Now the 1st term of my Masters is coming to a close; I am taking time to reflect on what I've done so far, how it's benefited me (or why I decided it wasn't the path I wanted to go down), and how it will help shape what I have yet to do; in my quest to make Game-ready Characters.
What I've done so far:
Project Proposal
My initial proposal was a lot more complicated, I wanted to create a character loading screen to in UE4, with animations, an interface, and a backdrop. But, I was told (rightfully so) that although what I wanted to do was interesting, it was far too much work for me to get done in the time. Considering 3D character art was my main goal/the main thing I wanted to showcase it was best that I stuck to that and improved on my skills
How this helped/what I learnt: Getting some outside perspective helped me refine my project and focus what was ultimately the most important thing to me.
Surveys
Alongside the online research I'd been doing, I wanted to get some first-hand accounts of how character artists from the game's industry workflows. I made a survey and sent it out to Lead Character Artist, Character Artists, and Freelance Character Artists.
How this helped/what I learnt: This gave me a wide range of results which I could use to refine how I create my own characters. It was also great to know that I have somewhat of an online support system when I get to production.
Technical Research
I looked into technical specifications, and the general production of characters via the GDC website and looking at Polycount forums. I was also able to find talks on games and how they troubleshoot their projects.
How this helped/what I learnt: Through these I found out what tri-counts characters have for next-gen games, detailed character creation and iteration pipelines, and overall this will help me when I'm deciding what technical boundaries I want for my characters (what's reasonable compared to other games).
Research Presentation
For my research presentation I presented everything I'd looked into in search of finding what a game-ready character was. The presentation went really well and I was told that I had covered the technical side of my character research, but I needed to look into what gave a character a personality, which I decided to look into during character production.
How this helped/what I learnt: I was close to my goal of being able to start my project, but it was nice to be steered in a good direction and have some confirmation that I was on track. I also got so much advice from my supervisor and peers into how to give my characters depth; it's something I'll keep in mind throughout the rest of this year.
Art Style Exploration
I'd covered a lot of the theoretical side of my work, but wanted to start thinking about visuals and what my characters might look like. To get a clearer idea, I looked at all the artists whose work particularly stuck out to me, what I found successful/inspirational about their pieces, and what I could apply from that to my own work.
How this helped/what I learnt: It helped me decide what was important to me and what I wanted to covey the most in my characters. They also displayed their 3D work in different ways (dioramas, blank backgrounds with a strong pose, posed characters in graphical scenes), which will aid me what I'm decided the best way to display my characters in the viewer.
Supervisor Meetings
Having meetings with my supervisor, Mike Pickton, every week has been extremely important to me. I'm able to receive extremely important advice throughout my projects and help make sense and grounding of what I'm doing.
How this helped/what I learnt: Mike gave the me the advice that I need to show I can do a range of character styles and components, so I'm not shooting myself in the foot by not being broad enough as a character artist. For that reason, for my 5 characters I'm doing realistic and stylised characters, and displaying I can do humans, creatures, humanoids, hair, hard surface, soft surface and the like.
Project planning
Planning out my projects is highly important at the earlier stages, I've plotted out how long I have for each character over the rest of this year, what modules I'll be doing them in, the 2D and 3D processes I'll be doing, and how long each stage might take me.
I've also planned out the bases for my characters so when I get round to them, I can start production asap.
How this helped/what I learnt: I like knowing what I'm going to be doing as I can start looking into how I'm going to create them and how much I can realistically get done. Planning out my projects properly also helps me refine my time management.
Time Management
My time management this year has been quite precise because I know when everything is due, and can plan around that. I want my characters to be the best they can be, so I've made sure to give myself enough time to get them to a professional quality.
How this helped/what I learnt: Knowing how long I have for each project exactly will greatly help me keep on time and work quickly and efficiently.
Suko Development
I've started development for Suko on the 2D side to see how long it takes me to concept a character for modeling. I started off looking at moodboards within her theme/backstory, then moved onto thumbnails based off what I found, and finally moved onto getting her look sorted out. I'm currently at the stages of adding detail and doing values for her.
How this helped/what I learnt: When I start Suko properly in 5005, a large chunk of the work will have already been done, this also gives me the time to test out how long the 2D work will actually take. Also now that I've gotten back into the swing of Game Art, hopefully I can get my next character concepted more quickly and comfortably.
Learning Contract
The learning contract encapsulates everything I've done and will do for my Masters. I had to fill in what I was doing and how that helped me in my search for a "Game-ready Character". I also made not of what I wanted to be marked for in my assessment criteria and what weighting they'd have over my grade.
How this helped/what I learnt: Sorting out what I was going to be doing for each part of my masters really helped me ground my project and think more about why I was doing each character. The learning contract is a way to convey what I'm doing to not only myself, but also my supervisors and course head.
Do I feel like I've done enough? Am I happy with what I've produced so far?
I'm pleased with the breadth of research I've done and that I actually contacted people whose work I really admire. The work I'm doing now definitely feels like it has more depth to it than before and I'm hoping that will come across in my characters as it does in my blogs.
How could I improve my work?
Frankly, I need to make characters now; it's all well and good to theorise and research into them, but to truly get an understanding I need to create some of them now. As I want to get a job as a character artist as well, I need to display a well-rounded and professional-level portfolio.
What I plan to do next
Continue concept work for Suko
Plan out how I want to execute my projects and what I'll need to create/learn for each character.
Do research into characters and maybe start putting together a moodboard, so it won't cut into my 3D time.
