Scarlett White

Portfolio

Category: Semester 2

  • Role Research

    For this project I have been assigned the role of the character artist. To better understand my role and what will be expected of me I am conducting research into what professionals of the industry do. For this research I looked at a job profiles website, a career pathways website and finally a job application guide.

    Job Profile

    https://www.screenskills.com/job-profiles/browse/animation/pre-production/character-designer

    What does a character designer do?

    visualise and create the look of characters. Often using research into relevent fashions and cultures. Mostly using the directors descriptions and concept art to infrom the work. A high standard of drawing skills are required as the character will have to be drawn both digitally and physically.

    You must be good at collaboration and willing to take constructive critisicsm to iterate and better the design.

    Career Pathway

    https://www.cgspectrum.com/career-pathways/character-designer

    What makes a good character designer?

    The ability to take abstract ideas and visually incorporate them into a character. Being able to quickly visualise and represent your idea for the character. A keen eye for detail in expressions body language etc. Researching the style required of the character.

    Job Application Guide

    https://atomhawk.com/resources/applicant-qa-guide-character-artist/

    This is an applicant guide for character artists to apply to AtomHawk, an outsourcing company for the creative production in video games.

    • Strong understanding of the fundamentals of art
    • key eye for design
    • clothing design
    • The ability to iterate upon a design multiple times
    • creative problem solving

    Character Designers I Admire + Materials I Already Own

    Character design is a huge passion in my life so I already own a number of books revolving around it and follow many character designers, for this project I revisited some of these inspirations

    Beverly Johnson – Draw Great Characters

    Bev Johnson is an illustrator and character designer, I love her simple but effective designs.

    This book contains 75 exercises for designing characters, I often use it when I am stuck or have art block.

    Johnson, Beverly. Draw Great Characters and Creatures. Penguin, 3 Dec. 2019.

    The fundamentals of Character Design

    The Fundamentals of Character Design is a large book filled with advice from over 15 different character artists. It contains not only advice on how to create characters but also how to turn this into a career.

    I use this book for inspiration from all the different artists, the myriad of styles allows me to draw from each different one.

    Bishop, Randy , et al. FUNDAMENTALS of CHARACTER DESIGN : How to Create Engaging Characters For. 3dtotal Publishing, 2020.

    Pernille Orum

    https://pernilleoe.com/myportfolio

    Pernille Orum is singlehandedly my bviggest inspiration when it comes to character design, I have been following her for years and aspire to have as strong a style as her.

    Her work as a character designer has led her to work for Disney, DC and publish a number of books. I own her book the art of Pernille Orum which details her process of designing characters and how she approaches artworks.

    Pernille Ørum. The Art of Pernille Ørum. Worcester, 3Dtotal Publishing, 2020.

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  • Watercolour Experimentation

    A possible artstyle for the game is watercolour. I am familiar with it but have not attempted large scale landscape pieces. This is my attempt to create one based on the lake location, incorporating weeping willow trees, northern blue flags, silk trees and lotus flowers.

    So that I knew what to include in this artwork I looked at the joint mood board where I have compiled the reference boards from the GDD and my own research and experimentation.

    I began with a light loose pencil sketch and slowly began building up washes of colour over the page. I continued in this manner slowly darkening my pigments and the consistency of the paint. For the lake I focused on what would be reflected in the water not the actual colour. To finish the piece I drew over everything with a black fine liner pen, loosely defining the shapes.

    This was a helpful exercise as it let me get more comfortable with the medium and begin to understand what limitations I have with it.

    Next Steps:

    I will now work with the other artist to understand our different styles with watercolour.

    Week 3 check in – Me and the environment artist have decided to revert back to our previous roles. So, I will no longer be in charge of the lake this was still helpful as the characters will be in watercolour too.

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  • Impressionism Experimentation

    After breaking down the GDD and looking at the research that went into it impressionism is very important. Not for the final artstyle but as a way to explore our artistic skills and get a grasp on creatively using colours.

    This is a weeping willow tree made with Ohuhu markers. Weeping willows are important to the location I am creating. I began with the trunk of the tree layering up brown pink and yellow to get a saturated mix of colours. Then I used simple mark making and began constructing the leaves. Using a variety of blues, greens and purples in layers I create dthe final leaf effect. I am very pleased with how this came out not ony was it fvery fun but the colours mixing and levels I achieved would be good to have in the final Vertical Slice.

    After the willow tree I decided to create a larger scale artwork of the lake. I employed the same mark making and approach to colour as the previous artwork. I incorporated the other flora and fauna in the location like the lotues flowers, northen blue flags and blue cardinals. The water provided a challenge as it does not have a colour but I got creative with it and focused more on what complemented the surroundings not what actually made sense, much like the impressionists. I am satisfied with how this came out and believe it works as a good starting point for developing the lake.

    Next Steps:

    Explore more artstyles and check in with the other artist to see how their experimentation has come along.

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  • Week 1 Log

    In our Monday lecture we were introduced to the new module. We will be placed into groups of 4-5 and expected to make a Vertical Slice of a GDD from last semester. Who’s GDD will be picked is dependent on a vote that will be opened up in the afternoon. We will also assume dedicated roles within our groups from this selection:

    • Character Artist
    • Environment Artist
    • Narrative & Story
    • World Designer
    • Technical Artist
    • Technical Designer
    • Mechanics Designer

    In the voting survey there will be a section where we can order these roles in most to least wanted.

    The activity for this session was to make a risk sheet thinking of things that might go wrong, ordering them on most impact and how likely they are to happen. Then thinking of how to combat and plan ahead for these scenarios.

    On Thursday we had a small breakdown of the roles and how teams are structured with the roles and the groups and GDDs were revealed. My GDD got picked to be made by another group which was a pleasant surprise.

    This is my group I was assigned to be the character artist though after getting together with our groups the environment artist wanted to swap – we came to a middleground and decided we would share the responsibilities and each design one area and animal. She would also do the UI and I would keep the character.

    For the rest of Thursday we all looked over Soul Keeper’s GDD and got to work figuring out what our Vertical Slice will be. Assigning the first priorities and beginning to research the artstyle. This is a large sheet of paper that we were scrawling ideas and information on.

    These are notes in my personal notebook detailing what will need to be created for the Vertical Slice and the division of art related responsibilities. I worked with the environment artist to come up with a plan for over the weekend.

    Next Steps:

    I am going to create my own breakdown of the GDD here. I will also begin playing about and experimenting with impressionist art as it is important in the GDD.

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