Artist research

                                     American Mcgee





American Mcgee is the artist for the Alice game franchise, he comes from Dallas, Texas in America. The reason I'm researching this artist is because this artist uses a similar style to me, The gothic style of drawing with all the edgy looking characters.

I will do an artist interpretation of one of his pieces of artwork, in order to learn more about how he creates his art. This will help me to improve my own work and see what works and what doesn't work about my art style. 


His artwork is very obviously based off Alice in Wonderland, however he's drawn it very grim dark and violent, sort of like the original books.

I think their might be a mixture of photoshop paintings and normal paintings in his art. He also uses maya to create some of the 3D art for Alice and it's safe to assume he sketches out his ideas before he makes the final design.The techniques he uses are blending, colour mixing and gradient to make his paintings pop out and look 3d. Important aspects of his art are the shading, colour, texture and tone.

This is my artist interpretation of his art, The meaning behind this is agony because she's giving birth to lots of babies as well as screaming. American Mcgee wants you to focus on the woman's head screaming, because if you saw her screaming with blood coming out of her mouth, you would want to investigate further into the painting.

One thing I like the most about his art is the amount of colour that's in each one, you never find yourself over or under-whelmed with colour when looking at his work. This relates to my project because his art is very similar for what I'm trying to do for my game and I think it could really help me to design the style I want for my game.

Leonardo Da Vinci

The image below is depicting the back of an arm, without the skin

so it's show's all the all the different muscles and where the shading goes in-between the muscles. 

In these drawing he has clearly used a pencil and a rubber 

also he might have used paper that doesn't smudge. The techniques he's used are blending and smudging. The elements used here are light and shadow, this makes the image look sort of like a photograph because of how realistic it looks.

Artist Interpretation

This is the artist interpretation I did of his art, the meaning behind his drawing is to learn about all the different muscles and joints the arm has, basically it's an observational drawing. The part he wants you to focus on are the armpits, he wants you to focus on it because it's the central point and it's where the arm and torso meet.

I like how in depth and detailed it is and how he really went into detail on all the little bits of shading in between the muscles. This relates to my project because I'm making a boss who's an angle in a human form, so I need to learn more about human anatomy.

Vincent Van Gogh

This is one of Vincent Van Gogh's most famous paintings. 

The painting has lots of very bright and expressive colours 

and I can also see the brush strokes he's used. The image is depicting a starry night night sky over a city.

The materials used in this painting are oil paints and a pallet knife. The technique he used is called impasto, it's using the paint straight out of the tube without thinning or diluting, also he uses expressionism. The main element he uses in the painting is colour.

In this Picture the focus point is the tree and from there it lead's your eyes's out to the sky and then down to the city. Like a lot of his paintings it could be because of how he was feeling, I say this because all his art has a very expressive style.

What I like about the painting is that it's very surreal and colourful sort of like a comic book. Since there's a lot of surrealistic environments in my game, I think that this will help me with my level design.

Glen Murakami

This Image is depicting all the different characters from the show Teen Titans, the different characters are all facing forward and they look very serious.

This could have actually been made in a couple of things, the either used copic markers and bleed-proof paper or he could have used photoshop and a penpad. The techniques used in this picture are cell shading and colour popping. Important elements in this picture are the lines, perspective and colour.

In this artwork all the character's look like they are about to get into a fight and by the expression on their faces it look's like it's going to be hard. They want you to focus on Robin the guy in red.

I like the style I think It's really cool, I love the cross between anime and American Cartoons. I think this influenced alot of different elements in my current art style.


Brendan McCarthy

                                         
The Image is depicting a car that's been equipped with various different type's of weaponry and armour.
The material use here are pencil and water colour's. The techniques used in this include wet on wet, blending and mixing. The element's important in this piece of art are the shadow, texture, line and tone.


This Is my Artist Interpretation

In this piece of art it looks like this car is built to be used in a battle and it's looks like it's accelerating which indicates it might be heading into battle. The creator of this image wants you to focus on the car, because it's the bit in the art piece with the most detail.

I like the design of the car in the artwork I think it's really cool and I wish I had a car like that. The reason this relates to my project is that the design of the car is very post-apocalyptic, which isn't a surprise because it's concept art for Mad Max: Fury Road, My game is also set in the same sort of style so I could use elements from this and insert them into my game.

Inspirations for my game

                         
                                                       













Vectorman

The reason I was inspired by this game is because I like how fluent the jumping and the running are, I also like that the enemies are knocked back slightly when they are hit because you feel like your attack actually hurt the enemy. 



Shantae

I was inspired by this game because the places you go to are relativity linear, but there are still many different secrets you can find along the way. I thought that would be to put in my game, like if you don't mind going off the linear track you could find something like a health power up or a powerful item. 




Kingdom Hearts
I was inspired by kingdom hearts battle system because the combat system is really solid. When you hit an enemy it actually feels like you HIT an enemy. So I want try put different elements of this battle system into my game.

                                              

Character Design for Dexter

These are all done on photoshop using the penpad.

Design 1

This is the first sketch I did of Dexter, I had trouble with his torso so I had to get a reference image online. 

Design 2

I used the reference image of the human body to improve his torso and I used another image from google to design the wings.

Concept art almost finished

I then coloured him in on photoshop, with the technique I learned from Shiam.

Concept art final

Chris suggested I worked into the hair, so I added the strands of hair by black and white on low opacity.

Mind Map

This is the mind map for my game, I used it to think of what sort of enemies and bosses my game will have.

This is my second mindmap where I go over the different item's their are and some of the other enemies including another design for Dexter.

Reference Images

This image helped me to come up with the side-ways view for one of the villains in my game Dexter.





This image helped me to design Dexter's wings because he's supposed to be an angel.

Project Proposal

SECTION ONE – The Final Major Project (guide 100 words)

My final project is to continue my game Ronex from the last project, that means completing around 2 levels. This game is also going to have a story but only through dialogue, I think cut scenes is being a bit too ambitious.  This game is going to be a cross between a platformer and beat em up with some RPG elements. The end point of this project is to display my work in an exhibition. This relates to my work because I will be learning new skills in programs such as photoshop and construct. I will learn to understand more about photoshop and construct. Through this I will try to push past my limits with my art skills, photoshop skills and construct skills.

SECTION TWO – Influences, Research, Sources and Ideas (guide 100 words)

I was influenced by a few games to come up with this one was vectorman because of it’s really good side scrolling, the next one is Shantae where you find power ups hidden throughout the levels but it’s still quite linier, finally I was also inspired by kingdom heart’s fluid battle system, which is fast but very effective.

SECTION THREE – Techniques, Processes and Timetables (guide 150 words)

The techniques I  will be working on will be photoshop, construct and drawing. I will be looking into different things I could do on photoshop  and construct to improve my game, also I will be learning more techniques in how to draw stuff like anatomy, landscapes and objects.

SECTION FOUR – Method of Evaluation (guide 150 words)

I will have people look at my work on an exhibition. I will receive the critic on my work by collecting up critic sheets. I will put my work up on my blog and analyse it. Then finally I write an evaluation with all the work I have done written down.

Game Progression

Level 1: Fight with Nix
Level 2: Fight with Phelis
Level 3: Fight with Visek
Level 4: Fight with Dexter
Final 1: Billy:Cloud Form
Final 2:Billy Tornado form
Final 3:Billy Hurricane Form
Final 4:Billy World Eater and ending

Initial Sketches For Ronex

This is Nix I plan to use him as the first boss of Ronex, but I'm not quite sure.

This is another one of the four generals behind Billy I'm not sure what I'm going to do with her yet.

Billy in his final form, will be the final boss of the game if I manage to get to that point, he might get a redesign later on but I'll see how far I go with my game.

Visek is a very fast enemy, so I'm probably going to have you fight him on a highway.

This is a basic design of the second level in Ronex, I design the level with the character Phelis in mind.  

Animation References

These are some movement cycles I found on the internet, so I can figure out the movement for the main character, enemies and bosses.(this will be updated)

The Moodboards for further Ronex devlopment

This is a mood board for the first level of Ronex. Although it does contain some assets from other levels and characters e.g. the soul crystal and the human anatomy for Dexter.

This is a mood board for the second level of Ronex. 

FMP Developing Ronex: Things I need to work on first

• A better idle animation
• Changing the base sprite
• Adding enemies
• Adding a working health bar
• Adding the first boss
• Putting in all the items
• Designing a better platform layout
• Adding a good combat system
• Add a lot more challenge

Game testing and troubleshooting

This is a review from someone who played my game

Ronex Alpha Version

https://googledrive.com/host/0B20Rq0ZRX6ITT2RlTlZEc2cwSnM/index.html

Platform Games Evaluation Final Part: Solving Time Based Creative Problems (Animation and Movement)

I drew my characters to help me figure out what their in-game counterparts would look like. To help with my game I researched animation and played other platform games to see what standard my game needed to reach, I also needed to research the anatomy of a dog for my main character who's supposed to be a hell hound. To make my game I used to different programs, photoshop for the sprites and construct for the gameplay. I did run into a few problem while working with construct such as, weird glitches, balancing difficulty and time based events such as a a person shooting or animation. The process I went through to make this game goes like this, I came up with the idea by closing my eyes and going through the list of ideas in my head, I drew all the first initial sketches for my idea which started off with the main protagonist and antagonist,while doodling in maths I came up with the first new design for Pyro which is the version that made him look more demon like, finally after many drawings on photoshop I came up with the final design for pyro which is the version of him, with the metal jaw and the same demon like face. To make my game I needed to understand how to layout a level, what kind of anatomy my character had, I had to use photoshop to colour in my sprites and I finally had to use construct to put all the sprites and background frames in and then test my game.

3D artist: Don Webster

Don Webster is a CGI artist, even though CGI is used in film it still is implemented into games sometimes. They are to very different mediums but have similar concepts. CGI or computer-generated imagery uses 3D models to create characters and different environments. 

This is one of the things he's done it 's a room with two dog in it, I think it's really good and detailed and I can definitely respect the amount of work the went into this environment. 

I'm not quite sure what he uses but I'm pretty confident it's maya just because it has that maya look to it.

Although he's not a game artist it's still takes the same if not more dedication to pursue a career in CGI.

Platform Games Evaluation P2: 3D Creative Problems

I sketched what my model would look like before I made it, to get a better idea of how it would look when I actually made it. I needed to research how to stop the clay from drying and what techniques I needed to use when handling clay. We made two models one using terracotta and latex and one using air drying clay and acrylic paint. For the one with terracotta clay we sculpted them applying slip periodically to stop it from drying and after they were finished we covered them in liquid latex, applying a new layer every ten minutes, however there wasn't enough on them so are tutors had to douse them in it, mine didn't survive. After the others dried however, they made a plastic liquid to pour into the mould to make the figure, they needed to keep tapping it in order to keep the air bubbles out then after a few hour they were dry and the figure were ready. The air drying clay was much easier to use in my opinion, the clay was much easier to mould and you don't need to put it in latex to keep it from crumbling. The only bad thing about it is that it dries out very quickly so you have to keep putting water on it so it can be a pain, however once it's dried painting it is really easy. I definitely prefer the air drying clay it's easier to use and easier to apply colour. The processes I used to make the models were, casting, modelling, observational drawings and painting.