept artist that I'll be covering in this blog will be Mark Gibbons. Mark Gibbons (Also known as Red Knuckle in the community, is one of the main artists at Blizzard Entertainment, developers of the World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Diablo and Starcraft series and are a very famous games company in Games Design. Mark Gibbons has worked on each different franchise as one of the main concept artists and has worked on the Warhammer franchise in the past also. He is still working on these games currently and developing more concept art. One of the reasons why I've chosen Mark Gibbons is due to his style, instead of using programs such as Photoshop and other drawing editing programs, he does it all freehand using just his drawing skills and still makes it look very professional. He is a great inspiration to me and I've been following his artwork for quite a while and I would continue following his artwork and would like to use some of his techniques and abilities for my own concept art.
The first piece of artwork that I'll be covering from him is this piece of concept art named 'Air Revenant' which is an enemy in World of Warcraft. As you can see from the concept art, it is quite dark and creepy with the enemy having no real face and looks like some sort of ghost or undead aberration. The effects used in this picture such as the wind effects with the body and how it connects to the armour pieces in a very creepy and ominous way. The dark, gothic style that Mark has gone with in this picture is very good and matches the enemy very well and it feels very threatening and haunting as an enemy. The amount of detail that has gone into the armour pieces is very good also and has a very metallic feel to it and looks very withered and old matching the design of the enemy very well. How he has done the wind twisting at the bottom of the design is very good also and the stance in the design also looks very threatening and intimidating. Going back to the amount of detail in the picture, it makes this design very eye-catching and shows that a lot of thought, imagination and detail has went into it and turns out as a great final piece of work.
http://www.sonsofthestorm.com/viewer.php?artist=redknuckle&cat=warcraft&art=11
The next piece of artwork that I'll be covering from him is this piece of concept art that is named 'Female Goblin Heads' which is one of the races you can play in World of Warcraft. As you can see from the concept art, each head is very different from each other, having different hair styles and hair colour, different eyes, skin colour, eye colour, ear size and shape, and so much more. This shows a huge range of variety and imagination for each different design and shows a lot of customisation that went into each of them. The shadows on each of the different faces are very detailed also and makes the faces look very real as if they could be a real sort of Goblin creature. The style is very cartoony and looks quite childish but still provides quite an adult feel with some of the features that they each have in their own unique way. This design also shows that before the game is released, their will be a lot of customisation for this specific race and gender that you can play around with and create your own character out of it. Even though this looks quite quick and just a quick sketch of what they would look like, it still looks quite professional and would be a very good reference to follow for when they start designing the character for the game.
The final piece of artwork that I'll be covering from his is this piece of concept art that is named 'Greymane House' which is an area in World of Warcraft. As you can see from the concept art, it is very dark and mysterious and looks quite haunted also. I feel a lot of imagination has went into this piece of work and it makes this design look like something out of a horror movie which is what they probably used as a reference to create it. Like the last picture, this also has quite a cartoony feel but still feels quite creepy even if it is in such a childish style and keeps that adult feel through the whole design. Like the last picture also, it is a great design that would be used for reference to design the in-game area. The detail in this picture is very good also, making the picture really stand out and look very professional. Overall, this design is excellent and very useful to use as reference for when they are to make this design in-game.
http://www.sonsofthestorm.com/viewer.php?artist=redknuckle&cat=warcraft&art=11
As I said before, I'm a huge fan of Mark's work and would like to take some of his style and his use of techniques in his concept art and develop this into my own concept art in the future.
The final artist that I'll be covering in this article will be Noah Bradley. Noah Bradley is a concept artist that was quite popular in the free-lance industry of concept art but only recently has left that industry to begin his own work. Noah specializes in environmental design which, as it says, involves environments and landscapes instead of character design, however, some of his pieces of work have characters in them with still very high detail. He's worked with Wizards of the Coast in his previous history, a TCG (Trading Card Game) company that have developed art for many different TCGs, most notably, Magic: The Gathering which is what Noah has worked on when working here. I've been following his artwork for quite a while as I like the different styles in his pictures making some very dark and some seem quite adventurous. He uses mostly Photoshop CS6 to develop his pieces of concept art which is what a lot of other concept artists use also to develop their pieces of artwork also. http://www.noahbradley.com/
The first piece of artwork that I'll be covering from him will be this piece of concept art that is named 'Our Grasp of Heaven'. I really like this and would consider this my favourite piece of concept art from Noah as it gives such a vast landscape in the picture and uses a range of different colours to make it very vibrant and beautiful. I really like the detail on the characters in the picture and I like how they are positioned as if they're worshipping something or watching something fall. I feel that these sort of pictures are what make concept artists so unique from each other and have their own style and that it makes them stand out. The amount of imagination and detail that has went into this picture is incredible and really shows how good some piece of concept art can be. I would really like to see this in a video game as some sort of cutscene or as some of story that may or may not be important to the main story and could be some sort of side quest. The environment really does stand out in this picture which I think it should and does it very well. Overall, I really consider this one of my favourite pieces of concept art overall and my favourite from Noah.
http://www.noahbradley.com/
The final piece of artwork that I'll be covering from him will be this piece of concept art that is named 'Chief of the Ways'. Like the previous picture, this also does the scale technique very well by comparing the size of the small warrior character in the bottom left to the colossal titan/beast ready to attack it or perform some sort of action against it. Like the last picture also, it looks like it's telling some sort of story like the warrior needed to find this beast to either slay it or talk to it. As I said before, Noah focuses on mostly on environmental design and areas rather than character design, but this picture is an exception and shows that he is also good at character design and can create such interesting characters and beasts which look like they have some interesting pieces of story behind them. A lot of detail and imagination has went into this picture and has created a beautiful end piece of concept art that is excellent in terms of both character design and environmental design. Overall, this is a beautiful piece of concept art and achieves the fundamentals of an amazing piece of concept art.
After looking at Noah's work from a friend, I really do like his style and the different ideas he comes up with and a great imagination to really bring his pieces of concept art to life and make them so unique and able to stand out from other concept artists.
In the next piece of this article, I will be covering three artists from the Renaissance and Baroque era, these eras were quite important for the time and if it wasn't for these eras, concept art wouldn't be what it is today. In this part of the article, I will be covering three different pieces of artwork that go under the renaissance and baroque era and that are also very famous to this era to give some idea of how this allowed people to create pieces of concept art for video games and other pieces of work.
The next pieces of artwork that I'll be covering will be from the renaissance era, the renaissance era was a popular era along with the baroque era and focused around rebirth and revival which is what the word renaissance comes from. This movement began during the 14th and ended in the 17th century. As you can see, a lot of renaissance designs and paintings focus around a person or more people and describing something that happened in history or what could of have happened which gives a lot of mystery and atmosphere to the design. As you can see also from the designs paintings below, it's used a lot of different techniques which is what makes it so popular in the art industry such as with the Mona Lisa painting (Painted in 1503, painted by Leonardo Di Vinci.) uses the field of view technique into the painting to give a sense of depth and gives atmosphere to the picture also. The Creation of Adam painting (Painted in 1512, painted by Michelangelo.) uses the technique of drawing the human anatomy very well and depicts it using different poses and actions, it's also popular through how much realism is in it due to how well it is drawn and how detailed it looks making it popular as a piece of renaissance art and fits the movement well. The painting being of William Shakespeare also known by artists as The Chandos portrait (Painted between 1600-1610, attributed to John Taylor believed to have been painted by him.) uses a similar technique to the Mona Lisa painting of painting a very realistic picture of someone and focusing on the different body parts to make an impressive piece of art and fits into the movement perfectly in terms of design and technique. Popular artists in the movement include Leonardo Di Vinci and Michelangelo as listed before who have developed a lot of artwork for the movement and inspired other movements with their artwork also. Overall, my view on the renaissance era is that the movement has helped greatly in term of concept art for games design and has helped us be able to do portraits for other pieces of art which has helped greatly, making the movement very useful in history and helpful in a lot of ways.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance
The final pieces of artwork that I'll be covering will be from the baroque era, the baroque era was a popular era that began during the 17th century and is still going on today in some aspects. As you can see, a lot of baroque designs and paintings focus around people and architecture and some are quite religious as well relating to certain events that happened in history or of something that is quite grand and gives an emotion of awe to the person, a lot of the designs also focus around lighting on the people to make them really stand out for when doing portraits and making the clothes and other parts darker to make it stand out even more. A lot of the paintings and architecture use a lot of different techniques that make them really stand out and look very good. The first painting is of a famous music composer known as Johann Sebastian Bach (Painted in 1748, painted by Elias Haussmann) and uses the technique that I listed before of focusing around the lighting on the people as you can see the detail in his face and how his clothes and the background are darker to make him stand out and be the focal point of the design. The piece of architecture below is the Trevi Fountain based in Rome (Built in 1762, Structured by artist Nicola Salvi) and uses the technique of focal points to make certain parts of the building stand out such as the fountain bit at the front, this allows the sculpture to be looked at through different ways and give people a different output on the sculpture also. The painting being of what looks like Heaven named The Triumph of the Immaculate (Painted in 1710-1715, painted by Paolo de Matteis) has a lot of detail put into it also and also has a lot of focal points similar to the other pieces of art in the baroque era, a lot of detail has been put into the heaven part of the picture and the different poses that everyone in the picture is doing makes this picture very impressive in terms of baroque art and is very popular in the movement today. A lot of popular artists in the movement include Caravaggio, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony Van Dyck who are some of the most famous and recognised artists in the baroque era of art and have inspired other artists in other movements also by taking some of their techniques and using them to their own advantages. Overall, my view on the baroque era is that the movement has helped other movements very well, similar to how the renaissance did. This has helped make the movement very popular and historic and has allowed other movements and artists to take techniques and ideas that other baroque artists have done to incorporate into their own work which has helped in a lot of ways.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque
Task 2 - Complete a range of mark-making and drawing experiments and Task 3 - Complete a range of drawing experiments
One of our beginning tasks for this unit was learning the human figure a bit better though different faces and learning how the face and other parts look through a drawing aspect. It also allowed us to look at the human face at different angles and perspectives to see how the side of a face may look and how it may use specific facial features to make the character stand out. This allows for a lot of backstory for the character and creates a lot of atmosphere for them and allows the players to even relate to them also.
One of our other tasks for this unit was learning about Anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism is the technique of giving objects human like elementals. A good example of this would be the different characters in Beauty and The Beast as you can see below. These characters are done very well using anthropomorphism and really flesh out the characters through the objects by giving them fluid animations and giving them detailed expressions. I like this technique as it can be used very well to create some interesting characters and interactable objects in films and video games.
One of our lessons, we began by sketching a series of objects in different perspectives and views to learn about different angles and how much it can change when looking from a different angle. This was quite a fun task as it helped us learn about the angles and perspectives as mentioned before. I feel that this was a good technique to learn as it helps for when developing environments and characters also to see them from different angles and how each specific aspect of the environment/character can stand out on different angles and perspectives. I'm happy that I did this task as I feel my drawing skills in drawing 3D objects improved quite a lot and gave me a lot more confidence to be able to draw more. Overall, I'm happy learning about this technique and enjoyed drawing in this task.
One of our lessons, we went to a popular dance studio near the college to be able to draw more of the human form, this involves drawing it as static when they are standing still and as moving when they are performing. This was a very difficult task to do as it was some of our first times drawing the human form while it was still moving which was new to us and meant we had to be able to draw quite quickly in a rough amount of time. I feel this is a good technique to learn though as even small little rough pieces can evolve into better work once more development has went into it. I'm happy that I did this task though as it allowed me to draw the human figure a bit better in rough detail and was just a good task of learning to be able to draw quick sketches in a rough amount of time. Overall, I'm happy learning these techniques and was very enjoyable to draw again.
Another task that we began doing to help us get better at concept art was learning about one point and two point perspectives. These matter greatly when creating environmental concept art for a video game as it gives the design a lot more depth and gives it more of an interesting angle to look at and allows the environment to come to life. We first experimented with one point perspectives and began drawing examples and then proceeded on to two point perspective drawings which gives a lot more atmosphere to the environment rather than one point perspectives in my opinion. Overall, I enjoyed doing this task and it was very helpful for learning to create environments in the future for future projects.
Harmony and Dissonance in Concept Art
During one of our lessons, we learned about harmonious and dissonance in concept art and artwork in general. Similar to how it is in the music industry, harmonious is when a lot of different pieces go together such as a fluffy cloud going with a fluffy environment as it all matches, dissonance being the complete opposite of saying a fluffy cloud in a dark environment that doesn't match at all. This is used a lot in the art industry and can be used to a very good advantage to create interesting characters and environments that have a lot of atmosphere and detail to them. This can also be used in a different way such as, for a dissonant environment, you could use a lot of dark and gloomy textures and creepy objects to be able to create an environment, even if it all matches but used to a dark advantage to give it that creepy feel, same for harmonious environments also that can have a lot of happy and colourful textures to create a happy environment that specialises in harmony. Going back to the fluffy cloud example, the image below describes what I've talked about in more depth and shows more of an example of how the matching works.
I'll first be covering dissonant environments and using examples to be able to go more in depth on it. As said before, dissonant environments are quite dark and spooky in different aspects from crumbled/destroyed buildings to dead animals and creatures. However, this can also be considered harmonic as each of the different elements go very well together resulting in a very harmonic environment which can lead onto quite a lot of debate about each piece of art. As you can see from the examples below, each of the different pieces of media from games, to film and to animation each are very dark and give a very ominous and creepy feel and creates a lot of atmosphere for the viewer to look at which is what the artists want to happen for when they see the environment(s). Each of these different examples are from films such as Alien (second row right and bottom image), animations such as Nightmare Before Christmas (second row left) and games such as Hokutono Ken and Limbo (top left and top right). Covering more about dissonant environments and art, it can be used to create even happy environments as well rather than just dark environments as it can use the aspects of objects not matching to create an interesting game or environment. Dissonant environments also cover different art movements and uses aspects of them such as german expressionism and using silhouettes such as the example below Limbo. Overall, dissonant environments can create very dark and atmospheric games and other pieces of media and can be used to create some very interesting and atmospheric environments that can have a lot of backstory behind them and can be used to create happy environments as mentioned before.
Dissonant Environments Sources
Hokutono Ken (Top Left) video game concept art, image gained from http://laurynasliberis.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/hokutono-ken-video-game.html
Limbo (Top Right) video game screenshot, image gained from
http://www.giantbomb.com/limbo/3030-30380/
Nightmare Before Christmas (Second Row Left) screencap of area, image gained from
http://the-nightmare-before-christmas.wikia.com/wiki/Graveyard
Aliens Colonial Marines (Second Row Right) video game screenshot, image gained from
http://www.bonefishgamer.com/2011/06/most-wanted-aliens-colonial-marines/
Alien 1979 (Bottom) screencap of area, imaged gained from
http://www.rellimzone.com/2013/11/movie-review-alien-1979/
I do not own any of these pieces of media, nor do I own the pictures. I am only wanting to use this for example purposes. All of the rights go to their specific owners.
I'll next be covering harmonious environments and using examples to be able to more in depth on it. As said before, harmonic environments are quite happy and are quite colourful to the eye with friendly creatures and people in it also. However, you can use this to a dissonant advantage also by using quite happy and colourful environments to be able to create a dark environment with the different aspects going well with each other and creating an environment that could be debated whether it's harmonic or dissonant. As you can see from the examples below, each of the different pieces of media from games, to film and to animation each have quite a happy and colourful look to it and creates a lot of atmosphere for the viewer. Each of these different examples are from games such as Rayman Origins and Super Mario 3D World, animations such as Monsters University and Bee Movie and films such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Covering more about harmonic environments and pieces of art, it can be used to create quite dark and spooky environments which have a lot of atmosphere as well to create an interesting game or environment. Harmonic environments also cover different art movements such as surrealism with the example below of Monsters University. Overall, harmonic environments and pieces of art can be used to create very fun and friendly games and other pieces of media using very happy objects and atmospheric aspects that can create a lot of story for the game or other piece of media and can also be used to create dark and spooky environments that have objects and aspects that match well together also.
Harmonic Environment Sources
Super Mario 3D World (Top Left) video game screenshot, image gained from
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/super-mario-3d-world-four-players-four-opinions
Rayman Origins (Top Right) video game screenshot, image gained from
http://www.insidegamingdaily.com/2011/11/30/rayman-origins-review/
Monsters University (Second Row Left) film screencap, image gained from
http://pixartimes.com/2013/03/26/the-pixar-perspective-on-the-importance-of-continuity/
Bee Movie (Second Row Right) film screenscap, image gained from
http://wolcartoon.com/bee-movie-barry-b-benson-backgrounds-hd.html
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Bottom) film screencap, image gained from
http://internetwriter62.hubpages.com/hub/Charlie-and-the-Chocolate-Factory-a-Movie-About-a-Nice-Boy-Who-Didnt-Finish-Last
I do not own any of these pieces of media, nor do I own the pictures. I am only wanting to use this for example purposes. All of the rights go to their specific owners.
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/super-mario-3d-world-four-players-four-opinions
Rayman Origins (Top Right) video game screenshot, image gained from
http://www.insidegamingdaily.com/2011/11/30/rayman-origins-review/
Monsters University (Second Row Left) film screencap, image gained from
http://pixartimes.com/2013/03/26/the-pixar-perspective-on-the-importance-of-continuity/
Bee Movie (Second Row Right) film screenscap, image gained from
http://wolcartoon.com/bee-movie-barry-b-benson-backgrounds-hd.html
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Bottom) film screencap, image gained from
http://internetwriter62.hubpages.com/hub/Charlie-and-the-Chocolate-Factory-a-Movie-About-a-Nice-Boy-Who-Didnt-Finish-Last
I do not own any of these pieces of media, nor do I own the pictures. I am only wanting to use this for example purposes. All of the rights go to their specific owners.
Task 4 - A final layout for a concept art poster
Our main final project for this assessment was to create a poster based around a concept art poster for a video game that we may want to create or have an idea for. We first began by doing a mind-map of different ideas that we could use for our poster, mine being someone standing on a cliffside thinking or a person standing outside an ancient door/chamber trying to solve some sort of puzzle to get in along with different ideas also to show development of what my poster could look like as a finished product.
Once I had chosen my idea of what I would like to do for my poster idea, I made a mood-board about the main focal point in my poster which would be the cliffside and the scale of it to make it seem huge and old. This mood-board allowed me to see cliffsides at different perspectives and angles so that I could be able to do my cliffside in my poster and give it different views for how I wanted it to look.
Once I had my reference and I knew what I wanted to do for my final idea and began doing a sketch of how I wanted it to look and as a basic first sketch to be able to do it again and make it look a lot more detailed but to give that view of how I want it to look and to show my idea to other people also. I then added some quick colours to it also to be able to show my idea in more depth.
As said before, my main focal point(s) in this poster will be the cliffside and the person sitting on the edge with people behind him, I want to put as much detail into these two focal point as much as possible as I want it to feel powerful and give a sense of awe for the environment and for the person sitting on the edge to leave the viewer interested of what he could be doing sitting on the edge and what he could be doing there. This is so that my poster has a lot of depth and detail in it and looking very interesting and would consider someone to play the game. With the sketch I did above, I was able to make it into quite a harmonic environment, however, with the next picture, I was also able to make it into quite a dissonant environment also allowing me to choose which I would like to use for my final project.
Once I knew what I was doing, I then finally began developing my poster sketch to use as my final idea.
I decided to do my poster from a front perspective instead of from a side perspective as I feel that a lot more depth gave into the design and gave a lot more atmosphere for the different things in the design being the cliff, the water and the characters standing from the cliff. I have also added other little small objects such as a rising hand and rock which will be molten rock from the lava on the ground, I've also put detail into the cliff by giving it a crumbled sort of jagged line effect to make it seem like a cliff crumbling.
I decided to also go for the dark look also as I feel that this will give a nice horror vibe to the game and make it seem quite creepy also and would give a lot of depth with the silhouetted characters and with the hand sticking out of the burning lava.
I first began by working on the levels and the brightness/contrast to bring out the dark lines of my drawing and really make them stand out for the different parts of the design.
I then began working on adding colours using the brush tool and the paint bucket tool to fill in all the blank spaces and to fill in my poster. As you can see while I was developing my poster, I dabbled into different art movements to give it a creepy effect such as with German Expressionism with the silhouettes blended in for a creepy look and to make people wonder who the people are. I also added a bit of horror also such as the hand sticking out from the lava as if the silhouettes had dumped a live body into the lava and he's trying to reach out to save himself but cannot.
As I had extra time and wanted to develop it more, I decided to use the template of this poster to make into a good version to go along with the evil version. As you can see with this version, I changed a couple of things to make it into a good version instead of an evil version such as changing the characters so that you can see them and changing the sea to a dark blue with light waves. I felt that it was a good thing to do to create two posters as it really affects my story of being able to be good or evil and gives the game and poster itself a lot more depth behind it. Overall, I was happy creating these two posters and was really good to make a fun piece of concept art with a piece of story behind it.
