FMP Week 1: New beginnings!

Howdy Folks

I cannot believe it; the final major Project is finally here!!

This week was the first week of our 20 week final major projects, and it is hard to believe how quickly the time passes already.

Of course I was and still am nervous about my final major project. This is the biggest project I will be working on, and could potentially allow me to break into the games industry so I am determined to give it my all.

I began the week preparing my to-do list and getting me organised in order begin. Luckily I had completed the important preparation over the Christmas period, so this week was about fine tuning my plans and breaking them down for a week-to-week basis. Creating my waterfall to-do list has certainly made the final major project seem less intimidating. I’m glad that I created this list as it has allowed me to see that the full project is just an amalgamation of very small achievable tasks.

Following, this preparation, I made sure that I re-read my brief for the character project. I wanted to be clear of what I had to do and what I wanted to achieve with this project. I will make sure that I do this every week, to act as a sanity check for me. When this was complete, I re-informed my tutors of my project, this would help them understand what I want to accomplish.

Similarly, the tutors assured me that it would be beneficial to have a broad to small strokes mentality and that my stretch goal to face rig my characters should only be considered once the fmp is in polishing face and not before.Of course, I still had doubts about my final major project since the Christmas break, and therefore, speaking to the tutors about the idea has certainly made me more confident about my project. They mentioned that it would be wise to do the more challenging and technical work first, and make sure that I make sure each task is fulfilled to the best of my abilities before moving on.

I want to be able to document my progress through my final major project properly and so I got ‘screen-omatic’ screen capture software installed on my pc in order to record my work. This should give evidence of my progression throughout the fmp, but allow me to learn from my past processes which should improve my work.

Art Lead Kevin McDowell from Creative Assembly mentioned that Character Game-readiness was an element that would need to consider for my characters in order to make them industry standard. Therefore, I began to consider the types of games that my characters could be played in. Due to the hunter/hunted nature of my characters I was able to decide that games like, ‘Nosgoth’, ‘Turok’ and ‘The stomping Land’ would be good examples of the type of games my characters would be placed in.

Thus, with the main preparation for my final major project complete, I started work on concepting my first character, the Conquistador. For this process I used Line art, as I knew it was a quick method of working and I was more confident in it since working on my Aviator project. I concepted the conquistador’s costume first, using images from my Pinterest board, historic drawings and photos I’ve taken from my visit to the Wallace Gallery.

I made quick work here as I was working to a self-set deadline; going through a range of different designs of a 1500 Spanish conquistador. I wanted my character to be quick slim and haggard from his travels across the pacific and on edge as he is lost and terrified of what might become of him in the heart of the Americas.

After speaking to my tutor Mike Kelly, he advised that I keep the most iconic elements of a Spanish conquistador such as the helmet design and breastplate. He also recommended that I look at Werner Herzog’s ‘Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) for costume design inspiration.

Eventually I was able to choose my top 3 designs and begin refining them. I wasn’t entirely sure if I wanted my character to be a foot soldier, veteran or captain. However, I wanted to make sure that the soldier had been heavily affected by his experience of this conquest.

When this complete, I put together a quick value and colour study, to visualize what colour palette I am thinking about for the character.

I was unable to decide upon a design, especially as I didn’t feel that my concepts did not capture the character I wanted to convey. Thus, I sent my designs to Kevin; having worked on a number of historic video games, including my favourite, Rome: Total war 2, so his knowledge on history would benefit me greatly.

In the meantime, while I was awaiting Kevin’s response, I began concepting my next character, the ‘Eagle Warrior’. I wanted the design of this character to look as intimidating and awe inspiring as the actual historical warrior would be. For this concepting phase, I tried a different method of concepting, as I wanted to experiment; this method was more painterly than using line art. I wanted this warrior to be heavy built, intimidating and powerful as the actual warriors were. In a game this character might be a boss character and so I wanted him to appear threatening. With this in mind, I created the silhouetted of my Eagle warrior.

Afterwards, I was able to create a number of different costume designs for the Character. I made sure each was accurate to the period in time, but also looked fascinating from an artistic point of view. Moreover, I had time to create action poses silhouettes of characters to show how the character would be animated in a game. I was told by character concept artist Rich Anderson that this process can help me when I am posing the character, but it also gives more life and personality to the character.

I’m very impressed with how this process has turned out, it was a successful experimentation and I am looking forward to developing it further.

Throughout the week, I took the advice of my tutors and began working on the more technical aspects of my project. This included created some of the textures and materials, such as the feathers for my eagle warrior. For this I used Pablander’s tutorial on creating believable feathers using Zbrush.

This would benefit me in the long run, as I am solving the hard issues now, so I will know how to overcome them in the future.

In addition to working on the technical issues now, I’ve also began to roughly block out the basic anatomy and proportions of my Conquistador Character in Zbrush. I tried not to spend to long here, especially as I simply wanted to practice anatomy sculpting before I would need to do it properly.

Creating the designs for the characters has not been easy, and I find that it is too easy to fall into design what looks ‘cool’ instead of what is historically accurate. To avoid this, I made sure that I watch documentaries on Aztecs, Mayans and Conquistadors.

Similarly, I have been watching Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto, which depicts a very detailed and graphic interpretation of the Mayan civilization.

I was able to get some Feedback from my tutor Castor on my project; he liked the idea and wanted me to do my best on the project. Casto advised that I make sure I do my research on the project and make sure that I maintain historical accuracy, especially with the designs of the Mesoamerican native characters. He stated that I make sure I understand what Central American looked and dressed like and don’t make the mistake of confusing them with South Americans.

Finally, during this week, we had prospective first years coming in for their interviews. I had the pleasure of being asked to run a question and answer session with my peers, Hazrat Bilal and Lucy Burbage. The session was very enjoyable, it felt nice to give advice to younger students of art, especially as it is easy to forget how far you have come on the course. Moreover, it was inspired to see such talented students that want to join the course.

So there you have it, my first week of the dreaded- final major project. It has been a hectic week and I am slightly disappointed that I wasn’t able to achieve the deadlines that I set myself. Nevertheless getting back into the swing of thing has made me motivated and energised to achieve higher heights and fall in love with my work again. Yes, I still am nervous about my FMP. However, if I keep working hard and plan well, I am sure my fmp will be absolutely fantastic!

Thanks for reading

Bye for now!