Evaluation

For my project I wanted to make some form of landscape concept art for a game. When I first started out the project I didn't really know where to start as I had no brief for the artwork. Usually if your working for a company they will tell you what they want in the artwork, or at least ideas, or a brief which I didn't have. So I decided to make a questionnaire which I would get my class mates to fill out. The questionnaire would cover several things such as the setting/ environment, weather, race and time of day etc.

After receiving  the results, 2 things had the same results so I decided to go with the one I felt most comfortable with which was a fantasy forest. The other option was an elvish mountainous setting. The reason I chose the forest was because I haven't had much experience painting mountain ranges.

I started out looking for reference images of forests and plants and the things you would expect to be in a forest. I also looked at other artists work on this topic and put together a mood board of images which I used while I was painting to refer to different colors and ideas.

Then I jumped into sketching and thumb nailing to generate different ideas and compositions for my painting. This process didnt take to long as I found a setup I really liked. Once I had the idea I went in to start refining where objects would be and getting all the forms while making sure I had an interesting composition. Then it was just a matter of putting in colour and details. I used several colors from my mood board using the color picker in Photoshop. In this painting I used several texture techniques I've never used before. They were techniques used by some of the artists I researched, one of them even had a tutorial on how to do it which I find very helpful. I think using this method added a very nice sense of realism to my image, it gave it just that bit more depth to it.

Altogether I spent roughly 6 -7 hours on this piece which I'm quite happy about because its probably the most detail I've ever put into a concept. One thing I wish I did was paint it at A2 resolution because I printed it out on A2, whereas I only painted it on A3 which meant I had to scale it up when printing it which would result in less quality. I did print it out in A3 as well for my portfolio.
I didnt feel this painting was that challenging as it was very similar to what I'm used to painting. but I did learn a few things from it which I'm really happy about.

I also finished this painting early, so I decided to go back to my questionnaire and do a painting relating to what got the 2nd most results, the elvish mountain range.

For this painting I didn't really do any thumbnails which isnt really a good method of working, but I had a rough idea of the layout in my head and wanted to start painting straight away. This actually effected me in the long run as I found the composition and colors very hard to get right. I ended up using the color balance a lot to change the color of the image. Once I had my forms and composition fixed I started applying the same techniques used in the forest painting. I found painting this image was much harder as I wasn't used to it, I had to push myself a lot more to get what I wanted, which I think is a good way to learn.

In the end the painting took roughly 4 -5 hours, it isn't as detailed as the forest painting but I prefer it because I feel it has a much better mood to the image and a really dramatic on the edge feel to it.

If I was to change anything about my project I think I would of done more research into the mountain range setting as I think it would've saved loads more time painting it. Also I would look into changing the program I used to render my speed painting videos because the one I currently kept on making my computer crash.

Other than those things I'm really happy how the project went, I feel like I've learned a lot of new techniques for my paintings which I will now adapt into other projects. I also liked looking into the pre production phase as I've never really experienced it for concept art, which is what I want to do as a job in the future. I also think these techniques will help me in a few upcoming projects/ commissions I have over the summer holidays.

Final Pieces

Below are work in progress screenshots of my final image.

The final image took around 5 -6 hours to complete using photoshop. I used a lot of different techniques I've never used before, for example a lot of photo textures were used as im starting to get more confident using that method. I also learned a few tips about doing it through this video ---- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQvDl0TkLKc I think this is one of the most detailed concepts I've ever done which I'm quite pleased with as sometimes I find it difficult to take paintings further. Overall I am really pleased how this has turned out I really like the detail I managed to put into it and all the photo textures give it a really realistic feel to it. I also like the pools of light I added onto the foreground tree and vegetation. The thing I found most challenging about this painting was painting it in a close up view, like you were actually in the forest where as I'm used to painting more open landscapes on a more epic scale instead of close ups. 

I managed to finish my final image with a lot of spare time left, so I decided to paint a 2nd image.

As on the questionnaire I created the settings forest and mountainous get the same votes, so originally I chose forest, so for 2nd piece I decided to keep to my questionnaire and do a mountainous image. This image was more of a challenge than the forest painting because I dont have much experience painting mountain ranges. I wanted to get a real sense of mood in this image so I spent a lot of time working on the clouds to give a really dramatic effect on the image. Painting the image as the sun sets helps with this also. 

I tried to embed an elvish feeling into it as that was in my questionnaire, I decided to go for an elvish ruins look with the architecture as I think it feels really mysterious and suits the setting.

Below are the work in progress screenshots.

I actually found this image really hard to paint. I found it quite difficult to determine the colors so i ended up using the color balance a lot. I also couldnt get the right composition I wanted so I spent a long time trying to fix it and figure it out. Flipping your image often helps with this. Once I had everything in place and was happy I could then start detailing, to do this I used the same techniques used in my other painting; which involved a lot of texture brushes and photo textures as well as applying basic drawing fundamentals. 

Overall I'm really pleased how this image turned out, I felt like I learned a bit from painting this and had to overcome problems which I never really faced before. I prefer this painting to my other one because I think this has a much better mood and setting to my previous one. I think the forest painting is more for details and not so much setting and mood.

Presentation

Time Plan

10th May

this part really consists of researching that I want to create. So for me this was looking into forests and vegetation and how they look in certain lighting, the different colours, scaling etc. I'll also look at other artists work on this topic to see there different techniques and how they create there image.

17th May

This is part is similar to the image referencing as I would still be doing that. But on the side I would be starting to create quick sketches and thumbnails to try and get some ideas down. I would also be thinking about my colour palette and how my scene is going to be set up.

24th May

Here I would be well into doing my thumbnails and sketches trying to generate different ideas and also combining ideas into the same image. This part is critical in my process because without doing this it would take much longer to find out what I want to paint for my final image. This is a good and quick way to generate ideas.

31st May

Here I am coming to an end of thumbnail drawings and beginning work on my final image.

7th June

Now I am only working on my final image. I'm going to allow myself around 4 - 5 hours to complete this I would already have the thumbnail with rough detail in so there would be no need to try and think about all the forms, composition and how things are set up as this would already be done. Therefore It wont take me as long as possible.

14th June

Now I'm making some finishing touches on my final image while getting the recordings together and editing them in Sony Vegas. Rendering time for each clip would be about an 40 mins then the final render will take around half an hour.

21st June

Now I am setting up how I will present my work at the summer show. I was thinking of using a computer screen to present my speed painting and then print out the final image of my art work on A3. I will also have some work in progress images hanging up. I thought about having a second computer next to everything with Photoshop open and a tablet for people to try out on the day, so they can see how I create my paintings.

Comments

This blog has been monitored by various tutors and you have responded to the verbal feedback give..,. e.g. research into film visual construction.

Task 3

Time - Half Hour

Here is a quick painting I did from reference. The reference was a screenshot taken in game of 'Skyrim'. I wanted to do this because I really liked the colours used in this particular area of the game, I think they have a really big impact on the mood. Also the time of day used in the game was morning which created long shadows and pools of light coming through which is one of the things I wanted to practice trying to paint.

Here is some quick thumbnails I started creating to generate ideas for my final piece. I did like these but felt they were to open spaced to be set in a forest, apart from the bottom right which is more what I wanted to head towards.

I thought I would try to add colour to these as I feel that's something I'm lacking in and from researching artists, they all say adding colour to black and white images is easier than painting straight from colour.

To do this I create a layer above my black and white painting, then change the blending mode to colour or overlay and start laying down some colours.

This is an image I painted using all the techniques and processes I learnt from my research. I used the same brushes as the artists I looked into, they have some really useful brushes which consist of various textures fro rocks plants and trees. I'm also still experimenting turning a black and white painting into colour as a lot of artist say that its a lot easier this way.

Presentation Blueprint

PRESENTATION BLUEPRINT

SLIDE 1: INTRODUCTION

Name: Will Roberts

Course: Interactive Media in Game Arts

 

Project Title: Fantasy Landscape Concept

Date:02/05/2013

Engine/Software: Photoshop Cs5 Extende

 

 

 

SLIDE 2: IDEA

Idea:

Stand Alone Game Environment / Level Design/Character Design etc..

Concept art for a fantasy MMO RPG game landscape set in an ancient elven forest. 

Software: Photoshop CS5 Extended

Description: I chose this program because it is one professionals use and recommend. As well being able to paint in it there are many different editing tools you can use. Also I have more experience in Photoshop as I've been using it for several years now to do my own paintings.

SLIDE 3: SETTINGS, THEME AND LOCATION

Environment Setting:

*   Fantasy

*   Forest

*   Riverside

Theme:

*   Elven

*  Ruins

*  highly detailed

*   Style of Blinck (Jorge Jacinto)

*   Nice mood and Lighting

SLIDE 4: PROJECT PURPOSE/TARGET AUDIENCE

What do you want to create?: 

I want to create a fantasy elvish forest with massive trees and over grown vegetation with rivers/ streams and waterfalls running through it. 

What do you want to Learn or Improve?:

 I want to learn the whole production process for creating concept art as I have never experienced this before. I think it would be god for me because this is something I want to get into as a job in the future.

What do you want to the Player/Viewer to Experience?:

 I want the viewer to experience a really heavily fantasy setting which has nice cool colours and a great mood and feeling to the image.

 

SLIDE 5: FEATURES

Features/Content List:

Big trees 

Overgrown plants

Oversized plants

Waterfalls

Streams

Rivers

Ruins

Sketches

Thumnails

Final Piece

Final Piece printed

Speed Painting

 

SLIDE 6: PHOTO/REFERENCE AND INSPIRATION

Photo Reference:

Research:

 I looked into different artists work. Tried using the same styles and techniques as them using there brushes provided on there websites. Looked into a bit of film development. 

Researched different art works that are in the same style for what I want to achieve.

Looked into what colour palette I want to use.

The architecture

SLIDE 7: STORY (as a Game point of view)

Story:

How?
How did the player arrive in the environment? What were the events that brought them here?

Why?

Why is the character here? What purpose or what goal are they to achieve?

What?

What happened to the environment prior to the player arriving here?

 

SLIDE 8: UNIQUENESS&ORIGINALITY

§  What would make your Concept/environment/Animation stand out?

§  How will the player remember the environment?

§  What would make your location interesting? Aesthetically, visually and architecturally?

SLIDE  9: VISUAL DEVELOPMENT

Color Palette:  Cold/ warm Colours, blue's greens, yellows and orange tones.

Environment Colors: Cold/ warm Colours, blue's greens, yellows and orange tones.

Lighting: orange, yellows, sunset colours

 

SLIDE  10: TIMESCALE

Is your project achievable in the given timescale?

Tell us how and why!

Week 1

Image referencing,

architecture

forest's

things that are in forest's

finding what colours to use/ colour palette

Week 2

Rough sketches

Thumbnails

image referencing

Week 3 

Sketches 

Thumbnails

Final Painting

Week 4

Final painting

Finishing touches

Put together speedpainting

Print out of final image

Week 5

set up presentation 

printed out image and speedpainting

Week 6

Hand in

I think I'll manage with this timescale because once I have idea set of what I want to paint I can usually produce the painting in a few hours. I think the thing that will take the longest would be the referencing of images but when it comes down the final painting I have allowed myself 2 weeks which should be fine.

 Show, Don't Tell

Rehearsing and Timing your presentation

Consider creating handout

Spell Check

Proposal

PROJECT PROPOSAL

 Section 1: 

The theme I'm going to do Is landscape concept art for a fantasy MMO RPG game. To do this I'll be working towards producing 1 final image on A3, while producing various thumbnail concepts a long the way. My final piece will be presented on a computer screen with a time lapse video of the process next to it.

The setting of my concept art will be inside a fantasy elven forest. The forest will consist of huge trees with rivers and streams running a long the forest floor. I'm going for a highly detailed painting, the kind of thing you would see once the concept has been decide, using an art style similar to Blinck (Jorge Jacinto) http://blinck.deviantart.com/ I want to do it in this style because I think he portrays a real fantasy feel in his paintings with use of great colours and imagination. He is also an artist that inspires me greatly and I hope to produce similar things to him in the future.

Section 2: 

I found it hard at first to come up with an idea on what to paint. I had a rough idea of doing some form of fantasy forest or mountainous setting, along the lines of the Elder Scrolls game 'Skryim'. So I looked into the artwork for that game and some of there previous games. I also took a screenshot from the game and painted a replica so I could figure out some techniques and the colour palette. I also looked into some films like 'The Lord of The Rings' as these a heavily fantasy based. 

I started to realise that I couldn't really produce concept art if I didnt have a brief. Usually if your doing concept art for a film or game company they would give you an idea of a setting and the concept artist would then sketch away and try to bring the clients image from his head, to something he can actually see on a piece of paper. I didnt have this, so I wouldnt have a reason to create concept art. So I decided to make a questionnaire listing things that are in fantasy games, the races, the setting, architecture....

Once this was done I then handed it around my other classmates and they ticked off there favourite things they like to see in MMO RPG games. I would then base my painting on the things that got the most marks.

Section 3: 

Week 1

Image referencing,

architecture

forest's

things that are in forest's

finding what colours to use/ colour palette

Week 2

Rough sketches

Thumbnails

image referencing

Week 3 

Sketches 

Thumbnails

Final Painting

Week 4

Final painting

Finishing touches

Put together speedpainting

Print out of final image

Week 5

set up presentation 

printed out image and speedpainting

Week 6

Hand in

Section 4: 

 I will use the normal method of evaluation - what went well? what would I change? what didn't I like?

I will also write a conclusion to my project and what I achieved from doing it. I'm also going to get an artist to write a critique on my work defining there personal opinions, what I could have changed, what went well?


Peer Feedback

I looked at Jakes blog and thought that he put his idea across really well, it was easy to understand what it was he wanted to produce. I really liked how he combined certain things to achieve his final idea. I think he's going to end up with a really interesting armour design.

The feedback I got from my peers was that it was well structured and easy to understand what I was trying to put across. They also liked the fact that I referenced an artist that really inspired me.

Task 2

Research File



Feng Zhu

I think the artist that relates best to the field I would like to get into would have to be Feng Zhu.
Feng is a well known concept artist in the entertainment industry who has done work for various Hollywood studios and game developers, Including Electronic Arts, Disney, Sierra, Universal, and the Skywalker Ranch where he worked on Star Wars Episode 3. He has also worked closely with top film directors such as George Lucas, Steven Spielburg, James Cameron, and Michael Bay.

Excluding his professional work, he has also been teaching at the Art Centre College of Design in Pasadena and making DVD tutorials for Gnomon Workshop: http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/125/The-Techniques-of-Feng-Zhu-1#.UXEJBcXA_ng

Also Feng opened a school in Singapore called FZD School which teaches concept art for the entertainment industry with Feng himself as a teacher. The school was founded in 2009. The school cover various topics such as video games, feature films, theme parks, consumer products, toys, and set designs.
http://www.fzdschool.com/index.html

Here is a Interview with Feng Zhu where he talks about a game called Planet Arkadia and inspiration he looked into for the project, also which creation excites him the most.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhkfPiZfMMc

Feng also has a YouTube Channel where he posts regular lengthy video tutorials of his processes whether is be black and white studies, or RPG landscapes for games or creature sketching. After several episodes he will occasionally post a Q and A video where he answers questions from all of fans that watch his videos.
In his videos he talks about things in the entertainment industry and what things to practice on if you want to get into the industry, things like good time management.
http://www.youtube.com/user/FZDSCHOOL?feature=watch



I find Feng Zhu really inspiring because he has so much experience in the field and he's always willing to try and teach people and help them out. The technique I'm interested in the most though is the way he uses photos and textures so much. He places photos over his paintings in almost every painting he does. He has massive folders on his computer full of photos he has taken which he can use in his paintings. I think if I was to use this method into my paintings it will give them a much more realistic feel to it and give much more detail.

Trying to paint in the same style as Jorge Jacinto using the same brushes.




Here is another piece done in the style of Blink using his brushes.




Elder Scrolls Online

Artwork from here: http://conceptartworld.com/?p=17004

I was going to look into the artwork for the game Skyrim in the elder scrolls series but I couldnt actually find to much artwork for the game. So I decided to do the Elder Scrolls Online because there is currently a lot of hype and media attention about this game at the moment as its still in development and the release date is near approaching. Plus there was lots of artwork to use.



I really like the cold and dark feel to the artwork, it reminds me a lot of the Iron Age with a dark and gritty touch to it. I think when it comes down to creating ideas for my landscape I'm going to try and use elements from the artwork and the world this game is set in because when your playing the game it really feels like your in a fantasy world so I want to try and figure out what elements give it that feel and include them in my painting.








Robin Olausson http://robinolausson.portfoliolounge.com/work/546


Again I couldnt find much information about this artist, but here is what I managed to find out:
Robin works as a concept artist at Gameloft Madrid. He previously worked as a freelance concept artist, working with clients such as Square Enix, Sony, and Darksidegames. Robin studied at the School of Future Entertainment Sweden.

The reason I wanted to look at Robin's work was because this image really caught my eye while flicking through.



Deciding on Game or Film Concept Art for my Project

I've been looking into game and film concept art and have noticed slight differences between the two....

Game concept art tends to have a more 'painted' feel and look to it compared to film concept art. Games have a more creative look and are not highly detailed because they are only concepts. For landscapes they mainly block out the forms and simple lighting, once that is achieved they through on some textures to give it a little more detail because its less time consuming than painting everything, time management is critical in concept art because you don't want to waste time making something heavily detailed when the client might not even like it.

Film concept art goes for a more Matte Painting style which is basically making artwork by putting photo's together and making things to a near realism level.

I looked into a bit of how Rivendel from the Lord of the Rings was created.



For Rivendel the team actually created a model to use for the film which would be placed on a green screen.
Here is the model they used for the film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHJN61AdHe8 Link showing some models and ways they created the sets.

in this image you can see the techniques used really well. The red area indicates where the real set is which they actually built. The blue area is where the model of rivendel was used and behind that in the green area is a matte painting done. The blue and green areas would have been a green screen.




I think I'm going to go with game concept for my project because I mainly specialize in painting and haven't delved into the matte painting side of things yet, although I do use a few textures here and there. Also I think the process for game concept is a lot more fun painting from scratch.





Questionnaire Results

Before I made my questionnaire I decided to do a little mind up of possible things to include in my game environment. The race, setting, time of day/ year etc. I thought this would be a good way to generate possible questions to use in my questionnaire.

Se here is the results I got back.

It looks like from votes that elves received the highest vote. Mountains and forest both scored the same along with spring autumn and winter scoring the same also. I think what Ill do now is combine the ones that got the same scores into my artwork, for example using a riverside in a forest with mountains in the background.

I think doing the questionnaire was really good method to generate ideas and give myself some sort of brief to work from. Because before I new I wanted to do some kind of landscape concept art for a game or film, but usually for this sort of thing you would be given a brief to work from, so I had nothing to really go on at first. Now from the results I have something I can work from to take me to the next stage of finding architecture styles and reference images to then going onto thumbnails for the final piece.





What program will I be using?

For digital painting most professionals would recommend Adobe Photoshop because, as well as being able tp paint in the program you also have so many different effects and filters to use, because photoshop was originally a photo editing program. There is of course other painting programs to use like Coral Painter which has been around for nearly just as long as Photoshop. Coral painter specializes in painting and nothing else whereas Photoshop can do many different things, even 3D. I do think using a painting specific program could be beneficial but I have more experience using Photoshop as I've been using it for several years now to do my own drawings and photo manipulations.


Different media, materials and techniques

Here is a sketch I did using a 2H pencil, I done this keeping my questionnaire in mind. I find using pencils for your first sketches is a great way to get your ideas down because you can quickly scribble in things that come to your head. Afterwards you can then take your image into Photoshop and start to refine it and then begin your painting over the top.



Thumbnails

Here is a few thumbnails I've been working on bearing in mind the results I got back from my questionnaire.

Each image only took around half an hour, I don't want to spend ages on these as they only thumbnails. I'll probably produce a few more of these because they are a great way to produce different ideas. Once I have enough thumbnails I'll then pick one of them and refine that painting into a high quality image.

Evaluation of Research

I'm really happy with the research Ive been able to gather. I looked into several things and explored different techniques. The thing I was most happy with was my questionnaire. When I started the project I knew I wanted to dome some form of landscape concept art but this kind of thing requires a brief to work from else it wouldn't really be 'concept art'. So the results from my questionnaire gave me a rough brief to work from which I'm really happy about. After that was sorted I started looking into reference images of architecture and the kind of paintings I'm looking to achieve, to give some sort of image in my head of what I would like to produce. For my final painting I'm going to try and use the same style as Blinck, I've produced similar paintings in his sort of style and I'm confident I'll be able to do it. 

Task 1

For my FMP I'm looking to do some kind of concept art because its what I would like to do in the future as a job, and I really enjoy doing landscape concept art. I'm thinking of trying to create a world, or several worlds by producing a variety of images and thumbnails all different from one another. The worlds will either be fantasy or sci fi based.



Brief
To build a brief for myself to work from for my project I'm going to create a questionnaire asking people what they like to see in a fantasy game like Elvish Ruins, Huge Castles, Towns set in massive trees etc. Then another question asking what style of buildings, so like European, Asian, Middle Eastern that sort of thing. After that ill then ask about the setting, is it set in a forest? mountains? floating mountains? underwater? and then continue on to things like time of day. Once I've collected all of the results I'll then have a brief on what to base my concept on.








Jorge Jacinto (Blinck)

Jorge works as a freelance concept artist living in Portugal  He's been my favourite landscape concept artist now for some time. The reason I like his work so much is because it so heavily fantasy with a nice gentle and peaceful touch to it.

I really like his techniques used in his paintings and the way he paints his rocks and trees, he also posted the brush pack he uses on one of his videos which is free to download. The videos on his youtube channel consist of his work in progress of his paintings. Here you can see all of his techniques and how he does things and comes over problems he encounters. some of his techniques include using the lasso tool to get a nice fine edge on his paintings.

Tyler Edlin




Tyler specializes in enviroment art creating vast worlds for video games. He is a freelance concept artist residing in the boston area.

Tyler also has a youtube account where he does lengthy tutorials on some of his artwork explaining techniques and the processes he uses. The main reason I've chosen work from Tyler was because I really like his cartoony fantasy style and some of the really interesting and inspiring techniques he uses in some of his paintings.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MHJ1LvPQ7s
I really like the cartoony look to this image and all of tylers image. Even though its cartoony it has a realistic feel and look to it. Things like the light coming through the trees and hitting the ground give it a realistic feel to the image.

Here is an example of some the light holes in the trees letting light through and hitting the ground. Tyler explains this really well in his tutorial and shows you how to achieve the same effect in your paintings.
He also explains how he does his vegetation and trees, also how he adds details to things. He uses a lot of the election tool so that he can get a nice fine edge to things. All of the techniques tyler explains I'm trying to incorporate into my paintings and my project.



I really like the scale and distance this image pulls off with the castle. Placing the people in the image gives it a much greater scale making it more realistic. It has a really dull and gritty feel to it as well which works really nicely with the time period.


I really like the lighting and colour in this image. I like the way he even included shadows from the clouds and water vapour from the massive waterfalls. He creates a great scale of distance in this image by give the  castle a more blue tone to it which creates atmosphere to make it seem further away. Tyler explained to do this you had to create a new layer and place a light blue gradient over from top to bottom. Then lower the opacity and slightly rub out the objects as they get closer. You could also use a layer mask to do this. But I think this is a really nice technique which I never knew of until watching his tutorial.

He also placed his brush pack on his website which is free to download so you can use all of the same brushes as he does. I currently use his brush pack along with Blincks one.





Here is a before and after image of some of his paintings so that you can see a work in progress.

















Kalen Chock



Kalen Chock works for Industrial Light and Magic as a concept artist and also as an instructor at the Art Institution of California. He's also taken part in several freelance matte paintings.

Kalen also has a blog which he updates very often with pieces of his work, posts, and live streams of his work so other people can see how he works and learn his techniques and processes.
http://kalenart.blogspot.co.uk/