learningoutcomecp-blog

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Knowledge & Understanding 1. Demonstrate a critical understanding of business aspects of working as a concept artist including copyright issues pricing, and the rights of an artist.

As a postgraduate student, the next step of my career is being a professional concept artist. It is very important to follow certain rules when I became a concept artist. The rules must standard of morality and professional in my career.

 First of all, as a designer, the copyright issues are extremely important, it is the prerequisite and basis for successful art works. For me, the career will possibly start in China. But in China, the copyright issues have not received enough attention. So I must correctly deal with these issues. Such as signing on the finished work, keeping the original files(.PSD) and all the developments, and trying to use law to protect the rights if necessary.

 Secondly is the pricing. I did notice a very strange problem these years. Quite a lot of friends have asked me to draw pictures for free. Drawing is definitely a job - designers make money by drawing. Concept artists sell their ideas and painting skills, so the price must be settle down certainly in the contract before starting, either paid per hour or per work. In the other hand, the pricing also depends on the painting skills as well as the ideas, which means the price doesn't rise in proportion only with the time and effort the work takes.  So the artists must value themselves in a certain period, and make sure the pricing is reasonable for projects.

 Last but not least, are the rights of an artist. It is necessary to understand how much work needed to be done before signing the contract with an employer. All the requests for both sides must be reflected in the contract. The artists are able to refuse the additional requirements, which not showed in the contract.  

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2. Demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of concepts, information and techniques at the forefront of Concept Art.

The following pictures show different techniques in my project. All of these techniques supported my design and helped me to develop my ideas. To combine the techniques and my own understanding of concepts is a big step forward of finishing a whole project.

Mood board

First sketches

Speed black and white painting

Final design rough line drawing

Final painting

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Cognitive & Intellectual Skills 3.  Review and critically appraise the complex concepts and professional practices which underpin the production of original imagery.

Assassin’s creed brief is a good example to help me summarize the learning outcomes. I will analysis how this was used in the process of the professional practices.

Research

This is the first thing I do when I starting a design. These researches help me understanding the field I am going to explore better. Researching also helps me gain experience in the field. The ultimate aim of doing research is providing me more original ideas.

Sketches

This is the first stage to organize my thoughts and ideas; it is also the first time to show these ideas to the others. From this stage, I can look though my designs and compare them with the original ones from Ubi Soft. At the same time, other readers can also point out the problems in my design.

Final work

On the basis of the steps above, the final design should fit the brief better. Then through the feedback, I can understand both my advantage and disadvantage better as well as get more experience.

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4.  Critically reflect on the challenging and novel visual solutions to a brief

The Dream work’s brief was not the most challenging brief, but it is the most operational one. So I have to think more about it - not only to make the character fits the vehicle, but also fits the background that I designed for her.

The picture above shows the backgrounds of the character and the first mood board (part of it). The main point of this design is the steam arm of the character. As the arm is made for substituting of the real one, it was made up by lots of details.

This one is the sketch of character,  I painted several steam arms specifically. All the designs were painted only followed the mood board but without considering the background. According to the background, the steam arm was invented by a 18-year-old girl. So I have to keep the balance between a complicated piece of machinery and a teenager’s technological limitations. Then I redo the mood board. Below are the specific style researches - the steam arm should be much bigger and much simpler. The picture on the right is my final design. A metal texture is added to her lift arm, which reduced the science and technology of it.

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6.  Analyse and interpret challenging client briefs and produce relevant and original work in response.

These pictures are from the Assassin’s Creed’s brief, which was given by Jack Couvela, an Art Director from Ubisoft. This brief required us to create a new assassin, including a character, a building and weapons. All the designs must base on a certain period of time and nationality.

My character is a Chinese assassin living in 10th Century Song Dynasty. The hardest part of this brief is the limiting conditions. The thumbnails below are the original characters from Ubisoft. There is an obvious similarity in them - the hood.

But in the time period I choose in China, people hardly wearing hood like that. My goal is keeping all the characteristics from the original designs and makes him looks more like Chinese as I can. So I tried to add a Chinese look hood although it is very unusual.  In the other hand, I have to keep the building and the  weapons in the same style.

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7.  Explore and evaluate a range of visual responses to a brief.

The following pictures are examples to help me pointing out the strengths and the weaknesses. Sketches in black and white are reasonable and simple operations to judge a design work.

This is Caspain Bones from Alfie Bloom’s brief, the design of the character is remarkable. The crow is my favourite idea. On the other hand, from the sketches, the personality of this character is indeterminate.

The one above is Assassin character design. Readers are able to recognize where the character comes from easily. But the clothing design is out of rationality.  It is unclear that how the character puts them on.

This is the character for Dream Work’s brief. The steam arm design of it is a highlight but also unreasonable. In my understanding, an incorrect design always makes the audience do not believe the story.

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Key Transferable Skills 8.  Reflect on practice and recognise and critically appraise strengths and weaknesses.

The most satisfactory brief for me is the Assassin’s Creed. The designs kept all the characteristics from the original characters. When I put them together, it was believable that they were come from the same game. The colour using is another goal point.  Assassins in ancient China always wearing a black or dark blue suite.

The second one is Alfie Bloom’s brief. I have tried a totally new character design style in this brief. As there are lots of limitation of conditions for each character, the designs are not enough stylized. The strengths are that I am able to try a different design style and keep all the works in that style.

The last one is Dream work’s brief. In this work, both the strengths and the weakness are very obvious. The design of the character is worth to be discussed. It has been developed a lot from the original idea. Also I have learnt how important the mood boards are from this brief.