Character Ideas

Fist step of my animation project entitled move, I did a bit of potential charcter designs inwhich I could use, I just drew the images of the top of my head with no directions or influences,I liked the drawings however I soon realised that these designs would be too complicated to model in 3D maya, especially as this would be my first time using 3D maya, however I decided to keep the images as they could be used into another brief.

Character Design

About Me Poster

This was a mini Brief we were given in which we were told to create a A4 poster about ourselves and our interests, however we were forbidden from using text, we were given the freedom to experiment with different types of digitally manipulated images. For my poster I decided to take a more graphical aproach cause im more influenced from this type of media,heres a list of references

Xbox 360 - Took a picure and drew other it in Illustrator, with this been one of my main hobbies, I placed this as more as a focus point and enlarged the image in comparison

Ipod - Took picture and drew other it, placed in the center as its the one item that would describe me best as listening to music is my bigest influence/hobbie

Guitar - Again followed a similar procedure to previous 2, reasons I placed this as one of the main images which displays about me most, Is to emphasise my interest in music, and I also enjoy playing music aswell as listening.

With The 3 main images completed I then decided to experiment with all kinds of images I could find from my Flat, I searched through my Clothing,Magazines,Stickers,Beer Mats,Patches and so on to try create an eye catching poster.

Spades Bottom Left - This imagery came from my Belt which I scanned in and edited the image on photoshop. I really like as It displays a double purpose, First im a keen Card player and secondly I'm a big fan of this kind of clothing range and I love the use of colours.

Band Logo Patch Top Left - This is a Chimaira band logo patch which I have on my bag, which I scanned in, reasons I used it is first I really like the band and its one of my favorite band logo's and is such a simple design, yet I really like it and as u know Im a big fan of band artwork.

Spam T-shirt Illustration (Arnold Schwarzenegger) - Scanned in from a t-shirt I have, reasons I used this image is im a big fan of movies, and Terminator 1 happens to be one of my favorite movies, other reasons Im a big fan of illustrations/cartoons and I really like the spam clothing range and have a few other designs including Clint Eastwood and Jason (Friday 13).

Vans Stickers (fingerprint & Snake) - Scanned in from a bunch of stickers I received at College, reasons I used these is Im a big fan of Vans, especially there shoe range and the vans warped tour

Paint The Stars t-shirt (far right) - scanned the image from my t-shirt, reasons I really like the image and like alot of the clothing companys work

After receiving feedback from my class, I think i sucseeded in the main part of the brief as they could easily tell from the Poster, infomation about me and what my interests were, and they commented it was eye catching with plenty happening, however they suggested I should have experimented with different colours and arangements of the images and suggested I should get fill up the empty white space. Overall I quite enjoyed this mini brief and learnt i need to put more development into my ideas and come up with several instead of just one to develop which I can take into the main brief

The Trapdoor

One of my favorite programmes whilst I was growing Up and still love It today, Im a big fan of Claymation and I'm a massive fan Of The Trapdoor, Reasons I love it so much cause I love the Character Modeling, although you cant tell from just 1 video but they have come up with many unique and synful characters each with different atributes, and all the mini episodes follow the similar storyline creature escapes from the Trapdoor and causes trouble, such a simple idea but is made so well. The animations also feature dark humour which I love and is just a brilliant watch, Id recommend watching as many of the episodes, its simply brilliant and an example of what kids TV used to be like and Shud be brought back !

Protest The Hero - Blindfolds Aside

Just thought I'd put this video up in relation to the Blog I did about the band artwork, Unfortunatly Youtube has withdrwn the embedded code for all their music videos from that album, so I'll put this up taken from there previous album titled Kezia, Enjoy :D

http://www.protestthehero.com

Artwork Influence

This is one of my favorite examples of band artwork, Its from a band called Protest The Hero and the album is called Fortress, I could not recomend this band enougth so check them out, anyway Im hear to write about the artwork, which I simply love, at first look it just looks like a bunch of unrealted images, But you have to read and listen to the lyrics to gather a understanding, as the album follows a fantasy theme which u can see relates to the artwork with good use of colour, note the use of a purple background and light colour tones represents this well,I also love the textures used. The main focus on the artwork is goddess Flidais (of Irish mythology) from what I am led to believe from which most of the lyrics are written about as the charcter takes center part, I am lead to believe she is ruler of the woods and wild animals hence the use of mystic like creatures used on the artwork, aswell as reading about hunting hene the apropiate use of imagery through the use of arrow heads and u cud also say the hunting relates to the use of animals. As u can see theres a UFO at the top, im not sure how that fits into the concept story but i know it refers to there song Seqouia Throne which the band have released a video, so check it out on youtube.
So yeh I really like the imagery used and The way the art relates to the lyrics and tells a story and I like the way alot of thought has been put in, as theres to many art from similar artist that use gore and blood and dont put much thought in, I like some but at times it just gets repetitive. I like the way its eyecatching and even if I would not of herd about the band Its something that I would definatly pick up in a shop.
Also to add from doing a bit of research into this and checking out who designed the artwork, it was a studio called sons of nero who I checked out and I was really impressed with there work and I plan to write abit about them in one of my creative Indusrties Blog.

Designer: http://www.sonsofnero.com
Band: http://www.protestthehero.com

Baf Game Festival Review

I Recently Visited The BAF Game 09 Festival, I went not really knowing what to expect if anything I had visualized A showcase of games for you to try out from new to old with the developers there giving talks on the games, So when I arrived I was not really expecting to be sat in a theatre room in a kind of Conference atmosphere listening to several companies give in depth talks about a wide variety of topics including about the business, the way the business is run, rolls in the company , development of the game and promoting themselves and the Products within the company, Although this was not entirely what I was expecting I got a lot of information out of it and even possible career roles I might take.
My favourite talk off the day was Amanita Design, who was the company I’d like to work most for. They are a group of good friends from Eastern Europe who showed off their game Machinarium, The reason why this was my favourite as I really loved the artwork involved in game and The sketchbook work which included thousands of sketches from development of ideas to storylines, which is something I’m really keen on and enjoy getting my ideas on paper and just letting myself and ideas loose. Other thing I was really appealed to me was the fact that they did a lot of their work at home and communicated with each other from there. I really like this Business model as its more a relaxed atmosphere, while getting the work done at same time, I also noticed that there not directly a Games company and have done work for some big companies such as Nike which appeals to me as I’d like to vary my work a bit and not just design art for Video Games.
Over the day I learned some useful information from other company’s talks, both personal information and information about the Industry such as the way different companies are setup such as Sony UK who have a boss and departments specialising in each area and are very professional in the way they present and the way the business is run, and Team 17 on the other hand who don’t really have a major boss, and are each designated certain roles however they help out one another and all put their input into development of the game and ideas they have. I also like the fact the Team 17 have set hours as one thing I have learnt after listening to several company’s is that there is times where they may have to work very long shifts and It was mentioned that in one case they had to perform around 22 hour shift and had to sleep at work and carry on the next day, Which to me is really off-putting but it’s something to be expected with the demanding deadlines.
It was also good to hear that they are some company’s out there such as Blitz who have come up with Blitz 1up which is a programme to help smaller teams get their game to market. In addition to advice and studio resources, and also offers help with funding, legal guidance and marketing. Which I think is a great Idea as it benefits both parties involved and is an approach I’d defiantly consider in getting my work out there.