Photo Annotations

"Bottles" was one of the categories I did to allow myself to analyse what photos I had easier due to the large amount taken. Bottles I feel what important for my design, as they can easily bring colour to my work, and often can be used to fill space if needs be. Bottles can carry many different characteristics, such as their logos, shape, etc. These are all factors I tried to take into account when taking the photos. Problems I faced whiles taking these included reflections, the business of the bottles and the clearness of the bottle itself to make out smaller details.

The second category is "Characters", this is a category where I needed a model to get in different positions I would need so I can use it as drawing references when it comes to the final design. These allow me to gain a more accurate detail to my work, these pictures have better quality than the rest, as I was able to set it up to my personal preference. Problems I faced during the taking of these pictures was lighting, although I tried my best to have a single light source, I did not have the resources to completely block the light with caused obvious issues with my work. Another issue was that my model was incapable of remaining in a position for too long, meaning blurry photos would appear.

Third category was "Clothing" this is a category I did based around minor areas within the game. I felt that these photos would allow me to gain a better idea of the clothing for females during the time my game is based around. Some of these will help with drawing references, or even appear as descriptive pieces. The problems I faced whiles taking these were that I was unable to touch most of what I had taken pictures of, meaning angles and positioning would be difficult to work around, but I am glad I gained photos that were usable and clear.

The next category was "Housing and Building". These varied quite a lot as I wanted to make sure I got a sense of the general architecture of the time. Much of what I got I felt was unneeded for physical use, but mentally it gave me a stronger understanding of how things worked so I can create more detailed drawings. The difficulties here were that many things were out of reach, and I was being forced to zoom closer, which, brings my photos into a blurry mess that was not of crisp enough quality to use in my final piece.

One of the categories was "Nature", this was a category I thought would be used rarely yet needed inclusion in case I needed it. The pictures in this category are minimal as my subject matter is usually of urban areas, but I thought the possibility would need decent drawing references so I can capture the finer details within the flower itself. These pictures also show the constructs that have appeared within the nature, meaning to find it untouched is rare. Difficulties I came into when taking these were the positioning, the nature was thin and more often than not, was being shaken by the wind which made it difficult to get everything in the correct position.

This second to last category was "Tools and Equipment", this category I thought could develop my character's designs and angles. Many of these photos will be used as they are the closest I can get to primary resources for the jumbled "broken" messy theme I have for my characters. Difficulties with these included that most items were on a small scale, or that once again, I was unable to get up close and touch the items, so I could not position them correctly.

The final category is "Typography" these photos were to help me understand what to do for titles, and font styles in descriptions. They vary, and quite often are very simplistic as finer details were a lot harder to do without the digital tools we have today. Posters appear torn and/or tattered, and I think this could actually be incorporated into my final design.

Photo Album

Final Draft

From my previous drafting, I created a rough sketch of what I would like my final draft to look like, but using techniques previously learnt.

Draft from Scamps 4

Below is my finished final draft. I am happy that all my previous drafts have helped build up what I believe to be a near-flawless design which I can then use as reference when creating the real thing. This exercise has helped me understand different uses of media, and the terms followed. The use of arm, allows the details around them to be seen, whiles still making the characters interesting enough to draw the audience in.

The fog is tucked in to fit the content it has inside of it instead of going along a line I had drawn. It helps the quote and title stand out greatly. the white windows are a great inclusion and make the silhouette less bland yet not too eye-catching. And help the theme of night grow around the page.

Draft from Scamps 3

As I develop my designs, my skills have refined as I do so, making a lot of my drawings more crisp and detailed than they were before. There was less for me to improve on this draft, as I believe it was close to what I would like to use for my end piece. However, I still found imperfections that could be changed for my final draft.

For example, my fog in this draft covered too much of the background, and made the draft seem empty and unfinished, this is an effect I wanted to avoid so my game seemed filled with exciting things to my audience. I was going to back this up further by using colours that stand out when I develop my cover to include details such as colours. However, I do believe the wavy extra lines I had added had helped add a sharper texture to the fog, making it appear more defined and more worth of a border.

More imperfections have still been noted, such as on the arm of my third character, the use for the arm has been changed frequently as I develop my character's own custom outfits making them each unique yet still have something in common. But the idea of the third character having a bow, or a torch didn't work and used up valuable space I needed for my silhouetted background, which has vastly improved the quality of my work by allowing the audience to see my characters above all else. So in my final draft, a better use for his hand is needed to give a cleaner effect and make my characters appear to be more huddled together.

Previously, my silhouette was doing a good job of bringing emphasis to the characters, however I wanted a stronger theme of night, so I decided dark buildings with lit up windows would be the answer to solve this, this was more of a test, and I think if I further develop how I have done it, it could be included in my final design.

Draft from Scamps 2

Below, is my second draft. A far greater improvement on the last as I still had a lot of ideas of what I wanted to include. I had completely changed the title, I have it theme-related details such as overgrown vines, brickwork and a mechanical eye, however, I thought that the vines could of given more of a swash effect or be used as tails, I had attempted to do that in this draft, but could be extending to appear more exaggerated. Another issue I found was that the vines and the lines of the letters themselves were very similar widths making it hard to understand what some letters are. For example the 'n' below could be mistaken for a 'r', and the 'j' and a 'i'. I needed to make the letters bold by using my pencil more thickly to give that effect.

The fog I felt, whiles been a more realistic approach than the last draft, still lacked something to make it obvious it is fog, and pleasing to look at. This could also be done by using my pencil in a variety of ways to give a patchy-misty effect to the work.

My characters had definitely improved and gain different costume ideas each time, I am happy with their current size I have made them however the shading given to them was too dark, and often at times hard to see the finer details put into my work. If I were to make them stand out on my page and draw attention to my audience, they needed to be brighter.

A minor flaw I noticed was that the ratings and logos placed on my game cover, were quite large and my space could of been used more wisely to add smaller details to my work and giving the audience a better feel for the game itself. I will make these smaller in further drafts I do and instead use their extra space for fog details or ripples in the water.

Finally, I liked the short quote I had added and thought it was a good addition to fit to the theme of game covers, it will show my audience that my game has been appreciated by popular game critics and that it is a worthwhile title. However, I believe that I could of improved it by displaying it in a way that matches my Victorian-styled theme.

Draft from Scamps 1

Before I could start drafting ideas, I needed to look through my collection of initial scamp designs and choose what I thought would be of good enough standard, below is a picture of my chosen scamp.

When I enlarged my scamp into a starting draft, I needed to take in what else could be added, knowing that I could later change the imperfections, I decided to try different ideas. The title's font I had chosen was quite small, and when looking at other game covers I found small titles did not fit the form. As well as the small font, I notice that my font did not stand out, and blended in with the surrounding detail, so I decided this was to be changed in a future draft.

Another issue I found were that my main characters, whiles needing to be shown to allow the audience a look at what the game could be like, were slightly too big and needed to be downsized so that the smaller details could be added and add more information about the game.

My background allows the audience to understand what sort of setting my game is in, (Fantasy Victorian London), by using iconic landmarks most people could understand, in this case, Big Ben, however I feel the background drew attention away from my main characters, which I still wanted to emphasis, and if I was going to downsize my characters, i'd have to simplify my background, I decided to consider a silhouette, as this would still fit the theme, as in my game cover, it is shown in a night setting.

The water I had made to fill the space I had left, did not have too much showing it off. I felt I would have to add details to it in further drafts to see if it had helped give the theme of a ruined city, possibly by adding rubble into the river, or make the water seem dirty or uneven.

Finally, I found an imperfection with the lower area of my game cover, I wasn't sure what to add there, as it was covered by the "fog" I had added to work as borders, so it doesn't look blocky. But the fog was quite large, and I thought I might need to fill it with something, looking at other game covers I found many included a quote from popular game critics, so I decided to include this.

Scamps of my Initial Ideas

The follow designs are me creating scamps of different layouts I could include in my own. They are inspired my the previous scamps made and are not final designs, I will be able to tweak them to suit my preferred designs when it comes to refining my chosen layout.

I then picked 4 of my scamps, and redrew them with slightly more detail, and I included their spine, and back cover ideas that go with the main design.

I then took one of those 4 scamps I like the idea of, and tried in a different media, I used fine liner to give bolder lines.

Scamps of Other Designers

To know the layouts of other games, I did "scamps" which are small thumbnails of designs, they allow me to know how to set out my game when it comes to it, where certain objects go, and what would make my game stand out from the rest of the games there are on offer.