Summary: 16th - 29th November 2015

During these two weeks with no sessions or lectures, I continued reading d'artiste: Character Design by artists Anne Pogoda, Kekai Kotaki and Gonzalo Ordoñez and Creative Character Design by Bryan Tillman.

Ballistic Publishing's d'artiste: Character Design showed examples of the artists' work with interviews. The book shows the processes the artists use to begin painting. I found this really interesting as I struggle with initial shapes of a character. I found one of the methods especially appealing as I still have trouble working with silhouettes, although it would need a basic understanding of anatomy and body shapes which I don't have yet.





As I began reading Tillman's Creative Character Design, although I didn't finish it, it felt like a book which I would want to go back over and read to fully understand. It touches on Archetypes, what makes a good character design and what you need to remember, as well as the stages of progress. Tillman writes about things touched on in lectures, talking about archetypes and shapes. Tillman talks about what is essential to remember whilst creating the design.

I didn't get a chance to finish the book or even take as much in as I wanted to so I bought the book on Amazon and it arrived today so I'll be able to finish it properly and keep coming back to this book and re-reading it.

Simon Parkin's An Illustrated History of 151 Video Games is a book I wish I had had during the contextual studies tasks. During those tasks, I discovered that my knowledge was lacking when it came to different areas of video games and their history. Reading this book has helped me actually understand how much I didn't know. The book talks about important games and events throughout history, and also the development of these games, companies and consoles.

This also seems like a book I may want to go back and reference so I'm not sure whether or not I am going to buy this book after it's due back in the library.









I have yet to read Chris Solarski's Drawing Basics and Video Game Art, which I borrowed along with An Illustrated History of 151 Video Games from the library when I returned d'artiste: Character Design and Creative Character Design.

The Significance of the Idea of Seven Basic Plots

The idea of Seven Basic Plots was introduced in Christopher Booker's book The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories (2004). Influenced by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist, Booker wrote this book over 34 years and explores the analysis of stories and their deeper meanings in detail. The book investigates the plots of films, novels and short stories to conclude that there are Seven Basic Plots which define the fundamentals of any stories. From defining these basic plots, Booker suggests that the recognition of the existence and acknowledgment of these plots uncovers a form of a subconscious universal language. He proposes that it is the structure of these stories that our psyche is drawn to, and this is why each story told follows one or more of these Seven Basic Plots.

Many stories begin with a 'plot before a plot', or the mini plot which is at the beginning of the overall plot, which reflects The Hero's Journey, a pattern of narrative classified by American scholar Joseph Campbell. It is believed that this pattern is reflected in drama, storytelling, myths and psychological development. Both Campbell and Booker agree that there is one character we would concern ourselves with in any type of story, no matter how many are encountered. This character is known as the hero or heroine, this is who the reader identifies with in the story and who in the "central figure that all other characters in a story take on their significance." The reader follows the hero or heroine through different parts of their journey leading to, and through, their adventure, experiencing their world pre- and post-adventure, their meetings, approaches and ordeals. This creates a relationship between the protagonist and the reader which then connects them to the story, allowing the reader to be able to relate more to the protagonists' struggles and feelings throughout their experience.

Several of the Seven Basic Plots that Booker identified involves a physical journey which the protagonist must embark upon: In 'The Quest', the protagonist sets out to find an important object or to go to a location in order to fulfil a task and to do this he or she must face many obstacles in his or her path. In 'Voyage and Return', the protagonist must travel to an unknown land, overcoming threats along the way and returning with more experience and knowledge. Others feature a sense of self achievement: The protagonist in 'Overcoming the Monster' aims to defeat an often evil or threatening force, commonly known as the antagonist. 'From Rags to Riches' illustrates a protagonist either fallen from grace with aims to gain it all back, or one who started poor with the means to become wealthy and achieve power. 'From Rags to Riches' can be considered similar to 'Rebirth', where the protagonist encounters significant events which forces him or her to change his or her ways, this often makes them a better person. The remaining two basic plots are more straightforward than the five already mentioned: 'Comedy' has a protagonist who triumphs over any problems and therefore has a cheerful or successful conclusion, whereas 'Tragedy' features a protagonist who is a villain whose death causes joy.

The Seven Basic Plots can not only apply to books and drama, but also to the majority of games. Many of these stories feature more than one of these plots, and they can cross over; the protagonist can go on a quest in order to overcome a monster in a comedic setting, or the protagonist needs to overcome a force of evil and in doing so will be reborn into a more likable and better character. The Wolf Among Us exhibits traits similar to that of the latter example.

The Wolf Among Us is a interactive graphic adventure game by Telltale Games, based on Bill Willingham's comic book series, Fables. Much like The Walking Dead, an earlier game made by the same digital developer and publisher, The Wolf Among Us includes events where the player needs to choices which will ultimately have an effect on the storyline and it's progression. In the game, the player controls Bigby Wolf, the main protagonist, who was the Big Bad Wolf in the Fable universe, before the Fables were 'glamoured' and started living in the 'mundane world' where they created a place known as Fabletown. However, in this world Bigby is the Sherriff of the town, which already suggests a connection with the 'Rebirth' plot; Bigby tries to keep the town safe but how he does this is up to the player, yet everyone remembers what he was like back in the Fable universe. The player has the ability to choose the actions that Bigby does which would make people like or dislike him more, therefore not necessarily following the 'Rebirth' Plot as well as it could do. There is a slight hint of comedy in this game, although it is through dialog and certain interactions more over gameplay. There is also elements of 'Overcoming the Monster', or evil in this case. Bigby and his deputy, Snow White, face many problems which may endanger the people of Fabletown and it is their job to overcome these dangers and protect the Fables. The evil the town faces is not necessarily known and so Bigby and Snow must embark on a mission, or 'Quest' to find out either what the wickedness is or who is behind or causing it, and then to try and solves the problems.

The ideas behind the Seven Basic Plots can be interpreted in many ways and each example could mean another or many more things to different people. How people interpret the meanings of events in games, stories or drama suggests something about the traits, opinions or thought processes of a person. For example, another person playing The Wolf Among Us may not see any comedy in the game and can only see the events so far as tragic. Although this may be the case, it is not necessarily wrong, as many games in particular would overlap the ideas of the Seven Basic Plots. It is due to the many interpretations and flexibility that developers are able to make games appeal to the mass audiences yet there is a sort of comfort for the player as they would know what they like. Some games are successful due to their ability to combine and modify the basic plots to create a twist that the player would not expect but still would be able to enjoy and relate to.

Bloomsbury.com, (2015). [online] Available at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-seven-basic-plots-9780826452092/ [Accessed 19 Nov. 2015].

Thewritersjourney.com, (2015). hero's journey. [online] Available at: http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero's_journey.htm [Accessed 19 Nov. 2015].

Booker, C. (2004). The seven basic plots. London: Continuum.

Schreier, J. (2015). Telltale Games Snags Walking Dead, Fables. [online] WIRED. Available at: http://www.wired.com/2011/02/telltale-games-walking-dead-fables/ [Accessed 20 Nov. 2015].

Self Evaluation: BA1a

I feel like I have progressed a lot in these three projects, mostly in confidence but also in using new methods. At the start of the Insect Concept project, I was very sceptical in painting in detail as I had never really done well before. I had little experience with digital painting in general but could never familiarise myself with the art of blending colours on Photoshop and creating iterations and final paintings gave me a chance to practice painting.

I enjoy designing iterations, it explores different options and is simple to do, which then allows comparison between different ideas enabling the best choice to be made. I then did base colours in order to get a general view of the colour and idea of what the insect, timepiece or character would look like. It shows that as I progressed through the projects, I became more confident in iterations and therefore did more each project.

Model and Character Sheets were things which I enjoyed doing, however I preferred drawing Model Sheets more than Character Sheets. This may be because I'm not used to drawing in a way in general yet. I find it rather difficult to recreate something I had already drawn. Which makes creating Character Sheets rather difficult as the characters would not look exactly like those in Model Sheets, however they would bear the same idea but with more emotion and feeling in it. This is something I find hard to do.

Although I feel like I've improved significantly with painting as a whole, I think the Timepiece Final Painting reflected this a lot more than the Character Final Painting. This is mostly due to time restraints and a much newer composition for the painting. I feel like I need to manage my time more and practice drawing more in my own time to improve as much as I want to so I can be able to produce higher standards of work.

Concept: Character Final Painting

The background of this painting did not turn out as well as the background of the timepiece final painting. I wanted to try something different and have the path trail off into the distance, however I did not do this well. I wanted to show the light coming from behind the figure and that she is walking into the woods which would be obscured by darkness.
I did paint in trees between the larger ones in an attempt to show an understanding of Aerial Perspective, however they did not come out in the JPEG image.

Concept: Character Character Sheet

This is a Character Sheet for my version of the Witch from the Tinderbox depicting her in various parts of the story. It shows how she interacts with the soldier, holding herself up higher than usual as shown in her standard pose whilst sitting. This is because she still has her pride and wants to maintain the class she once had. The third figure shows her at the end of the story.

Concept: Character Model Sheet

This is the Model Sheet for my character.

Concept: Character Base Colour Iterations

These basic colour concepts were so that I could get a rough idea of what base colour I wanted before adding the shading to make the clothing look degraded or worn. This is in addition to me having changed the dress and hair to a more ragged design already.

Concept: Character Hair Iterations

I tried to create designs with elegance, which suggests an upper-class nature to the woman. After I decided on the style I would then go on to make the hair look more rough and displaced to give the idea that she no longer holds the position she used to.
I chose the dark red hair as it was more interesting than the black and brown, and I wanted it to be slightly unusual to what colour the hair typically was in that time to subtly show that she was a witch or at least different.

Concept: Character Simple Clothing Designs

Having settled on the idea of a youthful-looking-yet-aged witch, I then proceeded in creating clothing silhouettes. All of these are dresses as those were popular in this time for women, I just needed to decide on what style I wanted to use.
I kept narrowing down the designs to the choices I preferred and even created iterations of the shoes underneath the dress.

The design of the bottom of the dress I chose was not a typical dress in the 1800s, however I thought it would work well.


Vam.ac.uk, (2015). History of Fashion 1840 - 1900 - Victoria and Albert Museum. [online] Available at: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/h/history-of-fashion-1840-1900/ [Accessed 13 Nov. 2015].
Vintagefashionguild.org, (2011). Vintage Fashion Guild : 1800s. [online] Available at: http://vintagefashionguild.org/1800s/ [Accessed 13 Nov. 2015].
Women in the American Society: Over the Years, (2015). Fashion in the 1800's: Modesty. [online] Available at: http://womenintheamericansocietyoverthe.weebly.com/fashion-in-the-1800s-modesty.html [Accessed 13 Nov. 2015].


citethisforme

Concept: Character Silhouettes

These are silhouettes created with the Witch from The Tinderbox in mind. My time and place was 1800s America and so my first thought was to create a native American female, however as I carried on with this process the idea changed to a figure of an upper-class woman. This is because I thought more about the concept and a background to the character in this stage. I wanted to portray a youthful looking witch who had fallen from grace years before.

In this third project, I think I improved a lot more in creating silhouettes and making figures from the shapes I saw.

Concept: Timepiece Final Painting

The final painting of the timepiece turned out much better than that of the insect. I had more practice and got used to using a tablet again, however I can't help but feel that a night scene is simpler to paint than day. Shadows are something I still need to work on, although I think the sun and the colour of the background works well.

Even from the initial stage of the paining process, it is evident that starting this, I was much more confident than I was while starting the insect painting. I wanted to create a night scene using inspiration from Stonehenge as the light from the timepiece would be effective in this location and it would be easier to see.

When I created the sun setting, I worked several layers into it, making it seem illuminated and then painted around around the areas, blending it just enough to make it look like rays. I then made the sky and grass areas darker where the light would not reach.
To emphasise that we are looking at straight on with the sun rising, I added hints of orange and yellow along the horizon.

Due to the view point of the painting, the timepiece is seen head on and should be obscured in darkness as the sun is behind the object. This stage does not reflect it as I knew that there would be light emanating from the object itself.

In this stage, I textured the timepiece as included the coloured light from the object, illustating that it should be 6:45AM and added the shadow. There is also more shading on the timepiece as a better reflection of where the light is coming from.










I took inspiration for the background from
Allthesky.com, (2015). Stonehenge - Observatories - Digital Images of the Sky. [online] Available at: http://www.allthesky.com/observatories/stonehenge.html [Accessed 13 Nov. 2015].

Concept: Timepiece Model Sheet

This is a rough model sheet for my timepiece, hopefully showing how it works.
Finding a good colour for the background was difficult and I still don't think this is the ideal shade, however any lighter shades made the timepiece difficult to see and darker shades were hard on the eye..

The front and back views have the red and purple lighting for each half of a day and shows that the sections which aren't meant to be lit would still have some light shining and bouncing onto it, although this lighting would not be as prominent and 'full' as that which is meant to be used to tell the time. The side view of the timepiece show that the middle section protrudes from the middle of the areas. These views also show that the rings are all 'inside' each other, and doesn't spiral inwards.

Concept: Timepiece Simple Detail Iterations

I used a template to figure out what type of base I wanted to use with the timepiece levitating above it. The two main material ideas are granite and marble; I thought dark and light bases would work best due to the idea of wanting coloured light to reflect the time of day. I like the Nero Maltese granite more than the others and I like the majority of the marble bases, however, due to the coloured light idea, I chose a white one and worked on it more to see how the reflections would look.

I really like the reflection of the light on a black surface as the brightness of the colour works well on the dark surface. Although these are rough detailed ideas, I like the brush used to create the granite-like texture and thinks it works well.

The white marble base looks more clean than the dynamic black, however the rings were altered from black to two shades of grey as the black rings didn't seem to go well with this base than the black base. The light grey works better with the white base than the other two colours, but if I were to choose this grey then I would add some white into the rings to match it with the marble base. If I were to choose the marble base then I would not use the black rings.
Overall, I think it's between the granite black rings and the light grey marble rings.

The colour of the light for midnight to noon and noon to midnight will be different, illustrating which 6 o'clock (6th ring lit up) it is. These colours needs to be carefully considered as it needs to be prominent enough to be noticed in the day light, therefore I would not use yellow or orange, nor blue due to the brightness of the surroundings outside usually from roughly 6am to 6pm.
It will probably be red for midnight to noon and purple for noon to midnight.

The Seven Basic Plots (Spoilers)

The idea of the Seven Basic Plots is that that each story or game follows the guidelines of one of the following:

Classic Dr. Robotnik

Overcoming Evil/Monster
Any of the Sonic the Hedgehogs feature Sonic, the protagonist travelling through many worlds, levels and stages ultimately trying to defeat the antagonist, Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik. There are many other characters, like Sonic's sidekick, Tails who aid him along the way. It is a platform game where you control a character and collect Rings along the way, allowing extra lives or transformations to help travel through each stage. In later games, these can be used as currency, restoring health or improving statistics.
Robotnik's aim is to rule the planet and to do this, he needs to defeat Sonic, who aims to overcome and thwart Robotnik's plans to save the world from this, and various other threats.

Rags to Riches
At the beginning of Skyrim, you create your character by customising the looks and the race. When you actually first start the game, you're placed in a moving carriage along with other Prisoners heading for execution. You are lead up to the block where the execution takes place and a dragon disrupts the event, causing a distraction and a chance for you to flee. After doing so, a new life is started and you discover that you are the Dovakiin, destined to save the world and slay the dragons. To do this however, you must complete many quests along the way, which is why this story fits the Rags and Riches plot; you start off nearly facing your death, only to become that who prophecies have spoken of.

Voyage and Return
(The Longest Journey/Dreamfall: The Longest Journey/Dreamfall Chapters:The Longest Journey)
In Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, the player controls 4 characters in different worlds, however the events that occur to each character happens in chronological order. What happens in another world affects that of the original one that the player starts in, and I believe one travels between worlds, this is why I think it fits in Voyage and Return plot.

Super Mario Bros.

The Quest

Mario is a game that everyone knows and loves. The Italian plumber travels through Mushroom Kingdom, usually on a mission to rescue Princess Peach from Bowser, a Koopa Villian. This suggests a hint from Overcoming Evil/Monster as Mario needs to defeat Bowser, or other enemies from the Koopa species.

Tragedy
To The Moon is a role-playing adventure game void of battle systems, inventory or party systems. In the game you play as either Dr. Eva Rosalene or Dr. Niel Watts and aim to fulfill Johnny Wyles' dream of travelling to the moon, before he dies. The aim is to go back into his memories and insert a desire to go to the moon at a young age and therefore can live a full life without any regrets. However this doesn't happen so the two characters have to explore many of his memories, discovering other good and bad events of his life.

Comedy
In Portal, you are trapped in a testing facility and your goal is to complete various tests set by a robot named GLaDOS. Due to this, it can also fit into The Quest and Overcoming Evil/Monster plots. I put this under the Comedy plot due to GLaDOS' commentary throughout the game, and also Wheatley's contribution in Portal 2. They add comedic value to the otherwise possibly dark nature of the game. (Someone trapped and being used as a test subject.) GLaDOS makes snide comments about each section and sometimes actions which one would find funny.

Rebirth

Bigby Wolf is the main protagonist of the point-and-click adventure game The Wolf Among Us by Telltale Games. In the Fables universe, Bigby Wolf is the Big Bad Wolf, a classic bad guy, however in this game he is the Town's Sheriff. This game works based on the decisions you make while playing as Bigby, this means that you are ultimately in control of whether or not Bigby becomes better than the stories. This also means that The Wolf Among Us may not follow the Rebirth Plot as closely as it can do, due to the player's decisions.

Bigby Wolf

Bigby Wolf

Concept: Timepiece Further Designs

I placed 6 choices from the previous silhouettes onto a separate page in order to see it without the clutter of the other designs around the ones I would possibly like to look at in more detail. From these 6, I chose to define a few of which I think I would prefer.

Iterations of one of the designs were then created. I toyed with the idea of having multiple sections for hours, minutes and seconds, different layers and ways of making the water idea plausible. After the water idea turned out not to be realistic (something which I would feel comfortable with), and I had dabbled in the idea of using a type of magic to make the timepiece work, I decided to use lights instead. I created a timepiece idea with layers with the light idea but have yet to decide what it should stand on.

Concept: Timepiece Silhouettes

We were asked to create a Timepiece for the second task. Timepieces can take many forms and can be powered by many different things. I toyed with the idea of creating something which was powered by the growth and process of life.

My initial idea was to create a tree whose apples fell and decayed throughout the course of a day. This way, a person would be able to tell what time of day it was by seeing how decayed the apple was. There were some issues coming into this though; Realistically, the apple would be likely to break after falling from the tree, so I added a pool or a trench of water to catch the fruit.
Other ideas have included a landmark with a waterfall mechanic, a dress or flower which decayed over a period of time and several statues which turn into different numbers or shapes depending on the time.

I settled on trying different alterations of the round glass like figure filled with water. This would empty out somehow during the day. 

These are designs and patterns drawn on Alchemy, all of which used the mirrored option.
Although I like all of these designs, all of them look as though they would be a statue or a monument from a sci-fi type setting. The middle left design looks like something from an alien-esque setting and the one in the top left looks as though it is of a woman one would worship. The rest of the bottom two rows look as though they are settings of combat or profiles of warrior like figures.
The designs didn't suit what I had imagined a timepiece to look like. It was fun creating things in Alchemy and although I didn't end up wanting to use any of them, it let me explore different areas and perhaps I will use these as inspiration to look back on for other briefs.