Crit presentation

This week has been really busy. Apart from participating in a lower year’s Crit presentation as usual I had my hands full with my own preparation for Thursdays Crit presentation: trying to complete oil and watercolour mock-up screenshots for my game 'Lyse'. On Tuesday met with Simone to have a quick chat about my work so far however because I had only one version ready did not get much feedback but she said she liked what I was doing.

I have managed to finish my game environment layout sketches by completing the last part: air (see image below)

Also finished intended screenshot mock-ups (see images below)

 Oil/acrylics version

Watercolour version

Although I did not have time left to redesign my character I have included my new character inspiration moodboard (see image below)

So far my personal thoughts about the work

Not happy with the mock-up screenshots. There is nothing wrong with the sketch underneath the paintings; however the painting bit for neither oil/acrylic nor watercolour is right. The images are of course quite rushed and supposed to be only 'sketches' but still... things are wrong. There is no surprise about the watercolour media imitation as it is very far from the real water on paper technique. However, one would think that oil/acrylic would be easy, but no, the art is not happening on a digital paper/canvas like it used to on a real one. The technique does not feel right even though use of various brushes and their different settings helps (mentioned in my week 19 post). At the moment watercolour looks better, however there is an issue with watercolour. Since the feature of watercolour is its translucency on a paper and my game environment is contains many layers I think transparent trees just not going to look right. Besides,  if I vent for the 100% opacity then the environment would look 'cut-out'. Not sure if I want that.

In addition,  the colour! I like the sky in the background however it just does not work with the foreground. I defiantly need to fix that by either changing the sky layer or the forest. Also, sky is obscured by the forest layers. Perhaps revealing more of it would also give more space for the UI/HUD at the top of the screen.

During Crit presentation I have talked about my game idea, game design and layout.  Also showed images of paper prototype as well as character designs and moodboards and told them that I will change my character design to something simpler. Perhaps something similar to the Boy from 'How to Catch a Star' by Oliver Jeffers book, however I want it to have a painted texture and face.

Lecturers’ feedback

I did not get that much feedback even though they asked quite a few questions about my process and art. They still like the idea and what I am doing though which is nice. Also, I probably need to learn how to structure my presentation better so I explain more about what I am doing and how. I will have one more chance to do that at the end of the year and the presentation will be graded so I better make it right.

Pre crit week

Last Thursday I went to The Jolomo Bank of Scotland Awards exhibition at HMC (Hannah Maclure Centre). I think this was the best free time I have spent so far this year. I am really getting bogged down with my project. I seem to be doing nothing at all but my university work and still worrying if I can do it well enough. Pressure is mounting up and by always staring at my PC screen I am not doing many favours for myself or perhaps even for my project.

During the event I did not have that much time to look at the paintings that were hanging there but I really enjoyed talks with the artist. I have even stayed longer then I was intending at first because some of the conversations I had with the artists were really interesting and were close to my heart and my mind: the whole painting process, returning back to art after years of break, the constant beating yourself up by feeling like of being not good enough etc. Since I did not have much time to look at the exhibited paintings I went back to the exhibition this week during the day and really enjoyed looking an analysing the paint on canvas and how each painter had their own style and ways of applying paint on to the surface or choice of colour.


During last five days I have managed to complete the Game Concept Document*, make a better sketch for the underwater and land/forest part of the game as I doubt I will have enough time to create the rest of the game artwork. (see image below)

Also a better version of the land/forest screenshot. (see image below)

Character designs

Silhouettes

Iterated designs (not all complete)

I will have to rethink character design as most of them are too complicated and might be difficult/time consuming to animate.

As well as started to set up the proper land/forest layer for my final peace (see image below)

Tomorrow meeting my supervisor again to see what is her feedback and discuss what I would like to and should present during my crit presentation.


* Current Game Concept document can be found following this link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/q65ylkz26uzgk8p/Honours%20Game%20Concept.pdf