Online portfolio

http://willroberts04.daportfolio.com/

Business card

Here I tried to adapt the same style as my front cover ideas. I think that it is a really nice design and looks good, but it looks a bit like something a graphic design student would use and not what a concept artist would use.

So I tried to step away from the graphic design look and came up with this. All I did was place one of my drawings on it and instantly it looked a lot better than the previous attempts. I placed a gradient over the left side because the colours of the drawing made text a little hard to read. But I think it gives a nice effect to it.

So here I changed the colour of some of the text to make it stand out a little more and also make it more readable. I also added a little glow.

Once I figured out the text size , colour and made sure it was easy to read, I then Started moving the text around to see if I could find something better.

Education Providers task 6

I think this course would be good for me because the students get to work on real games and clients in the industry. It also teaches you the 3d side of things and the modelling as well as the drawing side of things.

Personal Statment

I started out doing A level art because I knew I was good at it but didn’t know what I could do with it in the future which Is why I decided to do A level to see what opportunities there were. Not long after being on the course I discovered Digital Art on YouTube from people doing these drawings and then speeding them up for people to watch. This looked really cool so I decided to give it a try. Later that year a bought a Wacom tablet for my 16th birthday. Then for the next year or so I spent my days looking up tutorials in photoshop and digital drawing trying to enhance my skills.

It was only on joining plymouth College of Art that I found some direction, I was doing some artist research one day and came across someone called Daarken. I really liked this artists art style and the things he drew. So I looked into this some more and found out it was called 'concept art'. This artist really inspired me to try and take up the challenge of learning conept art. I also emailed him asking for advice on things I should practice on to help me improve, which he emailed back giving me the advice I needed.

Here I am 2 years later with so many hours of practice and tutorials, I even have my own speedpaintings of my drawings on YouTube which are growing more and more popular every day. I have upgraded to a better tablet and naturally progressed towards concept art.

through word of mouth I got contacted and commitioned by someone to draw his mother playing a guitar with Bob Dylan. The client sent me some images which I could use. So I manipulated an image of his mother and Bob Dylan both jamming together so I could use that as a source image which I could copy from. 

I was also commissioned to create a humerous image of a cat riding a motorcross bike for a member of the British motocross mechanics team. I have also just completed the design of a logo for a local jewlary business which is now appearing in local shops.

So as you can see I have experience working with clients and coming up with concepts.

I have chosen to study game design because this will enhance my drawing capabilities, stretch my imagination and teach me other programs which may be useful to me in the future, for example ZBrush, 3DS Max.

Im going to use these next couple of years whilst studying my degree to gain more experience and more knowlege to put together a good portfolio. When I have completed my course I plan to do an internship with a game company.

In ten years time I see myself working for a games company, ideally a company like Blizzard, EA, or ubi-soft because these companys art style in there games really inspire me in my art work and would love to be able to work for them and share some of my ideas.


More Updated Version


I started out doing A level art because I knew I was good at it but didn’t know what I could do with it in the future which Is why I decided to do A level to see what opportunities there were. Not long after being on the course I discovered Digital Art on YouTube from people doing digital drawings and then speeding them up for people to watch, so I decided to give it a try because it gave me great inspiration, also help me improve my skills and give me better knowledge to succeed in future events. Later that year I bought a Wacom tablet for my 16th birthday. Then for the next year or so I spent my days looking up tutorials in Photoshop and digital drawing trying to enhance my skills.

It was only upon joining Plymouth College of Art that I found some direction; I was doing some artist research one day and came across someone called Daarken. I really liked this artist’s art style and the things he drew. I really liked the idea of creating concepts for characters and landscapes, using your own ideas from your head to create believable worlds.  I discovered that this style of art was referred to as 'concept art'. This artist really inspired me to try and take up the challenge of learning concept art. I also emailed him asking for advice on things I should practice on to help me improve, which he emailed back giving me the advice I needed. He told me to build up my visual library, research anatomy and to draw everyday while watching tutorials. I felt really pleased that this artist actually took the time to reply to my email.

My hobbies consist of drawing, photography, body boarding, watching films and playing games. I have been drawing all my life for as long as I can remember; when I was little I used to carry around a drawing pad where ever I went. Films and games are also a really big inspiration for me which I try to adapt into my art work by using some ideas and art styles used in them. Films like Prometheus and Avatar are some of my personal favourites because they are both set on fantasy worlds so everything there had to be created by a concept artist.

Here I am 2 years later and after many hours of practice and tutorials; I even have my own speed paintings and drawings on YouTube which are growing more and more popular every day. I have upgraded to a better tablet and naturally progressed towards concept art.
Through word of mouth I got contacted and commissioned by someone to draw his mother playing a guitar with Bob Dylan. I was overwhelmed when I first got contacted, someone actually saw my work and wanted me to do something for them I felt really excited and started work on it straight away. I received some photos / images of his mother which I then manipulated alongside Bob Dylan in order to create a source image that I could use as a reference.

I felt my first commission went really well I put a lot of hours into it. I referred back to the client with my ideas and sketches to get his opinions on things to make sure it was what he wanted.

  I was also commissioned to create a comical image of a cat riding a motocross bike for a member of the British motocross mechanics team. I have also just completed the design of a logo for a local jewellery business which is now appearing in local shops.  I think these commissions were a really great experience for me because it gives me a taste for what things will be like in the real world.

I have chosen to study game design because this will enhance my drawing capabilities, stretch my imagination and teach me other programs which may be useful to me in the future, for example ZBrush, 3DS Max. I feel it’s quite important to learn these 3D programs because some companies require employee's to it. Also I could take things from 3D into consideration when drawing, for example how many polygons things may contain.

I’m going to use these next couple of years whilst studying my degree to gain more experience and more knowledge to put together a good portfolio. When I have completed my course I plan to go to Feng Zhu's school in Singapore to further push myself and be taught how to draw concept art for video games by an actual instructor in the industry.

In ten years’ time I see myself working for a games company, ideally a company like Blizzard, EA, or ubi-soft because these companies have a unique art style in there games which really inspire me in my art work and I would love to be able to work for them and share some of my ideas and see what new things I can bring to their companies.

CV

Personal Statement 







Key Skills 



Technical Skills
Good knowledge and understanding of programs, such as:

• Adobe Photoshop
• Flash
• 3DS Max
• Adobe In Design
• Adobe After Effects

Personal Skills

• Able to paint landscape and character concept art in photoshop.
• Ability to create concepts from scratch.
• Very strong traditional illustration skills in a variety of media as well as excellent drawing skills. 

Education
Launceston College
GCSE

• English C
• Science C
• Art A*
• ICT B
• History C

A Level

• Art B
• Photography A
• ICT C 

•  

Employment

• The Rising Sun Inn
• 3 Commisioned paintings 

Personal Interests

• Painting in Photoshop
• Creating landscape and character concepts in Photoshop
• Creating image manipulations and matte paintings
• Playing games and watching movies that inspire me.
• Bodyboarding
• Photography

References

Task 5

Blizzard Entertainment is an American video game developing company. Founded in February 1991 but by the name of Silicon + Synapse. It wasn't until 1994 the company became blizzard. The company originally concentrated mainly on the creation of game ports for other studios before beginning development of their own software in 1993 with games like The Lost Vikings. Shortly after the company became blizzard is released its breakthrough hit 'Warcraft: orcs + humans' which would later be known as 'World of Warcraft'. It later released other successful games such as the 'Diablo' series and 'Starcraft'.




Electronic Arts (EA) is an american games developing company. Founded on may 28th, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers responsible for its games. Electronic arts is the worlds third largest  gaming company by revenue after Nintendo and Blizzard. Originally, EA was a home computing game publisher. By the early 2000's EA had become one of the worlds largest 3rd party publishers.

task

Portfolio Front Cover/Experimentation

http://abduzeedo.com/reader-tutorial-typography-wallpaper-photoshop

First Initial idea for front cover.

Here is some experimentation using the same techniques. I also went online to try and find some new fonts.

Here is the final thing. I decided to make the font underneath the logo a lot smaller because I thought it made the logo hard to read or recognise what its saying. I also experimented with several fonts, I also downloaded some from the internet. But in the end I used this one, I just thought it looked a little different while keeping a sleek and modern style to it. I also added 'Interactive media' below it just because I thought it looked a little better.

Indesign Tutorials

Animations

Task 4

This is a job I would be very interested in doing. A concept artist is the thing I would like to get into he most, its also the same art style I use to draw in my free time. The reason I like this one is because it gives a pretty good description of the things I would need to do in this kind of job, and the skills I would need to do it. Which is good at the moment because it can give me things to practice and work on for when I want to apply for one of these jobs.

I think this is a job which would really suite the kind of thing I want to do. Even though its only six months , I still think this would be a good job to do because your going to get contacts and experience out of it.
The qualifications needed for the job are ok, the only problem I have with it is I have never used illustrator before. But for such a high up job, I thought there would be a lot more requirements to get in.













This is also another job I would be very interested in. Its a concept artist for crytek. Ive been a pretty big fan since they released the first crysis game for pc back in 2007 and also it's EA which is one of my favourite games companies. Although this is for a senior concept artist, which I probably wouldnt be able to do for a few years yet, it still says what I would need to apply for this and thats what I'm most interested in at the moment. Also the requirements are probably similar for a just a concept artist anyway.

Action Plan

Last year I think I did ok. I didn't do rubbish, or amazing, it was average really. One thing though you can really notice is that I did a lot better in the practical things than the written things. Also it was little things that was decreasing my grades. Like where I've got information from another website, I haven't added the URL to the website. It was just little things like that, that I would forget to add. I think also when typing things up in the blog, I find it extremely boring and get distracted easily. Sometimes I prefer to write things up. I think this is something I should really try to work on in the second year because written work is equally as important, if not better than the practical work. I think If I improved on this it would bump my grade up a lot more.

My passion is drawing in Photoshop whether it be portraits or landscapes its something that really interests me and is something I'm really quite good at. But the thing I really would like to get into is concept art for games. I've only found out about this kind of thing about a year ago and since I've been trying to draw things from my head, mostly a lot of landscapes. But I find drawing from my mind really difficult. Sometimes I'll have a really good idea, I'll then open a new canvas to try and do it and end up just staring at thinking how do I do this? Only recently I've been able to get a little better at the concept side and generating ideas, things actually look right when I draw them. So what I think I should try and do is, keep drawing quite a lot and keep practising, also watching plenty of tutorials. But keep my main aim on improving my written work, while still doing the odd Photoshop piece here and there. Something that may help me when watching tutorials, is to write down while I'm watching, bullet points of some the techniques the artist is using and how he apply them. Also to watch the tutorial again the next day maybe or a few days later so I can take as much in from it as possible.

I would like to work a little bit in Zbrush and try to develop some of my drawings in it. But not make it my main focus, I want to be good at photoshop and concept art. But I think to be good at zbrush you need a good inderstanding of all 3d programs such as 3ds max, maya etc.

Task 1

Blizzard Entertainment is an American video game developing company. Founded in February 1991 but by the name of Silicon + Synapse. It wasn't until 1994 the company became blizzard. The company originally concentrated mainly on the creation of game ports for other studios before beginning development of their own software in 1993 with games like The Lost Vikings. Shortly after the company became blizzard is released its breakthrough hit 'Warcraft: orcs + humans' which would later be known as 'World of Warcraft'. It later released other successful games such as the 'Diablo' series and 'Starcraft'.

Environment Artist

DIABLO III

Office: Irvine, California, United States

Requirements

• Thinks of themselves as a game developer first, and an artist second.
• Able to take ownership and be a key contributor as part of a large or small group.
• Self motivated, humble, excellent communication skills, and a legendary team-player attitude.
• Understanding of Diablo 3's visual style and a passion to push it to the next level.
• Superior eye for light, shade, colour, and detail in creating hand-painted texture maps.
• An exceptional understanding of form, shape, structure , and silhouette in regards to modeling.
• Skill in one or more of the related creation tasks: illustration or concept drawing.
• A minimum of 2 years experience in game development modeling and texturing enviroments using maya and photoshop (or equivalent 3D and 2D programs) 

Pluses

• Have worked on AAA PC or console titles, as an enviroment artist.
• Strong foundation in the traditional arts
• General knowledge of animation, rigging, effects, and lighting. 

Concept Artist

Required Skills:

• Be able to show examples of quality , high resolution concept artwork in digital format.
• Be able to create accurate, detailed , and complelling images based on written descriptions.
• Be able to create realistic and accurate images of human beings.
• Be able to draw characters, objects, vehicles, and environment pieces in a variety of settings , fantasy, sci-fi, historical  etc.
• Be proficient with adobe photoshop.

Desired skills

• A passion for games
• Professional or published work
• Proficiency in 3D studio max modeling, texturing , Zbrush, or unreal technology
• Have shipped two titles into the industry
• Have lead experience in your discipline in the industry.

I think the requirements for this job isnt as high as others I've found. But I think the others are probably a little too high. Concept art is something I really want to get into and as a job in the future. Also environment art, but making it in 3d like maya or Zbrush, but drawing environments for games in photoshop. 

Concept Artist

Bethesda Game Studios is seeking an experienced concept artist that has concept experience with creating a diverse visual range of characters, environments, architecture, and related game assets. A solid grasp of form, structure, color, and light for 2D art assets is essential.

Responsibilities:

• Create the look of the game by working with the Art Director to establish a consistent visual direction for mood, environments, characters, weapons, etc. by creating inspiring concept art that focuses on dynamic visual elements that maintain accurate scale, established architectural standards and character/creature anatomy that will be used to create in game content.
• Collaborate with the Art Director to implement the vision for the game
• Produce work in an efficient and timely manner, on schedule
• Work closely with colleagues to foster a highly communicative, coordinated team effort
• Ensure quality of related assets by maintaining responsibility over your work throughout the project's development

Requirements:

• Excellent traditional artistic skills with a strong grasp of composition, anatomy, color theory, perspective, lighting, environment, architectural, creature/character, costume and graphic design.
• Proficiency in life drawing (drawing from life and reference) as well as a strong imagination and a willingness to push the envelope, to innovate within the parameters of the game's world.
• Strong communication, excellent visual storytelling and written skills.
• Strong interpersonal skills-able to interact with team members of different disciplines.
• Good positive attitude and outlook, self-motivated, and a great team-player.

Website link: http://jobs.zenimax.com/requisitions/view/122