Timetable & Outcomes – Simon Wong, Kieran Morris
Week 1:
- Establish genre and target audience for game idea.
- Gather appropriate reference material. Draw upon areas and styles of interest from other artists/ concept artists. Could also look towards real-world cultural influences as means of realising convincing concepts later on in project.
- Gather research into successful games from chosen genre. Identify strong elements of art direction from these games. Decide which themes or ideas can be appropriated for own concepts.
Week 2:
- Brain-storm basic game ideas based on chosen genre, and establish general mechanics of game-play (this should help with generating believable concepts eventually).
- Decide if writing own narrative is feasible, or if it is more appropriate to design for an existing narrative (could draw ideas from comics, novels, or movies).
- Brain-storm general antagonist and protagonist ideas.
Week 3:
- With issues of genre and narrative sorted, begin drawing thumbnail sketches of various artefacts, characters, and environments (traditional methods – pencil drawing in particular).
- Produce a range of storyboards to highlight areas of significance in narrative.
- Write a basic series of character bios (if needed) as a starting point for setting up character archetypes/ roles.
- Explore as many possible directions for initial character ideas using silhouette drawing to develop general forms.
- Experiment with different styles of art direction.
Week 4:
- Establish preliminary concepts for main characters and environments.
- Decide on amount of different environments needed.
- Acquire feedback/ critiques for current ideas from colleagues.
- Review acquired data and evaluate work in accordance to other opinions, as well as own input.
- Ascertain how preliminary character/ environment ideas may develop in relation to feedback, and decide if compromises need to be made (if any).
Week 5:
- Begin developing preliminary character ideas using Adobe Photoshop to explore alterations in general form, colour palette, and details.
- Develop basic environment concepts further – colour, landscape, and distinctive features for each environment.
- Explore basic artefact and item ideas appropriate to art direction.
Week 6:
- Decide on an art style which best conveys the look and feel of the game as a cohesive whole.
- Begin efforts to develop/ represent artefacts, characters, and environments in chosen style.
Week 7:
- A substantial amount of character work should now be close to completion. At this stage, all antagonists/ protagonists should be well developed and established in terms of names, characteristics etc.
- All different types of environments should also be finalised in terms of themes/ style. Changes can still be made to designs if appropriate.
- Further feedback for progress would be helpful.
Week 8 - 9:
- By the end of week 8, all main character designs should be finalised. Ensure personalities are conveyed strongly through appearance, and that each character “fits” the game world.
- Environments also need to be completed by the end of the week – must show great range of variety, and key characteristics of each need to be clear to see.
- Artefact designs should be completed.
Week 10
- Evaluate all work for assignment – is there anything which needs more attention? Is further work required for areas of weakness?
Week 11
- Focus on areas of project which could be improved.
- Present work.
