Presentation of Work

Had I been better at managing my time throughout this project, my tutor says that my work would have been presented up on the walls at the Surface Gallery. 

If my work were to be presented at conventions such as E3 or MCM London Expo, it could be presented on billboards in order to advertise the character and promote the game that would be created alongside it. 

This is the front of the E3 conference; in the future, I aspire to have my work shown at the front when people arrive.

PowerPoint Presentation

This is my title page for my presentation.

This is the slide where I will talk about the theme of my project and why I chose it; I tried to avoid too much information, as I wanted to be able to talk freely about it.

On this slide, I want to talk about my primary research and the impact it had on my work later on.

On this slide, I hope to talk about the secondary research that I carried out and how it assisted my ideas while designing.

This is the slide where I will talk about my original idea and why it didn't go to plan. I felt like it was necessary to put this information on my powerpoint, as I can explain that I have learnt from over-planning and trying to accomplish too much.

On this slide, I show parts of the production of my final piece. While on this slide, I hope to explain why I chose the colours and clothing style I did for my character.

For this final slide, I will explain how I think it went despite the problems that I had during the project. I will also talk about what I would do differently if I were to do this project again.

After presenting my work to my tutor in class, I feel confident that it went quite well. From the feedback I received, I learned that I need to be less restless whilst presenting. I also learnt that I could have done with explaining my final piece a little bit more, such as my character's name and the meaning behind it, so that people can understand it a bit better. I feel as though I could have also included a section on things that inspired me.

Evaluation

This assignment was our Final Major Project; the last assignment of the year. We were able to freely choose a topic of our liking, and we were able to create something from that topic in an area of media that we chose. If we wanted to, we could mix the subjects that we chose. As we were able to pick from anything of our choice for our theme, it made the decision really hard to make.

For my FMP, I chose to create a character design. I decided to loosely base the theme on idols in order to create my character. I decided to only base my character and their design loosely on idols, as I had an idea prepared for my character's synopsis. I chose this theme as it is something that I am knowledgeable in; I play mobile games and console games that focus on idols. It is an area that I wanted to be able to explore more, with a character that I had created myself. 

My initial idea was to create a character turnaround sheet, along with a game concept and poster to go along with this; these are the ideas I have outlined in my proposal. I wanted to have a turnaround sheet that would show off my character from the front and back, along with some key facial expressions that they made. I hoped to create a poster that would be an illustration piece to promote the game concept that I would create alongside that. However, with the amount of time I had to complete everything, I eventually decided to just create a character, as well as write up a synopsis on my character. I chose to write up a synopsis as well in the hopes that I could convey some of the game concept that I had thought up.

I carried out a lot of research for this final project. For my primary research, I devised a survey in order to find out what other people thought; I made it available for both my class and friends on a social networking site. Finding out others opinions and thoughts is very important in order to find out who your target audience is and what they like and think. I based my questions mostly on character design, with a question at the end that was based on the setting of a game. 

I also carried out some photographic research as primary research. Whilst attending the London MCM Expo in May of this year, I had the opportunity of seeing a favourite artist of mine live. While I was there, I thought that it would be highly beneficial to both me and my project if I managed to get some pictures to add to my research. This went very well, and I got some very nice pictures from it. It helped my research and my design a lot.

For my secondary research, I decided to look further into concept art and illustrations. This was because I wanted to be able to fully understand what I was creating. Despite knowing that my final piece isn't exactly how a character turnaround sheet would be, I like how my final design turned out. I also looked in different books that were about drawing in order to try to understand proportions more. I looked at a book that was purely realistic art, and I feel as though this was very helpful when I was creating my own design. 

I also researched a couple of artists as secondary research. I researched Akira Amano, a creator of manga who was the lead character designer for 'Psycho-Pass', an original anime series. I found that my research into Akira Amano was very helpful, as I was able to look at her character concept art for the series. That is something similar to what I wanted to initially create. I also looked into Yoshitaka Amano, a character designer and illustrator known mainly for his works in the 'Final Fantasy' series. I looked into Yoshitaka Amano as, with my original idea, I hoped to create a piece of character illustration. Even though I didn't have the time to go through with this idea, I still found that the research I did on Yoshitaka Amano was extremely helpful.

Out of all of the research that I did, I found that my primary research was more helpful to me in the long run. My survey results were very beneficial to me whilst creating my character design and synopsis, and my photographic research was extremely useful whilst I was creating my final design. My photographic research allowed me to create the outfit that I did in the end. 

I produced a frontal full body drawing of my original character and outfit design. I drew and produced everything that appears on my final piece; however, the font I used for my character's name is one that was installed on Photoshop. 

Initially, I was unsure of my target audience; however, I eventually decided that my work was aimed at people 16 and over, and especially those interested in gaming, character design or animation. I feel as though my work would have a lot of appeal to people that worked or were interested in these areas.

I didn't use a wide variety of tools in Photoshop; I mostly used different variations of the brush tool in order to create my piece. However, I did learn how to use the blending options in order to properly create the gradient overlay for a part of my piece.

My time management for this assignment wasn't the best. I fell behind multiple times and it was very difficult for me to catch up with where I should have been at a specific time. It also wasn't possible for me to complete the idea that I had originally planned to do. Nevertheless, I am happy with how my final piece turned out.

Even though it isn't what I originally hoped to create, I'm pleased with my final piece and how it turned out. I chose not to add too many fine details, as I didn't want to ruin what I had already created by overcrowding my piece. Even though I didn't get to accomplish what I had set out in my proposal, I'm glad that I focused more on this one piece, as it allowed me to work more on it and make it a lot better than it would have been otherwise.

I did encounter a few problems during the creation of my final piece with my computer occasionally turning off, causing me to have to re-do parts of my piece a few times. However, despite this, I still managed to finish it to a standard that I was happy with.

If I were to do this project again, I would do my best to get my time management sorted out so that I was on track every week. If I were to do this, I feel as though I would be able to complete my work to be more true to my proposal. I would also attempt to make my character design more detailed, as I only used the block colours for my final piece. I would add shading to my piece, too. I think I would also attempt to solidify my game concept and concept art piece. I think this would be a fun project to re-do.

Final Piece

This is my completed final piece. While I wish I would have had more time in order to be able to add more onto it, I am happy with how it came out. I added the final palette of colours that I used, as I feel as though the colours say a lot about the outfit, which says a lot about the person. 

Peer Feedback

The Pallete of colours has been used brilliantly and go well with one another. The style of the character and the clothing types remind me of an online series called RWBY, specifically a fawness. clothing is very modern in design. - Thomas Morris

over all i think that the character its self is very well drawn and edited. all the colours go together nicely. however some aspects of the character still look like i sketch and could do with touching up to make them more smooth - dominic russell.

After reviewing my peer feedback, I am thankful for the positive comments about my work. I also appreciate the constructive criticism that I have been given; I will keep this in mind for future projects on my next course.

Final Piece Progression

To begin with, I drew a basic outline of a body. I did this in order to be able to get the average proportions for the head, torso, arms and legs, and also for the pose itself.

I then spent quite a while drawing in all of the finer details, and then I hid the sketch layer, which left the lineart in its place. Unfortunately, I neglected to get screenshots of this process.

After the lineart was complete, I created a group in Photoshop where I would put all of my layers in order to keep them more organised. After this, I began colouring. I created a new layer and started with the inner shirt and the decoration of the glove. As I was colouring two things that weren't close together, I decided to do this process on the same layer. I have done this throughout my process to minimise the amount of layers.

Moving on, I created another layer and coloured in the jacket. 

Then, I created another layer. On this one, I coloured both the laces of the shoes and the cuffs of the jacket.

On another layer, the shoes and the black of the glove.

Then I moved on to the trousers.

I then moved on to the hair, where I started off by colouring it on a new layer in fully light blue.

Afterwards, I went into the blending options and chose a gradient overlay. Above are the settings I used for the overlay. This overlay is what gives my character's hair the white around the edges.

Then, I tried out many different shades for my character's skin. Eventually, I found one that looked like it fit well with the colours of the clothing.

Lastly, I coloured in the eyes and the area surrounding the eyes.

With my character finished, I decided to add a few extra touches. I used the font 'Forte' at size 60 pt in order to type out my character's name.

I rearranged how the name looked by separating the first and last name using 'enter' between them, and then I made the surname indented by pressing the 'tab' button until I was happy with it. Finally, I created a colour palette of the colours that I had used.

I then saved my work as a JPEG image.

Weekly Review 4

I started to fall further behind with my schedule as this section of my project approached; as there was quite a lot of work to complete, I had to try to work through it to the best of my ability.

My photographic research took me a lot longer to complete; this was because I was unable to get the photographs I needed before the London MCM Expo at the end of May. Despite this, however, once the time came around, I was able to complete this part of my research with no problems at all.

My sketches were very basic, as I did some on paper first; however, I find it quite difficult to work with a sketch when I  put it into Photoshop. I did, on the other hand, manage to get them complete. I would have liked to have drawn the whole of my character out as a sketch to begin with, but instead, I decided to go with drawing different ideas for clothing and hair styles in a basic form.

I had to leave my survey up for longer than I had initially planned. This was because only a few people from the class completed it. Instead, I posted it on my own social networking sites, where I knew people that were into gaming and animation. While I did this as a last resort in order to have more responses for my survey, the results I got from these people were extremely helpful and detailed. While I analysed my primary research a lot later than I'd have hoped to, it still went went rather smoothly thanks to the helpful results I got from it.

• Research Sources

There were many different types of research that I completed for this project, which were all helpful in one way or another. Looking further into what concept art and illustrations actually were helped me when it came to planning my final piece through sketches. Listening to others views and opinions on character designs and development was extremely helpful, as it gave me more to think about concerning my own character. My survey also helped to expand my primary photographic research. 

The most helpful research that I completed was my primary photographic research, as it helped me to research better into clothing and how it moved in real life. It was extremely helpful to be able to see something that could help me so much. While I'm unsure if it will show through my final piece how much this research has helped me, it has been very helpful by helping me to design the outfit.

The primary research that I had used books for was very helpful, as it assisted me in understanding the difference between realistic and cartoonish proportions when drawing. 

My secondary research was also quite helpful. Looking further into concept art and what it actually was helped me to grasp a firmer understanding of it, which turned out to be highly beneficial.

As a whole, I feel as though my research was very helpful towards all of my work, even though I am unsure if it will all show through in my final piece.

Analysing Primary Research

After my survey had been online for a while, I gathered up my results and had a look at what people had to say. I was quite pleased with most of the responses that I got, while a few of them didn't feel expanded enough for them to be very useful overall.

I decided to ask for basic age ranges as I felt that finding out this information would help me to find out the target audience that I was working with. Finding this out will assist me later on.

I made this question a multiple choice question that allowed people to pick more than one response, this was because I felt as though I could understand different people's opinions and views based on the results I received. 

Initially, I wasn't going to include a question like this; however, as I was trying to come up with different ideas for my character, I found myself struggling to decide. I thought that by listening to what others had to say, it would help me come to a final decision.

As I was also wanting to hear the respondents' opinions, I decided to input this question. It gave them a chance to express their thoughts more, rather than just picking an answer. 

This question is slightly similar to Q2, as it allows respondents to give their opinion after choosing an answer.

For this question, I gave people the chance to elaborate on the answer they chose in the previous question. I did this as I wanted to know why people decided to choose that specific answer; some people elaborated a lot and I found it really helpful.

For my last question, I chose to ask something that seemed out of the ordinary, considering the rest of my survey; however, I plan to use the results from this to develop my character further in the synopsis I plan to write.

• What type of research did you do?

For this project, I did a mixture of qualitative and quantitative research. While most of my questions required the respondent to choose an answer, I also added a section on the majority of the questions that would allow them to express their opinion further. I did this in order to hear their opinions as much as possible.

• What type of information did you gather?

I gathered a few different types of information from my survey. I first asked for the respondent's age; this enabled me to match up the ages with the answers chosen, allowing me to see if there was a correlation between those within the same age range.

I then went on to ask questions that were based around character design and creation. Questions such as people's preferred gender of protagonist and whether or not they thought that a character's clothing should reflect their personality allowed me to expand on my own thoughts and ideas. Asking what the respondent thought constituted to a good character design was very helpful as the responses gave me something to think about when I was creating my character synopsis. The responses I gained from this question allowed me to think about my character in a more complex way where backstory and personality were concerned.

For Q5, I decided to question whether subtle, drastic, or both kinds of character development would benefit a character more; then went on to ask my respondents to elaborate on their choices in Q6. Giving them a chance to elaborate further on the subject turned out to be very helpful, as their thoughts were all different and it gave me a lot to think about.

My final question seems very out of place when taking in the rest of my survey; however, I added it in intentionally. While I'm not creating a game concept to go along with my character synopsis and design, I feel as though I need to understand the setting that my character will be coming from. As I was thinking about a dystopian setting for my character, I felt as though asking what people thought they would experience in such a setting would be beneficial upon finishing my synopsis and design.

• Who was your target audience? Why?

Initially, I didn't have a set target audience. I wasn't sure of which ages it would appeal to; however, I eventually settled on ages 16 and over being my main target audience. This is because a lot of the people that I know that are between the ages of 16 and 30 that are really into video games and animation; therefore, I thought that it would be a good audience to target my survey and final piece towards.

• How could these results help to improve your work?

The information that I gained from my survey will help me in many areas of my final project. The input and opinions that I received from those that responded will be taken into consideration while I create the final design for my character, as well as while I polish up my character's synopsis.

• Look at your results; what do they say?

My results tell me that 64% of respondents were between the ages of 19 and 24; this enabled me to see that this was the main target audience that I should focus on.

73% of people agreed that personality, clothing choices and facial expressions were all important for a good character design, while the remaining 27% offered other thoughts that they believe are also important, such as poses, backstory and traits that a character has.

82% of respondents agreed that a character's clothing choices should reflect their personality, along with offering their own thoughts on what else should be considered, such as a character's backstory and upbringing, which could also have an effect on how they dress.

73% of people that took my survey think that a balance of both subtle and drastic development benefit a character, allowing them to grow throughout the plot.

Finally, from my last question, 55% of people think that heavy character interaction is important in a dystopian style game.

These result were extremely helpful to me, as they allowed me to clearly see what others thought; I was also able to see the different opinions of those taking my survey, thanks to the open questions I asked, as well as the questions where I gave the option for people to add in their own thoughts and opinions. 

• Summarise the process and evaluate what impact it will have on your work.

Overall, I have found that the majority of people that took my survey were between the ages of 19 and 24; I have also found that people don't seem to think it matters if my character is male, female, or anything else. On top of this, I found that most of my respondents think that facial expressions, personality and clothing all contribute when creating a good character design. More than half of the people that took my survey agreed that a character's clothing choice should reflect personality; they also agreed that both subtle and drastic development is important for a character. With these results, I aim to take a look at the ideas that I already have and expand upon them. By doing this, I hope to create my work to he highest standard I can manage.