Real Worlds: Evaluation

Real Worlds Evaluation

The Real Worlds project, I feel, has been a solid project for me in terms of art creation and study, particularly in regards to working with an IP: I feel that I was able to follow the brief well and create art that fits with the IP, and successfully implemented feedback that improved the quality of the pieces I created. 

I am happy with my selections for the factions and believe that they appropriately challenged my skills: from a character design perspective I am particularly pleased with developments on the Veer-Myn, as drawing animal heads and digitigrade characters are not areas of design I have practiced in the past. I feel that my studies on rat anatomy helped greatly in the initial design stage of the Veer-Myn, though that I could have also spent longer on designing the armour and body of that character. 

Of the two designs, then, whilst I feel that the Veer-Mn design developed my skills more, I feel that the Forge Father is the most successful: feedback helped me change body proportioning to adequately fit the pre existing characters, and I believe that the female design fits with the design conventions of the faction whilst remaining unique and interesting. As for the key art, I believe that the Veer-Myn is the most successful of the two pieces: I find that the sharp contrast and atmospherics of the piece help to illustrate the scene in a stark and interesting manner that aligns with the personality and theming of the character.

As for the environment art, I feel immensely happy with how the piece has developed. I feel my rendering techniques on both the metal of the ship and the form of the planet have improved as such. Considering the general improvements that could be made in the future, over the course of this project I have received constant feedback that has greatly helped in understanding where to go forward.
This has particularly been in regards to my environment pieces in both the character and environment design: values and contrast have been consistent areas of difficulty in many pieces, as have general digital painting techniques. These have been areas of art I have tried to work on consistently throughout this project in both halves: in the character design half I created a rough paint-over of the scene using tonal values and in the environment piece I used painting techniques in the planet and ship metal. On the whole, then, I feel that the piece pushed me into areas I do not normally work within and feel that this pushed me into developing my skills further. I will do this in the future: I feel I still need to develop my skills in environment pieces. The process of drawing over the 3D Blockout helped in the development of the piece and is a technique I will use again in the future. This helped expedite the composition process, and also allowed my scene to have accurate perspective without the need for complex perspective grids or other techniques. 

 I have, from this project, identified tones and values as a potential area of improvement for future work. Another area of improvement is that of visual research: though I use visual research in the initial development of a drawing, I find that I often leave it out when developing a piece. As such, when I encountered difficulty in pieces, I found that further visual research assisted my development greatly. This was particularly relevant to the environment piece, as when I was stuck on the development of the ship, I went back to visual research and looked at further references to inform how to improve the piece. On the whole, then, I am happy with the developments I have made over the course of this project and feel I have clear ideas for as to how my art could be improved in the future.