Evaluation Unit 78 Phone Icons

Evaluation

For the final learning outcome for Unit 78 we were tasked to create a set of gaming icons for an iPhone/Smartphone.

We were told to select 4 or 5 genre's to base our work on and to come up with developmental planning for each (Shapes, Colours and Images associated with them). We then created our icons based around these genres, my chosen 4 were Sci-Fi, Fantasy, War and Horror i also originally had a 5th genre, Sport but because i fell behind i ended up dropping it.

To come up with my ideas i first(and mainly) looked at icons for games on the android market place. and then at icons on game digital distributors such as Steam. then began designing the concepts.

Because there were multiple final designs, one for each of my chosen genres, some have turned out better than others, for example my Fantasy and Sci-Fi icons are by far my best and i spent the longest creating. my War icon was a simple icon i created in a rush using one of my 3d models from Unit 66, so i didn't have high expectations for that one, and my original version of my Horror icon was rushed but turned out okay, however when i got more time closer to the end of the year i decided to add/redesign it, so i changed my final ideas to one of the designs i came up with with classmate inrek, this icon design ended up being of my best.

I was majorly disappointing with my time management skills for unit 78, by the end I left far too much work either unfinished or not started and by the time we had moved on, i was having to go back and add things to my U78 work, meaning i was getting further behind on my current work.
My time management would have been much better if i had gotten all the planning work done and out of the way as soon as it was given, this would have allowed me more time for my actual production work. In the future i will endeavour to keep work up to date and complete it on schedule.

Out of the whole icon making process I found getting used to using Photoshop the most difficult. The naming of all layers, pictures and elements was tough to get the hang of, not because it was difficult to do, I just kept forgetting to do it, but once I got the hang of it it made it much easier to keep my Photoshop files organised. also getting used to the tools effectively took some time. But by the end of the year (when I finally got all my Unit 78 work complete) I realised that I retained and remembered the skills I learnt this year.
The concept drawings, designing and developing my ideas were what I found the most enjoyable. this was also the work I got completed the quickest, but because I kept going back to it and adding further stuff to it, I didn't hand it in until the end of the year.

The basic designs of my icons were most comparable to some of the icons for games and applications on the Android (Google Play) marketplace. The easiest to compare would be my sci-fi icon and the icon for the 3D Space Invader game; 3D Invaders Beta - 3D Game, both of which have an image of a UFO as the central image of the design. Each of them contains basic traits easily identifiable with the Sci-Fi genre; Blues, Blacks and smooth designs. The largest difference is the fact that the Google play game uses a 3D image of one of the in-game models of a UFO while my icon uses an image i created in Photoshop, although the image on my icon is better (smoother, cleaner) looking than the image in the game icon, the fact that they have used an actual in-game element as a part of the icon means that their icon is advertising the graphical quality of their game on the android marketplace.

The majority of people i showed my designs to liked them, especially the Sci-Fi and Fantasy designs. I could  have improved upon the time it took to design and then digitally improve my designs in Photoshop.

If i could go back and do it all again i would have put as much effort into designing my war icon as i would have creating the rest of the i would have also gotten my 5th Icon (which was going to be sport) completed, instead i ended up dropping that genre because i was running out of time.

Throughout this project i have learnt how to create, modify and use layers more effectively in Photoshop, as well as becoming more comfortable using Photoshop.

Lost Images

For some unknown reason all the images on my blog have corrupted  and are not visible on my blog.
i have fixed most of them by simply re-uploading the images, however some of the images i cannot find and will remain permanently lost.

Evaluation Unit 33 Stop Motion Animation

Evaluation

For our Unit 33 stop motion work we had to organised ourselves into a group (2 groups of 5 and one of four). From there we had to brainstorm ideas and come up with a basic plan for creating said stop motion project.

My team consisted of Leanne, Inrek, Ciaran, Rory and myself. we decided originally to create an animation based around a classic 90's beat em up fighting game, such as Street Fighter & Tekken , this plan would require each of us to design or at least put in some constructive input into the design ofg their characters, we then needed to create said models with; wire, pipe cleaners, plastecine/play doh. And then build the models, at least 2 of each character, all the backdrops and scenes were to be created as a joint effort between me, Inrek and Leanne. We had however underestimated the complexity of creating models out of plastecine because they would become dry and brittle the longer they were left and would fall apart and disintegrate when we attempted to move them for the animating.

We could have managed our time better but most of our time management issues were because of our troubles with acquiring the materials necessary to create our models, we fell far behind in our production scheduled. because of this we ended up deciding to change our animation entirely because all of our models either disintegrated, dissipated or were squashed.

The idea for our new animation was conceptualized, mocked up and created in a couple of hours, we then used an inflatable whale that one of our tutors Dan had to be the central figure of our animation. So taking advantage of the good summer weather we took the whale outside and created ourt new animation of a land whale, swimming around on the lawn of the college garden. The overall animation turned out quite well considering its hasty creation and lack of content.

The animation flowed quite well when compared to a professional example but the projects rushed nature was clearly evident in the video, we did manage to put in some music which helped improve the video.
Despite all this the responses from class mates and other people whom viewed the video and filled in the survey was quite positive and they liked the quirkiness of the content. However if we could have done the whole project again we would have probably chose a theme,concept that wasn't as far outside of our skill set as our original concept.

Unit 65 Flash Animation Concept Art

-Flash animation Title Screen-
This is the concept sheet for the title screen of my flash animation, detailing what I'm going to do and how im going to do it.

-Storyboard-

The above is a quick sketch i did for my storyboard to help plan out my animation.

-Character Sheets-

Below are the concept sheets for the two of my characters I used in my animation.

-Michael Concept Art-

-Rory Concept Art-

Evaluation Unit 69 Comic Strip

Evaluation
For Unit 69 we were tasked with creating a storyboard/comic strip using our own concept art ideas and worst, we were told that it had to contain "Narration-Speech & ACTION words with clear examples of Environment/Character/Natural & man-made forms" to help us develop our concept art skills and develop our ideas. After we had created the comic strip we then had to recreate it using Photo shop or Flash.

I started by coming up with a basic idea for a story, this was simple as I chose to make it around a bunch of character concepts I had previously made. The mane character of this was the Leviathan concept I came up with, so I already knew it was going to be a supernatural/fantasy based story. I finished coming up with and designing several secondary characters including, my main protagonist and the antagonist (The Leviathan) and came up with a story which set up my characters being sent on a mission to stop the Leviathan from rising and destroying the world.
After coming up with all the character concepts, background information and basic flow of the story, i then created the layout for my storyboard and decided on how the comic would be read, whether in traditional western form (left to right) or traditional manga format (right to left). and began sketching out the plan for the comic, laying the characters out, having them interact, drawing in the backgrounds ect.

When i was done with this i began to recreate the comic in flash, using the same method that one of my classmates (Inrek) came up with, which worked really well and i decided to adopt it into my comic style. However after losing my original version of my digital comic i moved on to other work thinking i'll come back later and finish it, however i ended up running out of time and submitted the work as it was.

As at first there was no final finished piece, the comic did not end the way i had intended it, however i did get a quick digital version of the first page of my comic done, which is what i submitted  as my final piece.But design wise and with the direction the story went and the was the hand drawn piece ended up, yes the comic strip did meet the intentions i originally had. However if i had managed my time better and got the work done as i was learning to use flash i may have gotten the final digital comic completed and sent off before i fell behind.

Because I'm more of a sketcher i prefer my hand drawn work, as such i found the initial concept sketches, character backgrounds and drawing out the comic easier than anything else, especially redrawing the comic out using Photo shop/Flash which is something that i struggle with (drawing digitally). If i had the chance i would focus more on practising using digital media to draw and given my self a better chance at creating the finished digital copy of the comic, however i did learn how to better draw my concept art and keep them all in-line with a similar drawing style, but saying thsi i enjoyed the overall experience and i liked my final product, and even though the final piece never became a reality people still said they liked my comic (the design, story, characters and layout).

Stop Motion Finances

Finances Planning - Unit 33 

Evaluation Unit 65 Flash Animation

Evaluation

Using Adobe Flash we were tasked with planning and creating a flash animation, i had originally planned to create a interactive version of my comic strip however due to my limited skills in and general dislike of Flash i was unable to carry it out. i instead chose to create a simple animation based on my dislike of the software. it involves me and a friend in my class interacting at our computers.

I first created some concept sketches of several characters that were based off of my class mates that could potentially be used in my animation, i ended up settling on 2, the characters of me and Rory, i then refined the designs and attempted to draw them in flash. Then moving on to story and story board for the project.

Because i had initially planned on creating an interactive banner of my comic strip the final product i created does not meet my original intentions, and i ended up having to cut some of my final animation because it was taking too long to create. I ended up managing my time quite badly, i could have improved on my Time management if i had cut out all the unnecessary designs for characters i created and just used the ones for the characters i knew i would be using.

I struggled with the whole concept of animating in flash, i always ended up forgetting what i needed to do in order to make it work correctly, constantly having to go back and heck tutorials in order to get the work done. However i found the drawing of the characters and other images in flash to be easy when using a tablet, especially easy compared to photo shop which requires a lot more finesse when sketching/drawing/painting with a tablet.

Because flash can be used with a relatively limited knowledge base there are lots of professional examples where the quality of the animations/designs are not that different from amateur versions so i don't think my final piece came out looking too bad.

a few people thought that the concept and designs were good whereas the actual animation itself wasn't to the best of standards, which i do agree with.

I could improve of the general standard of the animation by having increased amounts of practice with the software. However if i could go back and do it again it would probably come out the same at the end, just maybe it would have taken less time