In this evaluation I will be showing you how the research I found and the designs I made along the way helped me to create my final product. I will also take you through the various steps I took in which helped me decide to change my preferred art style for the project and also what made me decide to create a bank.
In the first few weeks of the project I was asked to perform some research and create an audience profile board and choose who my target audience would be, I chose 7-17 year olds, this was a wide range and there would be a bit of a gap with what sort of games they would like but I knew that I would be able to make it work. My diorama was originally going to be a Pixel Art designs but after constant issues I decided to switch to concept art as this seemed more do-able and it would also still be applicable to my target audience. I feel that my design did meet the needs of my target audience as I only changed the art style I was using, I kept all the assets the same and was able to still produce artwork which I feel they would enjory looking at. When I was starting to come up with my idea I had to think mainly about my target audience and what they would like to see in a game, this meant I had to think about what they preferred, for example the younger side of my target audience preferred brighter colours while the older side of it would prefer slightly darker colours. I managed to find a way to combine these as I used a multitude of bright and darker colours which I feel helped to make the design more targeted towards my audience.
In these images we can see some of the research that I did which was mainly finding a good pciture of a 2D diorama and also a good texture design which I could use as a reference during my designing process. I feel that my design if it was maybe angled differently could look better and quite possibly look more like the diorama picture that I have included below and that is because I made my final product flat and not really set at an angle. Looking back on my final product if I was to do it again I would try and angle it a bit more and perform more diorama research so I could get it looking even better.
Throughout this project I was constantly improving upon my time management skill which was probably by far the most important skill that I had to utilise and I also improved my 2D art skill as well. Since I was creating rough sketches and designs I feel that I was able to improve on this skill significantly which will help me later on in future projects as I may continue as a concept artist. I originally was going to be a Pixel Artist as I liked Pixel Art and thoroughly enjoyed creating artwork in that style but there were a lot of issues so I decided to switch and I am glad I did as I was able to learn that even though my preferred art style wasn’t going to necesarrily workout, I was able to switch to an art style I had never done before and picked it up fairly quickly.
During the creation process of my project I was constantly questioning myself whether or not the artwork was good enough or if I was creating too much or not enough, I decided to stop doing that as I felt it was holding me up and just considerably slowing down the progress of my project, however after I made some of my designs I was asking my peers for their ideas and what I could do to make my work better. Furthermore I would say that by evaluating my work as I did it was good as it alloowed me to say what I thought of the design and what I could do to change it if I was to do it again.
I feel that one of the most disappointing things that didn’t work well for this project was by far the Pixel Art, I really wanted to do this art as it was really enjoyable and it was also my preferred art style. I realised that it would not be possible to create this art with a high enough standard as I was constantly having problems, fortunately I was able to switch to Concept Art just before the main planning and production part of the project which was task 3, this allowed me to quickly work through my old work and change what needed to be changed so it would be correct. I was having a lot of problems with mainly creating the Pixel Artwork on an Isometric grid, this was what ultimately held me back from creating a Pixel Art design, I’m glad it did though as I was able to experiment and do Concept Art which I hadn’t really thought of beforehand and I can say that it was a fun experience and I may continue to use Concept Art going forwards. I feel that if I wanted to improve my work I could create a few more rough designs of each piece that I was going to create, this would be possible by getting better at time management and also making sure I can perform more work at home and during lessons.
The main thing that I learned during this project was that it’s not always best to go with the art style that you prefer because it may be harder to ultimately create what you want to, this was because I found that out the hard way after trying my hand at creating Pixel Art in an Isometric grid which held me up and forced me to change to a different art style. I would say that this did teach me that it’s never too late to change and that you can always improve with a little bit of time, I wasn’t amazing at Concept Art at the beginning when I first switched, I’m not amazing now either but I feel that I have gotten a lot better at it and I will most likely continue to use this for future projects unless I feel that Pixel Art will be the better option. This is actually good as it has enabled me to practice and get better at a different art style and I now have two which I am capable of creating art in, this will be even better for other projects as a lot of them require me to sketch out work and then create it in Pixel Art however now if I feel that it won’t look good in Pixel Art I can simply choose to not use that art style and just go with Concept Art.
To conclude I would like to say that this project has been very fun and also challenging at the same time, this is mainly because I had to switch my art styles halfway through the project and I also wasn’t really good at my time management skill, however after a lot of hard work and determination I pushed past these obstacles and was able to complete my work which I feel turned out and good and also hand it in on time.
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