Key Advice from the Creative Assembley

Not a lot was on offer career-wise at the eurogamer expo however I managed to get a sit down and portfolio discussion with creative assembley's lead artist Kevin Mc Dowell for some invaluable critique and advice. This face to face chat was something rare from a job-seeking games graduate perspective so I thought I would share it with the rest of you budding artists and it was a bit of a wake up, shake up call for me.

The creative assembly team were responsible for one of my favourite games series the 'Total War' franchise, and are currently hiring people to work on a new alien IP, so i was excited to get chatting with their lead artist and also pretty nervous.

He had looked through my portfolio as I had looked on anxiously, awaiting some sort of response.

However it was not the response I had wanted but more so one I needed to hear, Overall he did not like it.

There was too much contrast, over saturated, the quality of work was mixed and the presentation was messy.

The content was too weird he explained, too much emphasis on lovecraft type creatures and the attempt at graphic design was poor.

With the mining over now came the gems of invaluable advice.

He told me to use more reference, he could tell from some pieces that were excellent that reference was used and to keep doing that, avoid having too much going on and with graphics keep it simple.

With some pieces the advice was developed more...

This bit was described as 'f**ckn awesome' noted use of reference 'this is your goal, do this!'

These parts were pretty good, not too bad could use more reference material

These parts are not of high quality and bring the piece down as a whole, no visible evidence of reference

Bad Graphics, Always used Vector based software although i get what you were going for

Overall this experienced advice was very welcome it was a little bit hard to hear but I had to admit it was spot on, I had actual thought this about my work and yet didn't address these issues. I also took note that he had seen the effort and the ability in my work but that I was just working in the wrong areas.

So what now, well i kept those notes, scrutinised my portfolio later that evening and decided it was time to go back to the drawing board. Right now I am going over websites, artist videos, magazine tutorials and seeing just what kind of portfolio I really need and what kind of hard work needs to be done. I had questioned my goals and questioned the logic of my pursuit and have come out of that more organised and determined. I have also developed a great desire for game industry advice and guidance towards my beginnings in it and I would advice any students/graduates to pursue and use such information well.

My portfolio remains somewhat unchanged but since this wake up call too weeks ago, a better and improved portfolio is currently underway. Developments and the finished reel will be sent here first so watch this space.

I will also progress my findings toward industry advice an potential information interviews in the future to aid any other graduates and students, competition will only lift our work to new heights.

Eurogamer Expo Expedition

Last month i attended the Eurogamer Expo in Earls Court, London in an effort to improve my network and prospects of getting a career in the games industry....and for fun! My favorite games showcased were Skyrim, Uncharted 3, Star Wars The Old Republic and Modern Warfare 3. There were loads more i checked out and I enjoyed areas such as the retro-zone back on the snes and the indie zone where I spoke to indie developers about how they got started. The careers fair was not as promising as I had hoped, offering more post graduate options from universities and Train to Game. However I did manage to speak to representatives from sega, sumo digital and creative assembly yet the event was more publisher heavy with an emphasis on the games, which kept me too much in awe. Heres a preview of what I saw.

Old School Stories

After browsing through a lot of my old school exercise books I found a lot of  in depth sci-fi/fantasy story notes and concept sketches. Some of these are nearly ten years old, a little bit out dated and that not that orginal but the ideas and the enjoyment of creating worlds and characters was still fresh and vivid in mind. I have decided to pick out a few of these old school stories and design and see what I can do with them now, mostly for my own nostalga and fun but also to show myself how far I've come since then.

Vampire Kingdom

Set in a limbo world between earth and hell, this is one of the faction concepts a vampiric city state

Mutant Nasty

Developed from a sketches of mutants on a game story where the future military attempt to retake lost cities after a great thermo-nuclear war.

Uknid Soldier

Drone Soldier to the Imperial Insectoid Generals and their Homeworld Queen

Scout Tank

Earth ground invasion and enforcement tank, speedy and devestating,



Costume Concepts

This week Ive decided to look at experimetning with clothes/costume design. It will be mainly a couple of pics of sketches developed into different sets of value, colour, texture and shape etc. So far its going to based mainly within a post modern/sci fi background but further themes may be experimented with but for now i will let the pics do the talking.

Colossal Competition

Ok, so just went on deviant art this morning to see a competiton to design a collossus for thr game 'Rift', it had to based on one of six elements, to be different i chose 'life', fairly vague and it sounded like a challenge. Even more of a challenge was that the closing date was midnight that day. So I did some quick research, banged out a few small drawings (mainly for reference and developing ideas)and started painting in photoshop.
This was the end result, a little rushed towards the end but made the deadline, not too sure if this will be a contender but fun to do and good practice all round.

Why yes, it is a giant baby, because the elemental theme was life that kinda stuck in mind and I actually think that the infant bodyshape and  a giant baby walking around in game would be scary. It was describe that it was born from the ground, so the infant thing is kind of appropriate and if it would be cool if it actually matured and grew bigger as players progressed through the game.

Just for Fun

I have a few cartoon sketches i wanted to paint up in photoshop just for fun, they are inspired from the old comics and farside gallery stuff i used to read and its good to take the seriousness out the work for a bit.

 

Get Some Perspective!

I not entirely happy with some elements of my work (which is good) for me its a little too flat, this is understandable as i mainly work from line drawings often detailing to the extent where its hard to to paint over them. The drawings are ok with some nice detail but cant be too precious with the lines to define form, for this i need to concentrate on the value with in the piece and can suggest detail with lighting and textures. To escape the flat look going to focus on perspective and creating space using values, going back to basics basically, fundamentals which got forgotten in the mad rush to draw monsters. Also instead of drawing and scanning, i will draw from photoshop something which i would struggle with but should be fine if i stick to silouettes and rough painting. One more thing, I feel like my portfolio needs a injection of these basic fundamentals so i hope to do some paintings pretty quick, Il commit to 5 pieces for next week and if iv time maybe more, all good practice. Watch this Space...

First perspective Drawing, Tank bay Concept.

Second Perspective Drawing: Griffon Gunship

Ok, so these first two pics were created from perspective lines i created all in photoshop and no hand drawn lines, all on wacom which is good so I dont depend on the line drawing. The flatness is gone but still needs practice, by painting in black and white i establish the value before focusing on colour and textures. However even though I havent got alot of time to paint at the moment (thanks work) I still feel these pieces took too long, for now the focus will still be on perspective but speed is always good industry practice... more on the way.