This job from the job wall was to design a 'Gamerpic' to represent a player on an xbox account. This means that each player chooses an image that they feel represents themselves and is a way of personalising their profile. There is a very limited number of options of these images, and I think that it would be an interesting brief to take part in. Although it is not live and would offer no prize, I feel that I could do a good illustration, as I know what the target audience wants and what would work well.
I first wanted to look over gamer pics that have already been designed, to grasp which I feel are successful. They are all small images that fit into a small square thumbnail, and therefore need to be able to convey the message or be obvious and easily readable. This may pose as a task to overcome but I think it will be interesting.
Whilst looking at these images, I thought that they reminded me of a piece that Jack Teagle has done based on the faces of famous characters from television and films. This image was made for use as wrapping paper and I think works very well in his style.
I want to create my own theme, as the brief on the job wall does not specify, therefore I feel that creating my own will give me more of a direction to experiment and develop in. I may base it on my research as well as on pieces of work that I know have worked well in the past for me.
Most of the designs I have found are based on living things, mainly the face. This may be that when people are personalising their xbox profiles they are looking to characterise it and come across as the expression in the face suggests. Be it excitable, intimidating, fun or silly. I think this is something I should implement into my designs. Variety of design seems quite important.
Although there appear to be a lot of images online, I still feel there is little variety in choice, I want to create designs that would be appealing and stand out amongst other designs.
The brief also specifies to create six designs for my final stage that will be layer out together for my portfolio. Hopefully a selection of my six best designs will look good together.
I began by choosing my theme. This was a difficult decision as it would determine the outcomes of this project. I decided to choose British woodland creatures, as this narrows down what I can do, giving me more of a chance to develop ideas, as well as I have worked with similar themes before and feel that I am more experienced in this and less research is needed into the animals body structures. I also plan to do these in a cartoony style that I believe would work well and seem appealing to the users.
I began the sketches for potential ideas with a cartoon barn owl, curiously looking into the audience. I think this is a good design and could work very well.
My next design is of a fox. This has potential to be an interesting design as fox's are for some reason fashionable now in media culture. I think due to a youtube song. So ..yes.
This squirrel design I feel is not so successful. I could develop it but I think I only want to create a small number of designs, and will only choose the better quality designs.
This deer image is successful in my opinion, however, I feel that it might get mistaken to be a christmas themed image. I would not want this to happen as it might distract the collection I intend to design away from the original theme. More consideration is needed.
This next design was based on a badger and i feel it has an interesting personality to it. I will further consider it for the final designs.
This next design is of a bat, however i feel it is too complex for the size of the image at the end process and does not fit with the other designs so well. I want all of the styles for my Gamerpic designs to be continual and consistent.
I think that this rabbit design has potential to be another interesting character, as it looks lazy and tired out, as though it has been playing video games all day or something. I think that that appeals to this particular audience well and would be a funny picture to have as a profile image.
This next design was of a mouse, I don't like it so much so will not really consider it for the final design.
The hedgehog design I think works well and suggests an amount of character. I think that the design works well and will look better if I decide to refine it.
This kingfisher idea was not so good as it was difficult to portray that it was a kingfisher with the regional sketches all being grayscale, so I decided to add colour and the correct markings. This however, ruins the stylistic design that I had hoped for with this piece.
This robin idea could work well if refined but it is once again maybe too festive for a causal design, so might be mistaken for a christmas themed image.
This ideas was for a red squirrel. I think it has a lot more character to it than the first squirrel design so will use this as one of my 6 images.
My chosen thumbnail designs for rendering are as follows based on their success in terms of character and how they will look when refined.
I began with the owl. I feel that this design came out very well and is an interesting style. It would look good in place as an actual gamer pic. I am happy with the outcome as it looks crisp and carefully considered I also like the outcome of the simplicity of the background. I think the colours work well together and compliment the image.
This fox image is probably my favourite of the outcomes. It is a fun and simple illustration that appeals to the eye. The colours compliment each other and it is a unique design.
This design was another success and I feel that it is an example of an illustration with character. This is what I aimed to achieve for this project. I think that the combination of block colours and few details make it look like an interesting image.
I think that this design is another good example of using block colours to represent a character is successful. It works well with the colours used in the background again.
I am happy that i decided to redo the squirrel idea as it is another characterised illustration that works well for it's intended purpose. The colours and different shades of orange work well together and bring the piece together.
This design of the badger is another of my favourites. I think that choice of red as a background for a black and white animal works particularly well and brings out the emotion in the character.
I decided to lay out my six designs like thumbnails in an options board where the user would select the image. I think that the black outlines in this layout brings out the black in the eyes and expressions of the characters. I am pleased with the overall outcome and think it was worth taking the time to do an extra mini project.
This is my final set of designs of this project. I wanted to create designs that fit the idea of personalising a profile well. I began by researching similar images and artists, like Jack Teagle's work that I thought looked similar and would be a good influence to look at. I practice with sketches as to what animals and what expressions I wanted for these designs and made a finals list for the ones I wanted to do. I feel that this gets the best quality of work for this project.
The final pieces are fun and are good for the job they are given. I wanted them to be cute and funny and I think this is what I have achieved. An issue I tackled was that some of the designs I sketched and planned out appeared to be christmas themed (the reindeer and robin) so decided that I did not want these designs to be used in my finals. I think that the final rendering of these images looks clean and crisp. I am also proud of the backgrounds as they are simple and effective and add another layer of character to the animals.
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