Final week: the end is already here

I went to the university this Tuesday; finalised last paperwork and had some quick advice on how to manage word count in my dissertation so I stay below the 9 or 10K word limit mark. Just want to make sure, I will remove the danger of getting penalised in case the word count does matter.
I have also been working on my practical stuff with an odd interruption now and again to sort either the submission materials or things related to exposition. I have also asked a friend of mine to start proof reading some dissertation material which is a great help.

Tomorrow is 12th of May and my first submission is due by 4pm. So far I have been concentrating on getting my practical stuff ready. I was not a 100% sure on what I should concentrate so chose to improve an overall environment art and then just try and implement everything in to a gameplay video created by Adobe After Effects since  most of the lecturers seem to always stress the interactivy part of the art within games.

In my opinion an updated environment art (see image below) looks better now as I have polished the overall look and introduced a lot of details, like texture, various patterns etc (see images below).

Overall look of the game art (above)

Texture application method using Emboss Layer (image above)

A lot of the basic texture came through the use of digital brushes that replicate traditional media look (image above). 

I have used Texture  brush settings to give canvas look (see image  above)and stayed away from applying texture on top of everything mainly because in previous tests it looked quite unnatural and too overpowering. 

To address the composition seen on a screen during gameplay, a variety of different shapes were introduced in the form of trees and bushes (marked in yellow), a rolling forest and foreground edge (marked in red) to give more variety and guidance for the eye. The forest line has also been intersected by a few curvy cloud lines (marked in green).
The onscreen image had also been broken in to four tone bands which balance an overall view (top and bottom): the lightness of the sky is counterbalanced by the dark middle ground at the bottom of the screen and protruding shadowy foreground elements are offset by the very bright clouds at the top of the screen. (see image below)

I have also finished UI design. Not a 100% happy with it but I am really pressed for time and this is the best I can come up with (see image below).

UI in game with inventory window closed (image above)

At the moment still working on the gameplay video, but I am sure it will not be fully completed by Monday 4pm. I chose to concentrate on showing the art rather than animations (e.g. character walking) and gameplay since the whole idea of my project is the about the look of the art and prove that it can work within a game environment. Animations would be a great thing to have but I do not have time to complete it atm.

That brings me to another point- presentation and an exposition next week. I will try to complete and polish the gameplay video for both of them. That means that I will continue doing my practical work after the dissertation hand in is done. I hope having things completed or nearly completed would help with my presentation as well as exhibition as I will be marked for both of them and I would like to get the best mark I can. I would love to have a chance to have an option of doing Masters later on.

Hardly any Dissertation work had been done this week. I managed to get some parts proofread by my friend for whom I am really grateful and I have already fixed grammar and spelling mistakes he has found. I will go back to dissertation after tomorrows hand in and will work on it until Wednesday morning or noon before sending it to be printed and bound.


I have also moved forward with promotional stuff I need to have for exposition. On Wednesday I have ordered 100 mini business cards with a range of different designs taken from my final project piece and a few postcards (see images below). Both of them should arrive by the 16th of May so it gives plenty time before the exhibition.

 I have also bought a printing credit from photobox for a poster size 30"x20". I will order it on Tuesday or Wednesday next week. That should give me enough time to receive it by Thursday morning. I am planning on having a large poster at the top showing off the game environment (have not made up my mind if I will have UI also displayed or not) and then a few A3 posters explaining a little my process and maybe some zoomed in examples to show off my brushwork etc (as the ones seen in this blogpost) At the moment also considering to dedicate one poster for my aim and objectives so people can have a quick look and read what my honours year project is about. It is a bit confusing what space I will have since I will be exhibiting at HMC and there is no detailed info about the wall space allocated when exhibiting there but this is a rough plan I have made (see image below).

And The Conclusion: how do I feel about my honours year project?...
I feel really happy that I have chosen this topic because it is of interest to me as well as I think it is one of the next steps the 2D videogame art is already taking (Braid by Jonathan Blow, Amanita design games and this month’s new release from Ubisoft 'The Child of Light'). I think the art of 2D video games is still evolving and has a long way to go. I feel it is time to try and give more choice and perhaps more quality for the videogame players. With my project I have only scratched the very surface of the topic and there is so much still left to explore. Feeling passionate about it has definitely made me more determined and more stubborn to try and do my very best, but at this moment in time I feel very tired and need to have a little break to rest and to think what I am going to do next. I still love videogames and certainly want to do something meaningful. Around 7 years ago I have made a conscious choice to change my life and pursue my goal of creating art again and I am not done yet. Hell!!! I  have just started and have a long way to go and I know, I will find things to do: I want to continue improving my art, learn a bit of programming  which would hopefully help me to create my own games and I will look for likeminded people to team up and create things; things that matter.

Playing catch up with practical work

This week I have started sorting all the files and folders for my 12th of May submission disk: printing game concept, asset list documents, learning contract etc etc... Just want to make sure that everything is there and I do not forget something important. Also it will make me feel better having things ready rather than worrying that I still need to do ‘all of that stuff’ before the final hand it. I really want to get everything else out of the way as soon as possible and just concentrate on my practical work and then burn everything on to DVD an hour or 2 before the submission and drop it in to a submission box before the deadline.

This Thursday I had 2 meetings with Simone. She has finally finished reading my dissertation draft and gave feedback. I still need to change the layout: move Contextual Review part back in to Methodology section, write a new chapter on Walter Benjamin have a look at 'technological determinism' add more info here and there and  have a look at Richard Eldridge book "An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art", Martin Rieser book " The Mobile Audienc. Media Art and Mobile Technologies" as well as Oliver Gray book ”Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion" which I still did not have time to do it. My first submission in a week’s time so I decided that the dissertation stuff has been taking way too much time now and I'm going to leave it until practical submission is done.  Only then I will fix the document as much as I can for Friday the 16th of May. I will most likely have to go back to practical work again after that as I strongly doubt I can finish the gameplay video. I need to have that video for my exhibition at least. It would be really good to have it ready for the presentation on Monday 20th as well.

I will be meeting Simone this Tuesday to get last paperwork signed and then just concentrate on doing as much artwork and animation as possible. Also, I am hoping to find some time to look in to the promotion stuff like business cards and poster printing. I will give my best shot and hope for the best. That is all I can do.

More dissertation writing!

This Thursday had another meeting with Simone. She gave me feedback on my Literature Review part of the dissertation. One of the main reasons of concern was my English grammar. She said she found it hard to follow my dissertation because I had too many grammar mistakes. :( I was a bit surprised because none of my previous lecturers ever mentioned that my English was in such a terrible state. Anyway, I went back to the Student Services if they could do proof reading and at the moment is not clear if they could help me. I will look if any of my friends can have time to read it through but it is highly unlikely as I would imagine everyone is pretty busy with their university work and even if they are not that many people would fancy reading through 9+ K (82 page) word document. I did a quick research online and people charge about £10 per page or per 1000 words. I cannot pay £100 just for proof reading when I already need to print things for exhibition as well as two copies of dissertation and all of these 3-4 weeks before I will become unemployed.
What I did for the rest of the week was fixed all the mistakes in Literature Review and been re-reading every single sentence at least 4 times and trying to fix those grammar mistakes. Also Simone suggested I change the layout of the dissertation and create a section called Contextual Review. So I have done all that and nearly finished writing the entire document. I was really hoping to be done this evening, but looks like I'll have to do some more stuff tomorrow. Need to finish Conclusion and Abstract  parts as well as check again for any grammar mistakes.


Now the Table of Contents looks like this:

LIST OF TABLES......................................................iv
LIST OF FIGURES....................................................v
INTRODUCTION.....................................................1
LITERATURE REVIEW............................................3
Video games and aesthetics........................................3
Art aesthetics relation to videogame visuals................13
CONTEXTUAL REVIEW.......................................17
Composition.............................................................17
Colour.....................................................................26
Brushes and painting techniques................................30
Texture....................................................................34
Handcrafted imperfections........................................36
METHODS..............................................................38
Visual research and critical analysis............................38
Media tests...............................................................40
Critical Framework...................................................45
Case Studies.............................................................47
Braid........................................................................47
Okami......................................................................49
Personal Project.......................................................51
Game design and Pre-production..............................51
Production................................................................55
Critical Framework application.................................58
FINDINGS & EVALUATION................................60
CONCLUSION & FUTURE STUDY.....................62
APPENDICES.........................................................64
Honours Project Supervisor Meeting diary.................65
REFERENCES.........................................................66
FIGURE REFERENCES..........................................71


I really cannot afford any more time on the dissertation. I have already spent an extra week on it, which of course came from my practical work slot. :(  I still have to polish a few bits for the environment art, then do UI, character animations and create a gameplay video in adobe After Effects. I do not know how much I can complete it in 2 weeks time. I really hope I can do it all, but most likely I will end up doing more work after the actual submissions are over and probably my neck and back is going to try and kill me again. It is very unnerving and it certainly was not my plan at all. I was going to concentrate on my practical work, therefore my portfolio during this year; especially during this semester.

On Thursday the 1st of May I will have another meeting with Simone. I hope that the feedback regarding my dissertation is going to be somewhat better however... not expecting much good. I just have to live with what is there and fix things after 12th of May submissions.

Dissertation and some more dissertation

So for the last two weeks I have stopped doing any art and just concentrated on writing my dissertation. It is a very slow going process since English is not my first language so I often spend time looking at thesaurus trying to find that 'right' word that would describe better what I am trying to communicate.
I have changed a few bits in the overall layout of the paper.

I have also created an updated my project plan (Old one can be found in this blog post  here)showing the areas that I am looking at and how it all ties together (see image below).

I have added an area where I do traditional art and game art analysis; looking at Emotionalism aesthetic theory and how it ties together with brushstrokes visible on a canvas and how these marks not only connects the viewer and the artist but at the same time can contribute to the overall composition of the image. For example like guide the viewer’s eye around the canvas (see image below).

Van Gogh, V. 1889. Starry night. [online image]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:VanGogh-starry_night_ballance1.jpg [Accessed 19 April 2014]

Also been looking about composition in games and so far Botanicula (2012) seem to be performing best (see image below).

Amanita Design. 2012. Botanicula. Microsoft Windows. Amanita Design & Daedalic Entertainment

A spore is spawned repeatedly on the top left-hand corner and is used to deliver a golden key (seen in the picture) to a spot in front of the characters on the bottom right-hand corner. Also the big brown mushroom on the top left-hand corner seems to 'balance' the characters standing at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. There is also a light coloured white mushroom mirroring the big dark one.

Machinarium (2009) also have some composition elements. It seem to use primarily Golden Cut (see image below).

Amanita Design. 2009. Machinarium. Microsoft Windows. Amanita Design & Daedalic Entertainment

There is a lot action happening around the Golden Cut intersection. For example in this scene the main character Josef is in fiddling with the ventilation system/fan. Also tone wise the dark left-hand side is balanced by the light sky area on the right-hand side. The tower seen in the background is also going straight through the middle of screen.

Another area I am investigating is colour and I think there are some interesting examples how colour can make an asset stand out from the background (see image below).

Number None, Inc. 2009. Braid. Microsoft Windows. Number None, Inc

I think in Braid (2008) World 1, the clouds stand out well from the background because of the complementary colour use: yellow-orange (sky, background) is an opposite of blue-green (the interactable cloud platforms).


My supervisor has also suggested that in my dissertation I should talk about the experience of digital painting and how it is different from traditional painting.
I had also had a look at Walter Benjamin book 'The work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility'* as well as Grahame Sullivan book 'Art Practice As Research'**.
B. Walters although talks about printing of artworks and other ways of their mechanical reproduction do related to the Emotionalism aesthetics theory. G. Sullivan’s book was not as useful as I have thought. I did not have too much time to have a really close look at it so perhaps I have missed something. Sadly time is running out fast and I still have many things left to complete before submissions.
I really want to have my dissertation finished by 24th of April because that day I will be going to a library to get help with formatting, referencing and some other things related to dealing with long documents.


On a side note, this Thursday I have went to the Pixel Pushers exhibition at Hannah Maclure Centre and then attended Ian McQue's Masterclass. It was really interesting and I was hoping to get some insights or something really relevant to my project but I feel it was not worth the time as much as I have hoped. I think Jolomo Awards exhibition at HMC earlier this year was more useful.

* Benjamin, W.2008.The work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility and other writings on media.London: The Belknap Press

** Sullivan, G. 2010. Art practice as research : inquiry in visual arts. 2nd ed. London : SAGE

Meeting my supervisor

This week I had my regular meeting with Lynn and spoke about handover to my intended supervisor Simone O'Callahan. Also she had a look at my updated Game Concept document and gave advice on some of the HUD/UI and gameplay questions I had. Mainly about the UI during star and firefly collection as well as during star placement in to their sky 'sockets'. Also, some advice on how to better structure Game Assets List. She also liked my moodboards and told me that she could definitely see a game now and can imagine how it would look like, which is great. I feel really excited about it and my project as a whole.

Regarding Dissertation she advised me to add my game Case Studies in to the Methods part of the Dissertation document.

For next week I will be finishing off my Game Concept document as well as creating concept art for environment, character and layout. Also if I have time I should try and create some media tests to help me decide what style I am going to choose for my game art.

My goal is to have a game design ready and polished at least to 95% and concept art with media test done by Crit presentation on 13th of March, because I would like to hear what the tutors think, take their advice/suggestions and then crack on with the parctical part of the project: creating assets.

This Wednesday I have also met my supervisor Simone. Since it was our very first meeting I have showed her the entire practical and research stuff I have done so far as well as spoke about why I have chosen this aim and what I would like to achieve at the end. She also suggested that I should look at some artists who create interactive digital art. For example Nick Bantock and his "Griffin & Sabine" (Ceremony of Innocence CD).
Can see a video of it by following this link:

Ceremony of Innocence (long player) from Alex Mayhew on Vimeo.

I think it is very intersting and I like the traditional look/feel of the art also very simple interactions. I think what I really like in art is the personal touch of the artist that is visible in the art that he/she makes. I remember watching one of  Bobby Chiu (digital artist) videos on YouTube where he talked about artist and their artstyle. He said: "A lot of times when you look at great art an then you meet the artist you understand even more about the art. You understand where it came from."

deviantart. 2013. Bobby Chiu of Imaginism Studios (Part 1). [online]. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJtVlMmxD2Y [Accessed 27 February 2014]

Simone also suggested that I maybe should consider using surrealist artists as part of my research (e.g Magrite) since the story I am telling in my game is not real and of course there is a lot of surrealist art which I can use as an example for the traditional painting technique part of research. Another area to look for information could be illustration art.

After hearing about my game idea and story behind it, she informed me that there is a children’s book 'How to Catch a Star' by Oliver Jeffers which has a similar story to mine. I was intrigued and had a look.

Mr. K's Reading Corner. 2014. How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers Read Aloud. [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwXvm4qBcXg [Accessed 27 February 2014]

I think it is a really sweet story for the kids. I also like Oliver Jeffers art style: really simple but nice watercolour art. However I probably will not go for a similar style.


Regarding Dissertation, I will have to finish it more early as I thought since Simone will need at least two weeks to read it and give feedback on it. I wish I could finish my practical work first as it would make since to do that before completing dissertation however it may turn out to be the other way round. It means that it should be ready latest by 21st of April.

Tomorrow I will be attending an opening night of The Jolomo Bank of Scotland Awards* at HMC (Hannah Maclure Centre). Since it is about landscape painting I am hoping that it will be useful for my project.


* Can read more about the exhibition here:
http://www.abertay.ac.uk/about/news/newsarchive/2014/name,15841,en.html

Pitch feedback

Pitch feedback was somewhat as expected. They did like a lot of the work I have done during the end of the semester 1 and beginning of semester 2. Also I had been advised on looking at some interactive artists as this might help to develop the art side of my project. A couple of tutors expressed the same concerns I had in my mind  about the collaboration projects. Basically the advice was to think: “Are any of these projects really suitable to showcase my art?" Sadly, I think they are right. No matter how much I would love to see my art in the game I need to choose what is best/more suitable to my project and the answer is probably none of the two.

So now I am back in the same place I was 2+ weeks ago. The scary prospect of coming up with my own game idea, game design and mechanics is back. Can I pull this off? My mind had been racing through ideas since the end of my presentation and so far I have not come up with anything decent at all. All of this makes me really very stressed. I need to start my artwork now if I want it to be done really well and I am back to "square one".

This week I have also gone back to the dissertation: created new document for it and prepared the layout. Also added information from my Research Proposals Literature Review part and fixed some of the things up, borrowed books (mentioned in my previous post) from a library to address my knowledge gaps and get some useful quotes  for the dissertation.

Also prepared a more detailed Semester 2 Learning Plan/Timetable. Copies of it can be found here:

Excel document:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/r9cyrp8vbxscyag/LearningPlan_TimeTable%20Semester%202.xlsx

Pdf document:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/smxnttm5xue1a4q/LearningPlan_TimeTable%20Semester%202.pdf

Apart from university work I have also prepared my CV and will try to get feedback on it. Also, somehow I need to find time to put my website up. I really need it for job search as well as the exposition (for business cards). When I will be able to do all of .... I am not too sure. In any case the only thing I can think of at the moment is my project and my idea for the game which I do not really have.

Supervisor meeting: week 20

Met my supervisor (Lynn) on Monday and we had a discussion about my dissertation structure.  (Dropbox link to the document here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mj0ji2lwbbogz62/Dissertation%20Structure.docx ) I do need to make some changes to it, and make up my mind about what exactly I'm doing with my Case Studies. Also need to check some of the old materials on Aesthetics.

I have also clarified some details about the exposition and infrastructure form that is due on Friday. Hopefully, I will be able to have an Android tablet at least for the opening day which I'm planning on using to display my final work (be it a game or only a video), but also have it as a digital sketchbook.

We have also talked about the options I have for collaborating with other people. So far the decission is to try and create some artwork for the two games that I have discussed with Abertay Game Developers society members and present it next week during my pitch to see what the feedback will be and at the same maybe the creation process will help to answer some of my questions as well. Also, I need to think about a game concept I want to take on in case none of the collaboration options will be suitable.  The game idea is the hardest part of all I think, as I am not really that good with game mechanics and similar stuff. I doubt I will be able to come with a totally brand new idea for a game.

During our meeting I did not have time to show my latest artwork. This week I will be working on mock-up screenshots for the AGDS guys games so have more things to show next week.