Honours Project - The Player of Games

About the project

Idea Generation

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Various styles were generated for Gurgeh based on a Moodboard of images that determined the primary look for ‘The Culture’. This consisted of images showing tight fit clothing, with mostly angular designs. Hopefully, this look should meld well with their high tech culture; and should also contrast with the Azadians, who are described as lagging behind in terms of their technological capabilities.

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Several head sketches were drawn out based on the minimal description of the character. He is described as a middle aged looking bearded man with a fairly long and curled head of hair. Since ‘The Culture’ consists of humans with a fairly lengthy life span, this was difficult to gauge. The bottom left design proved to be a popular vote in the end, based on feedback from several people.

Final Concept

A base sketch was required to get a decent anatomically correct representation of the character. 3/4 views were drawn out to show the sides as much as the front and back. This will be done for each of the main characters at least. Side characters will mostly be roughed out and more open to interpretation.

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Edit: Tweaked some things based on feedback. Here’s the old version for comparison. Mainly the arm and lower body had a few problems.

Project Description

This Honours Project will focus on creating an art book based on the novel ‘The Player of Games’, by Iain M. Banks. The art book should hopefully showcase my skills as a 2D artist and general concept artist, utilizing industry standard tools such as Photoshop in order to stick to a professional workflow and a strict schedule.

Upon collecting various art books, I have come to appreciate the design process and work flow for video games. These art books present the idea generation process itself, which is often shown through thumbnails or silhouette creation, as well as showing final designs. Following this workflow on a strict schedule will not only help me to understand it better, but also allow my skills to improve as I will be taking into account the fundamentals of drawing as this project is carried out. Following this schedule will allow me to generate a great amount of content that spans the most important parts of the novel. Presenting these concepts in the form of an art book should hopefully show my capabilities in using the most common professional work flow.

Intended Outcomes

In the past, I have often created designs in isolation of one another. Having them depicted in dynamic scenes with an obvious focal point will allow me to truly test my understanding of the fundamentals, which consist of; Color, Light, Composition, Anatomy, Perspective, and Depth.

In the end, the designs alone should depict the most important elements of the character, weapon, vehicle or environment, based on Banks’ descriptions from the novel. The five scenes I have chosen should also present the correct characters as they are described in the novel and will present the challenge of including characters from very different worlds, who have very different styles.

Project Deliverables

-       13+ character concept sheets, each with an accompanying idea generation sheet. 8 of these characters will have full body, front and back views to better communicate the final chosen designs.

-       3+ weapon concept sheets, each with an accompanying idea generation sheet

-       3+ vehicle concept sheets, each with accompanying idea generation sheet.

-       4+ environment concept sheets, each with accompanying idea generation sheet.

-       5+ Scenes, each containing previously created final designs. Animated image of the panoramic scene will be handed in digitally showing ‘Chark Orbital’ in its spinning cycle.

-       All appropriately annotated with an explanation of the design choices made and the design process itself. Excerpts from the book will also be included to support the reason behind certain design decisions.

The Book (The Player of Games - by Iain M. Banks)

The Culture - a human / machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh. Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board, computer and strategy.