###### tags: Uni Work Game Art
# 21432909_J5Z1020_Journal
### Character and Environment Art (J5Z1020)
### Games Art BA(HONS) L5
### Holly Nicholson

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### Thematic Research
The thematic is Metropolitan Ludotopia's, Ludotopias is the space where game play happens and Metropolitan is a large city. An example of this could be Detroit become human or GTAV.

### Game Concept
A first person horror story based game about a girl who moved to a new/big city for uni, battling with the struggles and mental health issues that have come along with it. Physical embodiment's of these issues following her and being found around the city being obstacles she has to avoid, overcome and defeat, the game play for these sections being similar to among the sleep when avoiding the mother creature or like in visage during lucy's chapter when avoiding the girl in the room full of draws and wardrobes. However there will be a more inviting character that will embody her suicidal thoughts something comforting giving her an escape from the struggles she is going through. The main game will be based within this new city however there will be different key objects/items around that will transport her to different places around the city that represent these struggles each including a different monster representing a mental health issue, which she’ll have to figure out how to escape or overcome to transport herself back to the real world.

### Blockouts
A blockout is a prototype of a 3D model using simple 3D shapes with no details or polished assets. The purpose of a blockout is to get your idea down so you can see clearly what your vision is and can change anything that doesn't work or look right before you start making the final product.

### Week 1 Reflection
For the theme I think Ill be focusing on the city having a creepy and darker theme to it to fit with the overall horror genre I will be going with. I want to create the character you play as well as the mental health representations they will be avoiding.

When creating my blockout I want to make the buildings tall so they have a looming effect as well as being very close together to create a sense of claustrophobia.

This week we also experimented with Zbrush for the first time trying to main brushes and just figuring out the basics of controls.

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### Week 2 Reflection
This week we went into more depth on zbrush and 3D modeled a nose.

I also looked further into the style and design that I want to go for with both my character and environment.

#### Game Style Research
For my character Ill be in first person so it wont be overly important if its detailed but I want there still to be a model similar to how the Phamsmaphobia characters look, human but simple. However for the enemy characters I want them to be humanoid but with longer limbs and maybe also a melting type of effect almost like their skin is falling off. I want to take inspiration from an artist called Shawn Coss as I like his style and he did a serious of mental health ink works which goes well with the mental health aspects I'm hoping to also recreate in my game.(http://www.shawncossart.com/inktober-illness-series-ii) I want to have a third character style who is also an enemy however is more friendly and warm for the embodiment of suicide.

For the environment I want it to feel large and tall to create a feeling of being overwhelmed, isolated and claustrophobic

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### Week 3 Reflection
This week we 3D modeled a mouth and eyes. We then went on to looking at different 3D modeling and case studies where I looked at town design in 3D coat and blender. I learnt about some useful tools in the programs that can help me going forward with my 3D models. I watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn8bj0YpZg4 series and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo8_NODWjbw to become more comfortable with the program.



This week I also used a AI image generator to create a few ideas that could help inspire my concept art. Using the prompt "Nightmare Creature" and adding some tags for the art style such as pencil drawing, charcoal sketch, fantasy art and black+white this is what it generated.

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### Week 4 Reflection
This week we started by 3d modeling a skull which unfortunately I missed, however I started drawing up concept art of one of the monsters within the game.I did a few silhouettes of how it would look like when moving around and wanted to show a close up of the hand as I want the fingers to be thin and sharp to add a sense of horror.I want the monster to resemble a skeleton of sorts or a person without flesh just with longer limbs so I experimented with a few skull-like designs.

I made some moodboards of extra inspiration for my environments so I could start my blockouts.

I created the blockouts in Maya, creating two environments within the city, one being an alley and one being the main street.I started by making the roads including sewage trains and then started on the building themselves. I attempted to add lightening even though its not necessary for a blockout, just to see how it would look rendered however they turned out slightly too dark.


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### Week 5 Reflection
Unfortunately this week I missed 3D modeling of the muscles and joints within the body. I did however start drawing up my concept for my character digitally. I had purchased an Ipad and procreate so I started doing research into the tools and how to use it efficiently.

I tried to draw up an environment sketch freehand without the blockout first to see the difference. I found it a lot harder to get the perspective right and proportion with nothing there to help.

I then used my blockout from the week prior to create some digital sketches of my environment. These were alot easier to do taking less time and coming out more professional and realistic as the weight of the line the direction and distance were all proportionate to how they'd look naturally.

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### Week 6 Reflection
I started attempting to 3D model the head of my character however I wasn't a fan of how it was turning out.For my first attempt I started out with the male pre-made head where I smoothed down the nose and ears, hollowed out the eyes and smoothed any hard edges. I wanted to head to be slightly more alien so I added a sphere which I tried to mold into the head but it wasn't blending together very well so I started a second model instead. With the second model I started with a cartoon head and did the same as before smoothing down the nose and ears and hollowing the eyes, I also then attempted to carve out the mouth more and then model it to be stable or sown shut but I realised it didn't look humanoid enough for what I was going for so stopped.

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### Week 7 Reflection
Due to me not being a fan of the heads I'd been working on the week before I decided to restart my 3D model this time doing the full body starting with a pre-made model that I just used as a start but completely changed it. Starting out by hollowing out the eyes and removing the nose and ears while also changing the shape of the head as well as I started altering the body making it skinner and making it look more malnourished by taking in certain parts of the side to give the slight appearance of ribs more not completely as I don't want it to resemble a human too much. I then went on to extend his limbs as well as his fingers however I ran into a little trouble as stretching the limbs seemed to make the toes and fingers flat. I found a re-flat tool which then helped me unflatten them so I could go back to modelling them.

By the end of the two sessions, my model was starting to resemble more of what I envisioned. However, I planned on trying to make the arms longer so they dragged on the floor like I wanted and changed the knees to look more proportionate.

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### Week 8 Reflection
I started my week by taking a deeper look into the texture I wanted for the skin, more examples of how I would like the arms to loo and into monster feet as I was struggling with the models feet and needed to start them from scratch as they were to flat and I was finding it difficult to make them look normal while re inflating them.

This week I also took the sketches of the environment, I made from the blockout and colour and shaded them.

### Week 9 Reflection
This week I tried to fix his feet first by removing the original which turned out to be more complicated than expected and then taking two cone shapes and a sphere to start assembling the new more monster-like feet. After finding the shape I like, I tried blending the feet into the ankles and moving them into a position I liked which quickly became infuriating as no matter which tool I used when smoothing the added clay it would always revert to how it looked before and when trying to add to the feet they would hollow out on one side. After a few hours of frustration I decided this is where I will be leaving my model as I don't believe 3D modelling is for me. I did, however, go over his body using the clay build too to add a little texture to his body to look less smooth and more like muscle tenants as well as I moved the knees slightly higher to make them look more proportionate.
From this 3D model I went on the draw what he would look like in a more natural front on pose and show what he would look like coloured. I used an online reference of the muscles and tenants in the human body, then used a lighter shade and the blending tool to create a tenant effect across the body going in the directions they would in a human.

### Week 10 Reflection
After the attempt to 3D model the week before failing I decided to focus on more 2D work creating some more sketches of other mental health reflections that would be included in the game. I used my Ai images from a previous week as inspiration and linked a mental illness or a symptom that comes with these mental illnesses.

### Week 11 Reflection
I wasn't the biggest fan of my passed environment works so I decided to sketch up a new environment from some photo's I had taken around campus in Manchester as I thought this would be relevant to my story, as she is attending a university in a city.
These are the photos I had taken. Using primary references within your work is very important as unlike secondary references they have no copyright attached to them or potential plagiarism as well as its very important to go out and view what you want to draw yourself for a better understanding of the scene. It can also be hard to find an image of exactly what you want so if you take it yourself you can find the right angle or manipulate to subject to look the way you envisioned.

From these images I picked one and created the line work.

### Week 12 and Onward


Although this environment wasn't exactly what I envisioned as I wanted the buildings to be taller and make the player feel small and isolated which is not the exact atmosphere of this piece it still feels right. As the main concept of the game I was taking from my own experience and struggles of moving to a big city and starting university this as my main environment makes it feel more personal to the main reason I started the concept overall.