Project ideas:
It’s now time to use my general research to create three potential ideas for my FMP, it is a little scary since this is my last college project here and it is the FMP that will determine what university I can go to. I need to consider my current skill level and everything I have learnt about my specialism (Digital art).
Project idea 1: Kingdoms of the Sun and Moon:
Project specialism:
2D Digital art (Character and environment design)
What will I be creating?:
The Kingdoms of the Sun and Moon are two opposite kingdoms with two opposite rulers and two opposite ways of living. The are completely different and they all believe the opposing kingdom is chaos while they are order.
The Sun is a culture of fun, festivals, parties with a ruler who just wants to have fun (and is often irresponsible with taxes)… The Kingdom of the Moon however is a calming, reserved Kingdom that respects it’s ruler, Nature, Gods and have relaxing tea parties with flowers and fairy lights.
As you can see, the two are very different, the project will include two character designs (The rulers of the Sun and Moon) along with two environments (One of the Sun and one of the Moon).
The sun elements will feature warm, exciting colours like red, oranges, yellows and pinks with inviting architecture and festive decorations and patterns to show the warmth and happiness of the kingdom. Whereas the Moon elements will be cool, calming. Colours include blues, greys, purples, greens and will have elegant architecture, railing with be curvy and will have unique details and such.
What can I include:
The project will include two characters and two environments that show the Sun and Moon Kingdoms in their two different lights. The environments will be the streets of the kingdom and the character designs will be the two rulers. Like I said the different pieces will demonstrate the structure and contrast of the two kingdoms.
What style:
I would like a simple and elegant style for the project for both the environment and characters, block colours with layered brushstrokes, shading and gradient effects. The characters would use clean shape and colour language in the designs to make them stand out against one another. The mood board below includes examples of the style I would like to go for.
What colours:
For the sun kingdom I would like to use warm colours with a small amount of cool colours in the scene and character design as well to break up the warmth (Maybe cool coloured shadows and shading).
The moon kingdom will have cool colours like blues, purples and greens and some warm colours to break it up, like with the Sun kingdom but the opposite to create the contrast.
Idea 2: Dragon’s flower:
Project specialism:
2D Digital art (Creature and environment design)
What will I be creating?:
“Dragon’s Flower” will be about a magical and peaceful forest filled with nature inspired creatures, the spirit of the forest is a dragon made from leaves, flowers and other natural elements. While dragons typically represent chaos I thought it would be nice if it could embody peace and order. The spirit of the forest is maintaining the peace and protecting the forest from evil tree people that want to destroy they forest and put themselves in as trees.
What can I include?:
The project will include one environment piece showing the forest in it’s peaceful glory, two main creature designs (Dragon, spirit of the forest), tree people (different variants on sheet) and small forest creatures of real life animals with nature designs, so body parts will be formed from leaves, flowers, grass and twigs.
What style:
I would like a painted style on both my creatures and my environment, normally I give my environment a painted look and give the creatures or characters a clean look with inking and colouring, but I would love to try a painted look on my creatures.
This is the specific style I would like to go for, I would however really like to add more detail than I usually would into the environment. I want the environment to have a soft and deep look and feel so I will need to take extra care with how I build the scene up.
What colours:
Dragon’s flower will use a huge amount of greens as it is a forest, I would love for the forest to have a warm hue to it to make it inviting and calming. I will be using some other colours in the designs like pinks, blues and reds. Whatever can naturally fit into the scene from a nature point of view will be used.
Idea 3: Rehab for the demonic:
Project specialism: (Character and environment design)
What will I be creating?:
“Rehab for the demonic” will be about monsters, evil and spooky characters going to a rehabilitation program to try and sort out their own issues, addictions and to become somewhat better creatures. Dracula has an addiction to garlic, he smokes it all day everyday and is sadly one of the only things that can kill him (And he is addicted). It is chaotic in the rehab and it has been established to create order among demons and monsters.
What will it include:
The project will include one interior environment design and three demon character designs. The interior will be of the inside of the gothic rehab for the demons and the characters will be Dracula and two fellow demons.
What style?:
The style I would like to go with is a semi realistic style, this style is known as an Instagram style as loads of artists use this style. I feel like traditional monsters would look really nice in a style like this and a lot can be played around with here with the recognizable characteristics of each monster.
What colours:
For this project idea I was thinking about using muted colours like greys, greens, purples and blues; Along with this I was thinking of having red as a stand out colour to create a contrast in my use of colour.
An evaluation of my three ideas:
Now that I have created three potential ideas from the research I did for Order and Chaos, it is now time for me to evaluate my ideas so that I can narrow down which one would be best for me.
Idea 1: Kingdoms of the Sun and Moon:
What do I like?:
I really like how simple the idea is and the potential the two kingdoms have design and colour wise have. I feel like the contrast would be really interesting with the characters and different aesthetics in each piece of work. Presentation wise at the exhibition it would be very striking!
What don’t I like:
This may sound strange but to me this idea just seems boring in a way, I’ve done human character designs loads, I draw Princesses and Queens all the time in my free time so I wouldn’t be doing anything new and challenging in the project. While simplicity is nice I’m not sure if I would want something so basic for my FMP project.
Idea 2: Dragon’s Flower:
What do I like?:
I love the overall idea of doing creature and environment design for my FMP, the idea of it being nature themed is really exciting for me and I feel like creature design would be a great opportunity to use shape language to create dynamic designs. As well as this using a painted rendering style in a college project would be really fun! (I’ve done rendered styles on characters before which turned out well).
What don’t I like:
There isn’t anything I would say I don’t like but I am worried about creature design in the sense that I won’t pull it off well enough for the FMP. I just need to not worry about it since I have adapted to different styles and themes well in the past so I’m sure I can pull it off.
Idea 3: Rehab for the demonic:
What do I like:
I really like the idea of reinventing classic monsters and demons and putting them into what is a modern situation and playing with the tropes associated with the certain characters in their designs. I think it would be a very interesting concept to explore.
What don’t I like:
For an FMP project I don’t like how out there it is, the only way I can describe it is outrageous and not in a good way FMP wise. As well as this I feel like I would become very bored with the muted colour palette, just red as a stand out colour seems boring to along with the muted colours.
What project do I like the most:
In the end I think I like idea 2, “Dragon’s flower” the most because it involves nature (something I’m familiar with) it also involves something new (creature design), and on top of this I am used to the artstyle in a way and the colours will be really interesting to work with.
Idea 1 (Kingdoms of the sun and moon) was nice but it seemed a little boring due to what the project involved with the characters and environments. It doesn’t offer me anything new personally and because of that I just feel that it is too safe and boring of an idea.
Idea 3 (Rehab for the demonic) didn’t seem appropriate for an exhibition that is being attended by people in industry and families, to just seems too ridiculous of an idea for exhibition, I also feel like the colour palette would be very boring to work with. (Grey, muted greens, blue and purples, red as the only stand out colour).
Final idea:
Dragon’s flower:
In the end I have chosen to do idea 2, which is dragon’s flower. The idea will focus around creature design as well as environment design, they idea will include 4-6 boards, one for the environment and 3-5 on the different creatures (The dragon, creatures of the forest and the tree people). The tree people will have different variants on their sheet, the small creatures like the rabbits, hedgehogs and foxes will all be displayed on their sheet (Due to how many there are they won’t have turn around). The creatures will be made from leaves, twigs and flowers.
A good way I can explain the creatures made of leaves, twigs and flowers is to look at the animal design from Rare’s Viva Pinata (2006), they are modeled as pinatas and are made from tissue materials, I will be layering up leaves and flowers like this.
Look, style and colour scheme:
Both the creatures and environments will be done in a painted style, the creatures will be a tiny bit more refined paint wise so that they are distinguishable against the environment. As well as this I would like to add more depth into the environment to make it deeper and richer. The painted style will take influence from my own work but will just have extra depth.
For my general colour scheme (Specific colour scheme needs to be decided in ideas generation) I will be using natural colours like greens, yellows, oranges, browns, blues and pinks. I want to create depth through tonal values and keep the colours soft and calming on the characters and environments.
Narrative for order and chaos:
The story frame is a basic one but it represents order and chaos in the themes.
The spirit of the forest (The dragon) represents peace (order), the dragon looks after and protects the forest and all of the creatures who live in the forest from chaos.
The tree creatures represent chaos, they don’t belong to the forest itself and want to make the forest their own, to do this they have to pull out the trees that are already there and destroy a huge amount of the plant life, the spirit of the forest is the one that has to protect everything.
Roxanne's Development Blog (Second year) 