CONTEXT

 

INTRODUCTION

Starting off with my Introduction, I wanted to firstly talk about the way I had interpreted the assignment and my future goals from taking it the way I had done. To do that I will be reflecting on my progress throughout the FMP Context & Research page, pointing out what I would have done different now looking back on it.

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To start, The way I interpreted the FMP assignment and to progress in the media sector I wished to be a part of, that being the character design and storyboarding. My original objective was to create a small art pack of what was three-to-five characters, which turned to just three, one character representing a different somatotype than the rest. Somatotypes being which build a person can be, with brief descriptions being "Stocky and tough" for Endomorph, "Strong and cut" for Mesomorph and "Tall and skinny" for Ectomorph. 

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Along with the three different Somatotypes being represented in my characters, what I had intended to create was a small set of profiles and ID cards which had crossover backstories that linked all the characters together through a corporation called "OMEGA", The backstories of the characters were cut out as I had lost the initial time to write them up and go through the technical accuracy due to being ill with two different viruses I tested positive for.  

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SWOT ANALYSIS

STRENGTHS

Moving onto my SWOT Analysis in the C&R page, I feel I went over the correct and accurate strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. All of these culminating into how both my peers and lecturer saw me, as well as myself. using my peers thoughts and gripes with my work ethic and how they saw me, and pitting it against my own views, in the end coming to an agreement with what I needed to write down fore each category.

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Using my knowledge, I wrote down in my strengths that I was able to reflect from previous work and even call up some big name companies such as BigMediumSmall and RocketBrush, The reason I had looked and took an interest in the companies that I listed was due to them being involved in the creative processes of games or animations that I had played or watched, in which the characters of said games and CGI animations have stuck with me up to when I am writing this Evaluation.

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During the FMP, another strength and skill that I had further put time into would be learning the photoshop and GIMP applications, having used both for the FMP where I created my mood boards and characters as well as my Beta character reference boards. Adobe Photoshop mainly being used over GIMP which over the years and the weeks of practical FMP, has helped me understand more about the software and it's processes, especially when paired with a WACOM tablet and drawing stylus.

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WEAKNESSES

Within my weaknesses I talked about having "a quick burnout time" what this essentially means is that I will solely focus on a piece of work so much so that after a couple hours without a break, the second I take time to take a breather or to eat and have a drink, I will come back to the work with steadily less and less enthusiasm. Which can be the difference between getting a finished product the way I wanted it, or rushing it and it looking bad.

 

Another weakness I listed was getting distracted by talks going on between my peers. which has in all honesty gotten worse and worse. at the start of the FMP, I believe that I was in the right mindset to get work done efficiently and progressively; But the closer and closer the FMP was to finishing, the more and more I partook into conversations which were off-topic and slowed my productivity. Which is my own fault. 

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OPPORTUNITIES

For my Opportunities within the SWOT analysis, I assessed my opportunities for Universities and professional placements. With The FMP going on, and my practice for practical work, I was accepted into the University of my choice, which was a University for "Game Art", that can involve characters, cover art, posters and even environment art.

 

My other opportunity in my SWOT talked about software and no matter what happens, If there is another need to be sent home or the internet or if the Digital side of the FMP stops working correctly I had a fall-back plan of working from traditional means, which involves paper, pens, pencils and graphite to shade.

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THREATS

In my threats, I picked out that my time management was in dire need of some fixing up, as I would waste time watching videos on YouTube or be on my phone instead of doing my FMPO work, as previously stated in my weaknesses, I would burnout too fast, and as the by-product of this, I would procrastinate in the name of "Taking a break" for several hours. then end up having to crack back down on the work over weekends and come into college on my days off. Usually being the only one in my class to have done so whilst the year below also doing their own FMP were in.

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With this in mind, I really should have managed my time better, Especially whilst I was recovering from the two illnesses which had stacked onto each other. During this time that I was ill and at home self isolating, I was unable to continue my research and pressured to catch up after the half term.  This putting extra stress on me and unhelpfully making me have worsening burnout times, which lasted longer. 

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HOW WOULD I CHANGE

Reflecting back on my SWOT analysis, I would change and add some some things around from the weaknesses tab to my threats and extend my threats a little more as to combat the issues that currently overwhelm and neutralise both the opportunities and strengths that I had at first taken at face value.  Along with this, Instead of delving into my strengths and opportunities as shallowly as I did, I should have gone further to uncover the specifics of why I was deemed to have them as my strengths and opportunities and not just advantages.

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MINDMAPS

Now looking back at it from a semi-outsider "know nothing" scale, I can see that the mindmaps that I had created are easy to follow for the most part, the only part to them being a little difficult to understand being the genre setting, having needed to look at it myself a little to get a small understanding of what I myself was on about. 

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Having colour coded all the mindmaps, I was happy to see that the key that I had set for myself was the terms of how difficult it would be to design a character with the colours going further red or even purple for how difficult it would be to design a character that fit the descriptions, An example for a very hard character to create would have been RPG for Genre, Offset for colour type and Futuristic for the type with an Endomorphic body type. 

 

A game example for all these would be Caital,  A Kabal Empress in the Destiny 2 Universe.

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PROPOSAL FORM

Inside my Proposal Form, I originally had a set of weeks in which I would get specific work done and uploaded to my site. But as previously stated, I was made to self isolate, this put a real spanner in the works. So, After half term had happened, I came into college on the Beginning Monday and Sped up on what I had missed, using both the Monday an Tuesday of the week to "play catch up" so that I was back on par with the majority of my peers, as in my past such as when I fell behind on work, I would never usually catch up unless I was in a real crunch for time.

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PITCH PRESENTATION

Going through my Pitch Presentation, What I could have done better; Especially when explaining is that I should have slowed down so that what I was explaining could be digested by potential audiences. What I mean by this is that when listening to myself explain my FMP idea, I rushed through the importance of why I wanted to do what I was doing. and left no real time for audiences to understand what I meant by what I said.

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To combat this issue in the future, I will be doing some practice talks within small scale audiences. steadily increasing the count of audience size to that of a "board meeting" level. I feel as if I have a rocky way of getting my point across to an audience when the focus is entirely on me. What I've dubbed it in as is that it's not a fear of audiences, but rather a discomfort for the spotlight to be directly on me and me alone, a little like stage fright.

 

RESEARCH

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INTRODUCTION

To start my research phase I wanted to take a look into playable games characters and those that have a large cult following, having a look into games of all sorts from action to MMORPG, I found out the majority of popular games characters that are chosen to have a cult following are either centrally male as they are portrayed as the main character. But when a female character is found to have a large following, what is mainly talked about around the character is that they are "shipped" with the main male character from another game or even from the same in-line universe. Or the assets and physique the female character holds. 

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Due to the short list of female characters that were in games that have a following, I decided to make two of my three characters in my pack female and or non-binary with only one male as to help bring more inclusivity to what a main character can be.

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PRIMARY RESEARCH

To start my primary research, I made a form to fill out and sent it to my peers and colleagues that I have known a while on a application. with the reminder that the form was only to be live for a week and after the seventh day, any and all replies to the form would be discounted as well as secondary responses from the same email address.

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With that In mind, I wrote the questions in a specific way with only one answer available so that when people answered the form I had what they truly thought, and for the final question I had people answering what game specifically it was they liked and why they liked it the most, Getting a few jokey answers here and there, and ruling them out I now had what Genre was most looked for in terms of character development and design, as well as games and what an audience was most looking for from those games.

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SECONDARY RESEARCH

Cayde-6

When heading into my Secondary Research, I wanted pick out characters that I personally knew from games that I had played myself and wanted to see what others had about them with regards to their past and facts.  For this type of secondary research, and having used Destiny 2 in the past for my Year 2 research website I chose the character of Cayde-6, He would be representing the Male character with a large cult following, When picking Cayde-6, I personally knew little to nothing about him other than the fact that he was very well loved and held in high regard by fans of the Destiny series and lore. with his down to earth, comedic and all around approachable quips and personality. 

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When further researching into his character as an outsider looking in, I started to see that he as a NPC character was usually more important than other NPC's of the same faction he was a part of. being more vocal and all out when it came to how he felt no matter the subject. usually being a comedic outlier to a what would be stressful and strictly professional meeting. 

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Elana Fisher

After finishing up on looking into Cayde-6, I wanted to get an accurate deuteragonist character and NPC that would be female and found in a game that had a male protagonist. A character that would hold her own and not sway on a dime like old female NPC deuteragonist characters used to. Having played through the full Uncharted series, games 1-4 as of writing but not lost legacy, I landed on picking Elena Fisher, Whose whole persona from the four games is that she is a foreign correspondent who always gets mixed up with the protagonist Nathan Drake

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I felt at the time, and still do as of writing that Elena Fisher as a female character who has a cult following is more important than other female deuteragonists due to the fact she can hold her own when it comes down to it and wears clothing that can fit her character well which has helped her keep a somewhat low profile in the games.

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FINAL THOUGHTS ON CONTEXT AND RESEARCH PAGE

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My final thoughts on the Context and research page is that, Although I was ill and missed a total of three weeks worth of producible work, I feel as if I faired well and got what I wanted to get with regards to the work being completed. Even though I had not accounted for myself getting ill and missing an important meeting for how to structure the FMP, I did as well as I had hoped for.

 

To me personally, what mattered in the FMP was that I could finally get a taste of what it was like to be within a games companies "Crunch Time"; After coming back, being able to keep my cool and get the work done efficiently was honestly one of my highlights of the FMP together with drawing a 2D version of a 3D model which I had created and designed myself for the pack I was to produce.