Unit 12

PROJECT AIM: The Arts Council champions, develops and invests in artistic and cultural experiences that enrich people's lives. They support activities across the arts, museums and libraries – from theatre to digital art, reading to dance, music to literature, and crafts to collections. Part of the support offered by the Arts Council is a programme of grants of up to £100,000. To help support making a product you will need the funding of a grant to achieve its completion. Before you begin your application process you will need to develop a in depth knowledge of your chosen specialist subject. To achieve this and evidence your understanding once you have applied for a grant you will need to undertake and document a research project around your chosen area. You will need to gather all information findings into a single document. This document should contain visual examples alongside written findings. You will need to have a dedicated section for each of the following areas…

• Codes & Conventions

• Historical Context

• Key Practitioners

• Industry

• Issues and Debates

Level 3 Extended Diploma in Creative Media Production and Technology At the end of the document, you will need to write a concluding statement on how the key findings of your specialist study will influence the direction of your final project. The document must reach the minimum word count of 1500 words but should not exceed 3500. The quality of the written work will be important as it will need to be presented if you wish to gain funding. Therefore, all work should be thoroughly proofread for correct spelling, punctuation and grammar. Additionally, points and findings should be clear and concise with no over lengthy points or repeated information. Harvard referencing should be used for quotes and paraphrasing and will be checked against plagiarism software. Your document should also contain a bibliography evidencing all wider reading/investigation you have undertaken. You will need to submit a first draft of your document on the 29th January ready for formative feedback.

Introduction

Character Art & Games

Character Sketch Art principles span out from trying to tell a story all the way over to colour and expression from the artist themselves. The way this can be done is by having the tone of a character expressed by clothing choice and colours, great examples of this can be found in a game called "The Division", specifically by looking at the different factions of the game, focusing on the Strategic Homeland Division Agents (SHD), Last Man Battalion and Rioters. These factions don't just look different in the completed stages, but more so in the sketch stages, The interesting thing for me within the subject area is that character sketch artists are given a set of objectives to start working off of, and with these objectives can freely create a set of models that can either be put further into production or sent back by the lead artist with guiding comments that will in turn be used as a guideline that will shape the character that will be created. Sketch artists normally start off freehand with the original objectives they are given and design a base setting, then when they get approved by the lead designer in the department, can then start off on the colouring and shading along with the complex developments that the character will go through such as weathering, roughing and polish. What I am mostly interested in myself is the personal connection I would be able to then have with the possible characters that I will have created, and the fact that I had a hand in doing such a thing, even if it was for an indie game would be pretty amazing, along with the colour theory, I look very deeply into the colours that get used to convey a character, like within the Division a specific character called "Aaron Keener" gets portrayed with the deeper red spectrum and blacks, more so than standard Rogue Agents, in which the named character is affiliated with. Leaning into what I am interested in learning within the sketch side of character creation, I would say it would be human body proportions together with animal body characteristics, these two objectives are amongst the most important to master, especially if I was to go ahead into the games development sector of Media.

Fig 1: SHD Division, Image 1

Fig 2: Last Man Battalion, Image 2

Fig 3: Rioters, Image 3

Codes an Conventions

Before even getting into the core software that gets used, Sketch Artists are to start on Traditional methods such as drawing early character concepts onto paper, into sketchbooks or even onto whiteboards then have the character broken down into mood boards that can then help the graphics and storyboarding teams mould the early concept into a fictional piece of work, Once this is done, the early concept can either be taken on into the project with minor changes to the model, done by the sketching teams, or can be taken on as is by the storyboarding department which then will lead into the modellers and sculptors.

Core software in the character design sector of games development ranges from the simplest forms such as Adobe Photoshop all the way to sculptors and stagers akin to Zbrush and Substance painter. These different software utensils are deployed in different phases of the production line within Games Development, all of which have their specifics. The simpler software, E.G: Photoshop, GIMP or even Krita are used for the sketching, mock-up and build sides for character development. whereas the more sophisticated E.G: Zbrush, Marmoset and Substance are essentially used for the more end-phase, game ready models.

Fig 4: Photoshop Image 4

Fig 5: Zbrush Image 5

Fig 6: Substance Image 6

Fig 7: GIMP Image 7

Fig 8: Krita Image 8

Fig 9: Marmoset Image 9

Sketching in traditional and early stage digital is important to the character creation process as they are the base line to what a games character could look, walk and talk like, going back to the division game to talk about this, in the first games collector’s item art book, you can see the constant updates and variations of the NPC "Faye-Lau" with her damaged look, starting out with minor cuts and bruises, but towards the end of the head options, ends up with and head bandage that covers the eye, this is accompanied by a cheek bandage which we can see removed and even replaced by other injuries, all this then transforms her into an eye-patch wearing agent which ends up going Rogue.

The reason I find this as an important character to think about, is because in the book, it goes through how all these decisions were made within the early days of the game creation phase, in the sketch department, with various heads needing to be completed to see which one fitted the storyboarding more accurately.

Fig 10: Faye Lau (NPC SHD Agent) Image 10

Fig 11: Faye Lau (NPC Rogue Agent) Image 11

When comparing sketch and early-stage Digital art to finished models of characters, we can see where the design teams stepped in with the artists and gave pointers on what they wanted characters to look like. Again, using Faye Lau from The Division games, it is clear to see where the design team stepped in, using colour theory to dress how the character would look, with brighter tones and simple pallets being the forefront of the character design process, especially when Faye Lau is considered as a division agent. Whereas when we look at the second image of Faye Lau, we can clearly see that her colour pallet has been darkened, with shades of black, red, and blue being the main sets to be used. all of them having different meanings behind them.

Another difference we can point out with the sketch phase to finished models is the complexity of the characters, the sketch phase, aka Image 10, it is shown that the armour, clothing, and skin have a simplistic look to them, opposed to Image 11, where the armour, clothing and skin of the character has been touched up upon and upgraded, showing not just art development, but also how the character has changed

Historical Context

Game and character art through the years has been changed, challenged and influenced by the times and what was deemed physically possible, held back by technology limitations. The first games that featured well-rounded characters such as Q*BERT, Mario Bros' Mario and Perfect Darks' Agent Dark all had the creators jumping through hoops just so that the design processes went smoothly and that the character was the best it could be for not just the time, but also the genre the games were released in. Taking these three games and looking into them, it is seen that the older the game release was, the less the game and character had in terms of creation time, thought and technological power, This statement is re-enforced with the fact that although Super Mario was released after Q*BERT the technology that Japan had at the time was inferior to the rest of the western world, Especially after world war 2, in which the country was so starved for metal, materials, parts and people due to the effects of war that it took effectively 35-40 years for games to start production, and even then it was only capable to mirror old western styled games from the late 70's to mid-80's until the late 2000's.

Fig 12: Q*BERT-1982 Image 12

Fig 13: Perfect Dark-2000 Image 13

Fig 14: Mario Bros.-1983 Image 14

Key Milestones in game and character development would be when the world came out of the 20th century and into the 21st, where from the get-go multiple games that centred around characters that we know today as well as back then would come to full view, characters such as Master Chief, Kratos, Crash Bandicoot, and Call of Duty's CAPT. John Price and SGT Viktor Reznov. to name just a few. All these games characters placing a solid impression into the hearts of millions of players, depending on which console they were playing. I Myself, favouring Call of Duty's Captain, and Sergeant. These characters within their own games and nowadays fanbases, are names that when you say, any fans and game players ears will perk up at and will know who you are on about.

Fig 15: Master Chief Image 15

Fig 16: Kratos Image 16

Fig 17: Crash Bandicoot Image 17

Fig 18: Capt.Price Image 18

Fig 19: SGT.Reznov Image 19

Having the past shape, the course of games history with fan favourite games and characters, it will be easy to see that the future of the games industry, especially sketch artists for games creation be it traditional or digital, as they will now find it easier to think of possible characters to fit into a games world. The future of games character art will be a steady and fruit-filled job as there is endless possibility for artists, traditional based or Digital. We can look at Artstation for a baseline to back this, with all artists on the website being freelance or even AAA or Indie company hired professionals.

Key Practitioners

Beginning this segment of my specialist study, I will be starting off with investigating professional sketch artists and seeing how they compare to hobbyists that took up sketching out characters from games and their own original creations to gain a skill and as in the name states, a hobby. First up was the Professionals, Artists such as Jama Jurabaev, Eytan Zana and Darek Zabrocki all use different sketching apps, but all use the same original method of wirework, this method is what starts out as a stick figure, with a circle head and basic shaped body parts such as ovals and rectangles, then as the character goes further into the design processes, becomes more fleshed out and even can end up as a proposed character in films. Great examples of the wirework methods can be found in all three of the mentioned professional artworks.

Fig 20: Jama Jurabaev Images 20-20-2

Fig 21: Eytan Zana Images 21-21-2

Fig 22: Darek Zabrocki Images 22-22-2

Moving on to the Hobbyists, the wireframe method is not used all that much and that the hobbyists’ artworks are more towards their own personal created characters or fan creations from popular tv shows. The Hobbyist artists that I have chosen are all different in the fact that their styles and character design techniques are personalised to themselves. Hobby Artists such as Will Holt, Emilia Szpilkowska and Thomas Lonsdale have different ways of creating characters, the mediums used such as software and designing stem from what they wanted to go into and liked.

Fig 23: Will Holt Images 23-23-2

Fig 24: Emilia Szpilkowska Image 24-24-2

Fig 25: Thomas Lonsdale Image 25-25-2

Industry

Within the Industry, it is imperative that when looking into the job roles and availability of work for this is what essentially will act as when and where you will get hired. Who by however, either AAA or Indie doesn't necessarily matter as a sketch artist with the skills of being a general concept artist will get hired just as fast. The best way to investigate getting jobs as a sketch artist or even a sketch artist is to start off as a freelancer, making a portfolio of your completed or in progress works to sites such as Artstation, Instagram, Facebook, or even Twitter. These sites can lift freelancers off the ground in terms of interest and consideration. What most parties (E.G Companies and Scouters) look for in an artist is their genre flexibility, so when starting off portfolio of work created, it is wise and advised that the artist currently in a freelancing stage makes art. All with different genres and tones at first, to give themselves a decorated art page or blog.

Fig 26: Artstation Image 26

Fig 27: Instagram Image 27

Fig 28: Facebook Image 28

Fig 29: Twitter Image 29

When looking into Freelance Sketch Artists' blogs specifically, the uses of said sketch art is seen from both Hobbyist and Professionals, these uses usually coming in the same forms as previously stated. Wireframe and stick figurine being the best for the humanoids and most animals, but when combining the two and creating a anthropomorphic character likened to games characters such as "Kass" and "Prince Sidon" the best way to sketch out at the beginning is to use basic shapes such as rectangles, circles and squares, assorted in the way the way the sketch artist creating the piece wants them, then starts to flesh out the image with a soft draw over with a reference for colours and possible stances. and at the end a full hard sketch is done.

Fig 30: Wireframe & Blockout Sketches Images 30-31-32-33-34

Fig 31: Kass Image 35

Fig 32: Prince Sidon Image 36

The Importance of sketches before making a game or games character is above all in terms of artistry, as without the sketch portion of the games processes, a scene or level may not turn out how a company would envision it when the assignment for creation was given out to the level designers. Looking at sketches from artists that have worked on games such as Faster Than Light (FTL) and Destiny 2, the importance of a sketches can be seen as without these basic and base sketches, these games may not have turned out the way they have.

Fig 33: Destiny 2 Forsaken DLC (Prison Of Elders) Jeremy Fenske Images 36-37-38-39

Fig 34: Faster Than Light (FTL) Zachary Madere Images 36-37-38-39

Issues And Debates

Issues within the sketch side of games stem from the fact that although they can be classed as their own medium, they tend to be classed as and put into the term of concept art, which is in a sense is true all depending on how the sketch art is designed. A more in depth and specific subcategory of sketch art would be if the art is realistic or stylised. Realistic sketches tend to form around Humans and Animals or realistic locations or even realistic looking places or things this can be games such as "STEEP" and "Riders Republic", Both games taking place within the realm of reality in terms of graphics and skill tree. Whereas when comparing this to stylised art, where the characters don't have to look real, or even be human, E.G: Anthropomorphic human-animal hybrids the scenes and settings for which stylised art tends to deviate. When putting this into the games world, games such as "Skylanders" or "Animal Crossing" it is very visible that the sketch artists that placed the foundations for the game especially in the character design processes within Animal Crossing wanted the game to be a stylised vision of what could be. with every other character in the game barring the players' villager being an animal of some description.

Fig 35: Steep Images 40-41-42-43

Fig 37: Skylanders Images 48-49-50-51

Fig 36: Riders Republic Images 44-45-46-47

Fig 38: Animal Crossing Images 52-53-54-55

The debate between software made sketches such as photoshop, Krita, GIMP and Substance against traditional means such as drawing it out with pen and pencil onto a piece of paper or napkin is that with the software, there is all the room made for mistakes, and that if you design a character in full on say photoshop for instance, there will the ability to go even further into the design process, copying an outline of the same character and making not just a sketched base, but have the ability to fully flesh out the character in a matter of hours. Now when putting the limitless mistake removing possibilities of the software sketch applications up against the Traditional method of drawing a light base block or wireframe sketch onto paper with a pen, the chances for mistakes are limited in terms of the pen spilling ink, the pencil graphite snapping and the rubber if being used leaving marks on the paper.

This is just one of the many cons with traditional way of character creation, but two-three good pros that traditional sketching has that software does not, is that traditional drawings can be made anywhere, this is shown by the co-lead and animator "Dan Povenmire" for tv show "Phineas & Ferb", who made the initial sketches for the characters on a napkin in a restaurant after a thought of what they should look like popped into his head. Another would be if the power cuts, all unsaved work on the computer software used to create a character would be lost, along with the possibility of corrupted files which could have violent impacts on any creator based in Creative Media.

Fig 39: Dan Povenmire Image 56

Fig 40: Disney's Phineas and Ferb Image 57

The last Issue and what needs to be debated further especially in the creative media industry would have to be the payment of artists, being a freelance artist comes with the perks of the "work when I want" mindset, but also the heavy cons of possible scams for high tier artworks for a pay-out worth peanuts, along with the difficult pay when working, a freelance artist especially when doing a sketch for a company such as Ubisoft or even EA will have you bound by an NDA which can essentially state that your artwork cannot be posted onto your personal page or portfolio until either the game is released or the NDA is voided by contractual obligations. which means that the NDA signed has either run out, meaning the artist can now post their works in the form of "Art Dumps".

Conclusion

My conclusion of this is that, in the end of it, Character and sketch art are both required when going into multiple different industries. These industries such as graphic design, games, movie creation of which I've had a taste of in my years of college all have had an impact on why I chose this as a my specialist study, My personal thoughts on this as a whole are that, in general terms, character and sketch artists that take up different jobs within the industry of media take on a huge job, as they are the ones that shape and design not just characters in games and tv shows, but the futures and thoughts of millions of people. I think that without characters such as Lara Croft and Nathan Drake both female and male audiences would not have been brought up in the same way games wise.

The FMP has been affected at how I will be implementing the characters that I have designed as ever since the start of the study I had wanted to go into character creation with the set goal of creating my own characters, and for the FMP to create a small set of art splashes, these characters having the ability to be put into horror-survival, action or even adventure games with how they were to be designed. With the original set of three male characters that now has changed into two female characters and one male character ever since having gone through the historical context.

Going forwards into the FMP shortly after finishing this specialist study, I can firmly testify that my original plans for it have been changed significantly and that I will in fact be creating two female characters with one male character instead of the proposed all male character design. With that fact now out in the open I would like to let it be known that the female market within the Media-Games sector far lesser known than the Male market, and as of such I will be moving forwards in this line of work with the idea of generating more likable female protagonists due to the ones that are viewed as of writing this are mostly labelled as lazily portrayed and written as well as poorly designed.

Bibliography

Fig 1: White, S (2016) The Division' Strategic Homeland Division Faction Overview >https://thedivision.fandom.com/wiki/Strategic_Homeland_Division< [last accessed 10th February2022]

Fig 2: Wayne D (2016) The Division' Lat Man Battalion Faction Overview >https://thedivision.fandom.com/wiki/Last_Man_Battalion< last accessed [10th February 2022]

Fig 3: Leech, K (2016) The Division Rioters Faction Overview >https://thedivision.fandom.com/wiki/Rioters< last accessed [10th February 2022]

Fig 4: Adobe Photoshop >https://www.adobe.com/uk/products/photoshop.html< last accessed [10th February 2022]

Fig 5: Pixologic Zbrush >https://pixologic.com/< last accessed [10th February 2022]

Fig 6: Adobe Substance Painter >https://www.adobe.com/products/substance3d-painter.html< last accessed [10th February 2022]

Fig 7: G.I.M.P >https://www.gimp.org/< last accessed [10th February 2022]

Fig 8 KDE Krita >https://krita.org/en/< last accessed [10th February 2022]

Fig 9: Marmoset >https://marmoset.co/< last accessed [10th February 2022]

Fig 10: Wright, J (2016) Art of The Division Game [online] impulsegamer >https://www.impulsegamer.com/art-tom-clancys-division-review/< last accessed [10th February 2022]

Fig 11: Boudreau, I (2020) The Division 2's Next Manhunt [online] pcgamesn >https://www.pcgamesn.com/the-division-2/faye-lau-manhunt< last accessed {10th February 2022]

Fig 12: Pruitt, S ((Volatile site) last official edit made Feb 4th 2022) [online] wikepedia >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q*bert< last accessed [10th February 2022]

Fig 13: Pruitt, S ((Volatile site) last official edit made Jan 6th 2021) [online] wikepedia >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Dark< last accessed [10thy February 2022]

Fig 14: Marfia, G Amoroso, A (2014) A Historcial Perspective of Games [online] >https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-cover-of-Super-Mario-Bross_fig3_216293397< last accessed [10th February 2022]

Fig 15: Kyrrstych, A (2007) Master Chief (John-117) Overview [online] >https://halo.fandom.com/wiki/John-117< last accessed [10 February 2022]

Fig 16: Sine P (2007) God of War (Kratos) Overview [online] >https://godofwar.fandom.com/wiki/Kratos< last accessed [10 February 2022]

Fig 17: Willoughby L (2007) Crash Bandicoot Overview [online] >https://crashbandicoot.fandom.com/wiki/Crash_Bandicoot< last accessed [10 February 2022]

Fig 18: Vale K (2009) Captain (John) Price Overview [online] >https://callofduty.fandom.com/wiki/John_Price< last accessed [10 February 2022]

Fig 19: Patel T (2007) Seargenat (Viktor) Resnov Overview [online] >https://callofduty.fandom.com/wiki/Viktor_Reznov< last accessed [10 February 2022]

Fig 20: Jurabaev J (2019) Ipad sketches [online] >https://www.artstation.com/artwork/xzPVe1< last accessed [10 February 2022]

Fig 21: Zana E (2017) Uncharted B&W Sketches [online] >artstation.com/artwork/ZogeN< last accessed [10 February 2022]

Fig 22: Zabrocki D (2020) Homecoming #2 [online] >https://www.artstation.com/artwork/aYX6yz< last accessed [10 February 2022]

Fig 23: Holt W (2021) The Ronin Prince's Secret [online] >https://www.artstation.com/artwork/3dW2Kv< last accessed [10 February 2022]

Fig 24: Szpilkowska E (2021) Self Portrait [online] >https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Aqg86W< last accessed [10 February 2022]

Fig 25: Lonsdale T (2018) Action Priest Enemy Sheets [online] >https://www.artstation.com/artwork/dka5W< last accessed [10 February 2022]

Fig 26: Teo L (2014) Artstation [online] >https://www.artstation.com/< last accessed [10 February 2022]

Fig 27: Systrom K (2010) Instagram [online] >https://www.instagram.com/< last accessed [10 February 2022]

Fig 28: Zuckerberg M (2004) Facebook >https://en-gb.facebook.com/< last accessed [10 February 2022]

Fig 29: Williams E, Stone B (2006) Twitter [online] >https://twitter.com/?lang=en< last accessed [10 February 2022]

Fig 30: Stone P, Perry J, Black B, Finch T (2013) [online] >https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/451767406352591277/<

[10 February 2022]

Fig 31: Jei S (2017) Legend of Zelda (Kass) Overview [online] >https://zelda.fandom.com/wiki/Kass< [10 February 2022]

Fig 32: Jei S (2017) Legend of Zelda (Prince Sidon) Overview [online] >https://zelda.fandom.com/wiki/Sidon< [10 February 2022]

Fig 33: Fenske J (2019) Destiny 2 (Prison of Elders) [online] >https://www.artstation.com/artwork/OyD1Xb<

[10 February 2022]

Fig 34: Madere Z (2015) Faster Than Light [online] >https://www.artstation.com/zacharywmadere< [10 February 2022]

Fig 35: Hadick M, Ubisoft (2016) STEEP [online] >https://www.fandom.com/articles/steep-impressions< >https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/steep< [10 February 2022]

Fig 36: Girard L, Ubisoft (2021) Riders Republic [online] >https://www.artstation.com/artwork/bKr0Zv< >https://store.ubi.com/us/riders-republic/?lang=en_Uk< [10 February 2022]

Fig 37: Nguyen K, (2016) Skylanders [online] >https://www.artstation.com/artwork/m5zJY< [10 February 2022]

Fig 38: "eleven F" (2021) Animal Crossing [online] >https://www.artstation.com/artwork/xzaoV1< [10 February 2022]

Fig 39: Povernmire D, Getty Images (2015) [online} >https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0693933/< [10 February 2022]

Fig 40: Seiski J, IMDB (2007) [online] >https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0852863/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0< [10 February 2022]