Pre-Production Evaluation

Well, I finally handed in my project after my extension and it's a relief to have it all finished.



I enjoyed the project, I found the entire process very involving and educational. It was enlightening to see how each chapter of the process was important to the final outcome. I'm very pleased with the overall visual outcome of my project, and the quality of the work, however I'm disappointed with the quantity of work that I have produced. As always, this project was a lesson in time management, especially towards the end, and it left me feeling pretty frustrated with myself as I a simply underestimated the amount of time that it would take to paint the concept pieces and draw up and paint all of the poses. Ideally I would have a) finished the fourth character design and turnaround b) completed model and pose sheets for all characters and c) produced one more piece of concept art.


Research

I found that although we had a little too long to carry out the research part of the project, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am a little bit of a history geek and it was great to be able to apply the knowledge that I had learned to a practical function. Before this project, it was an area that I would have probably overlooked when considering character and environment design, or at least not devoted the time to it that I should have. It is an integral part of the process and helps enormously when it comes to design elements, and it makes the difference between an accurate, plausible design and a poorly constructed, unlikely one.

Character Design

Character design was an area in which I have previously dabbled (be it for projects, or personal sketches) but not to the extent that this project asked of us. It was an area that, with hindsight, I could have spent more time on initially since I found that I rushed a couple of the designs towards the end, and perhaps did not express the characters that I was trying to. However, character design is something I was and continue to be interested in and thanks to this project I have a far deeper understanding of the process and involvement required when designing characters. I am pleased with the designs that I came up with. I was eager to make them different from previous interpretations of the characters, but to still make them recognisable as the characters they were written as. The development stages really helped get involved and thinking about the designs so that I could create something unique.

Concepts

When it came to the concepts there was a constant face off between my own artistic vision and my questionable painting expertise. The concepts were very time consuming and frustrating at times but I am very pleased with the finished pieces. I created them by using a mixture of painting - 2 digital, 1 acrylics/watercolour - and textures over the top to add some depth. I coloured the characters in a similar fashion. I think that this visual style is successful, and to me the flat base colouring of the characters is reminiscent of a more adult Tin-Tin.

Ultimately I really enjoyed the project, and whilst I may not have achieved the amount that I would have liked, I am happy with the visual triumphs of my bible. The whole process has given me a deeper insight into the visual side of pre-production and it's given me things to think about developing my skills on, for example; I have trouble with getting character into my faces which I think is one of the most important aspects of character design, and I really want to develop my digital painting skills, especially buildings.