the squinty face and scrunchy nose sheet - or, I’m working on an original concept and hating loving every minute of it, also yelling at streams really helps??
I never would’ve thought of half the facial expressions people came up with and it really challenged me to think about my characters in a different way, and it pushed their design towards a good direction methinks. :)
An Eiin painting. Alien form, without the human disguise. (they are tall and elf-like, that’s why they are commonly referred to by humans as ‘the fae’)
They are basically ice giants with electricity/induction-based magic who can disguise themselves as humans as long as their ‘flow’ isn’t interrupted. One of the largest extra-terrestrial population in Anh-Kira.
Did a presentation on Tuesday. It went well! I finally came to a steady point after weeks and weeks of trying to find focus in a panicked state. The new (ish) approach is, predictably: online communities, self-branding (partially), fandom, and narrative building with a community.
Practical Stuff
I mentioned the interactive artbook here before, right?
So what if the artbook takes the form of a journal - Reika’s journal of pictures, safe houses, police officers to keep a lookout for, informants, cheap food, mechanic notes, alien races, language breakdowns, building schematics, friendly people.
It will still contain the same type of stuff, for example character sheets, isometric building layouts, illustrations (’photos’) etc but it also gives space for Reika’s personal commentary. It forces me to start writing the actual plot, to really think about her personality and her relationship with the other characters.
It’ll also help me distinguish my project from all the other people who do artbooks.
All the while, working hard on figuring out a comic style that is fast to produce but keeps all the characteristics of my art I like.
If anybody has any suggestions (for world building questions, answers to some of the questions on the list, or just plain curious about the story) please feel free to ask me questions here or on my main! :>
An (admittedly) huge masterpost on the whole Reika-story madness. I kinda wanted to see what all I have so far looks like - some of these are recent, some of them go as far back as second year (wow). I think I forgot to mention this whole story idea stems from a second year digital painting class? (that I did in approximately 3 days in a frenzied panic after I realised my original idea is Just Not Working)
Anyway.
So far, what we know about the actual story (I’m putting this under a read more this is long as it is jesus Christ)
You know, how in big epic fantasy series and space operas the hero goes On A Journey to Do Specific Tasks, same goes for most mainstream games (I’m thinking of MMORPG’s, other RPG’s like DA, The Witcher, etc)
And then there are the supporting cast/NPC’s. The innkeeper, the questgiver, the nice lady who gives you gear when you’re only level 1, etc.
Reika, the main character would, under these parameters, be considered an NPC. She’s a mechanic sitting in her little mechanic shop, buying/selling, fixing stuff, etc. The reader immerses themselves into the world through her eyes, the stories she hears from people using her service/walking through her door.
She also (very illegally, in secret) serves as a middleman/helper for the alien race, ‘the fae’ who illegally or semi-legally immigrate to this future Earth, getting them passes, work permits, ID-s, specific cures for specific illnesses, etc. (Think Killjoys, but less bounty hunting)
She doesn’t actively takes part in the events shaping this universe, but acts as a neutral-ish observer, until the point a disastrous event/tragedy/motivator pushes her out of her equilibrium and forces her to take action. (This disaster is called Eiin, surprise surprise)
Questions
What should the final project be?
What are the benefits of (each, all) possible final product?
How would I get there?
What steps/methods of research would I use? (eg. user testing, peer feedback, etc)
What area of expertise/profession should the research/practical work focus on? (options are: Character design, Environment design, Prop/Worldbuilding/Visual design, Game art asset creation, Layout design, Animation background painting, Narrative, Visual narrative, All Of The Above)
Oh my god
I’m going to die doing all these
It was nice knowing you all
Possible Dissertation Topics
Something to do with contemporary webcomics
Something to do with different ways of visual narrative/storytelling
Mindmap madness. I have this story (it’s quite cool, involves a kickass - but apathetic - mechanic lady, an unwanted flatmate, aliens, a big jumble of mixed cultures)
So, I have this story, I just need to decide what to do with it. I really want to make it into a comic eventually, question is should that be the honours project or should I do all the concept dev for it, or??? OR????
The not too good quality screenshots are mood-setting crops of a secret comic project that may or may not borrow some of the aesthetic from the Reika-story (or the other way around, hell knows)
I’ve decided to keep this blog as an Honours project scrap blog - even though we’re not assessed on blogging anymore, it’s useful to keep track of research and visual stuff I’ll do - so, this thing isn’t dead!
I’ll most likely ramble on about my research involving (possibly):
Worldbuilding
Visual Storytelling
Narrative through visuals (???)
Concept art???
Concept delivery?????
COMICS????
Interactive/transmedia stuff
idk, cats
That means pictures and late night musings and books and things. If you’re still interested, that’s awesome - one part of the project I wanna carry is audience engagement, so feel free to pester me with anything.
I almost forgot: even though Behance’s WIP section is discontinued, here’s a link to mine anyway. All work there can be found on this blog as well.
This semester was fun. I wish there was three of me to focus on all my modules equally - professional project took away most of my time as that usually happens.
Even though there is always thoughts of ‘could have done better’, and others of ‘I’m not there yet’, altogether I’m okay with how I’ve done this year. I didn’t improve as much as I wanted to, but I did make progress. I can’t wait to find out, how far I can go in the summer, and in 4th year after that.
Visual Design as a concept was a great discovery for me this year. I just... love doing design sheets and figuring out all those small details necessary for world building, and both my projects this year taught me a great deal about this.
There is things to improve upon: Using more 3D, because that helped me a lot more than I expected (I should stop being so stubborn); there is perspective and light, and general painting techniques, there is more peer feedback (I wish somebody actually answered my feedback requests) practicing materials and surfaces and - so many things! Summer’s gonna be great. I have so many projects in mind I can have fun with and also use to improve on all these things.
It’s exciting! This was exciting too. I have a good direction which way to go now, I just need to work towards it as hard as I can.
This is the last post I’m making on this blog. Thank you for listening this year.
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