Website

Having had a chat with Kyle he suggested One.com to me as a quick and easy to use website creator site which allows me to create a layout that suits my needs, that works on all devices, have my own URL without any website creator clutter (i.e. dave-barry.co.uk and not dave-barry/one.com) and plenty of space to add additional content and images in the future.

I was considering using Wix however Kyle pointed out that it is not always accessible across all browsers or PCs making it potentially harmful if someone cannot open my website, and while Wix is free for a base but the better features must be bought. So I might as well buy something more substantial and accessible from the get go.

I did have to pay for this but I got the domain for free for the year. I have also decided to go against the advice of some of my piers and ad a logo of sorts to unify my work and maybe use as a watermark on images as I am very conscious of copyright having had issue with it in the past. some consider having a logo to be somewhat arrogant however I disagree, as it is a visually simple way to advertise my work across multiple sites without the use of text, my logo also works on any scale. If I did however make my website more about me and not my work then I would indeed agree with my piers concern, but it isn't thus I am not at all worried.

For my logo I intend to use an image I created back in college which was part of a graphic design wine label unit, this quickly became a staple for me in college. I can also use this as my Favicon to differentiate my website from others even if they use the One.com to make their wesites. This is another issue I had with Wix as you are forced to use their favicon on top of have their logos apear on your site breaking the desired aesthetic. I plan on using a black background, with red titles, and white text. Red can also be used to highlight selected pages and categories whilst keeping a unifying aesthetic of the 3 colours.

Australia to Middle Earth

This week we had to present our findings on a given country/province/continent with regards to the games Industry and related media. My team was given Australia and New Zealand which was fortunate as is a place I would very much like to work if given the opportunity.

2K is a company I have always had an interest in and looking into 2K Australia I may look further into weather jobs are going there in the near future. It is also apparent that there are very few AAA games companies in Oz compared to the rest of the world, as most are smaller studios under a larger company or even branches like 2K.

Weta whilst being a great inspiration within the SFX and leading the way in the MoCap front are way too out of my field to even consider, as they are also far more animation geared than I am capable.

Ninja Kiwi are at to this day the leading Company for Flash Games, and whilst most if not all of their 60 games are 2D it does make me realise that there are other niche games industries aside from AAA I could enter and still be successful. I may go back and look at some of my Game-Dev ideas and see if any could apply to Browser/Flash Industry

Animal Logic was another VFX and animation company that outsources to other companies on large projects, whilst cool and interesting I will not be looking much further into this company as they are very geared to animation, rigging and VFX skill sets in employees and so I wouldn't suit their needs.

The smaller Indie companies as a whole didn't show much promise for me with he exception of Kixeye who are very successful having branched out from Facebook games to small 3D indie games with great success. I may apply to them in the future as they continue to improve upon their games like War thunder for Facebook with regular large updates and fan service.

Censorship is something I rarely think about having lived in the EU all my life and having been able to play a majority of games when appropriate, so finding that some countries are truly as strict as Australia and New Zealand was a surprise. whilst some of the games listed are censored rightly others are odd to me especially if they are age appropriate. I obviously need to consider censorship in greater detail with regards to my future planned games. Further research needed.

Mock Interviews.

This week for PPD we did small mock interviews to see how we deal under pressure. We were shown a single job for grabs at Mind Candy (Moshi Monsters) from here we got into groups of three an interviewee, the interviewer and a note taker to observe how we handled the interview.

Luckily I have had interviews in the past for job roles, granted not in this industry but the general approach is the same. I looked at the key words in the job roles advertisement and geared my answers towards those. Of all the questions I was faced with two stood out to me as good answers demonstrating my skills and traits.

When asked about my achievements outside of academia I pointed out my martial arts career where I have been training for over thirteen years and taught for around five or six of those. While my interviewer initially didn't see how this could possibly be connected, so I went into more detail, explaining that Shukokai is a discipline that requires long hours of practice, repetition and self criticism in order to improve, that the fact I have been doing it for such a long period of time and become highly decorated in it demonstrates my determination and that the fact I have reached the point where I am able to teach others across a range of ages showing I can relay information and lead teams of people to successfully reach their own goals.

I was also faced with answering the question of why I wanted to work there (for the sake of the exercise) which is where I geared my answer towards the key words of the add. I then went on to talk about how I am not a normal person and due to my more weird and odd perspective on things I would be ideal in their company.

From the feedback it was apparent I was articulate in my answers, and whilst some of my answers sometimes required further detail I didn't repeat myself or overuse any words. This is something I have improved upon since my last job interview which wasn't a big issue but still apparent to me.

My role in the industry

After two years on this course I have had substantial time to contemplate a number of roles within the industry, and tried my hand at a number of the task involved in many of them. as such I have concluded that Environment artist would suit my skill set best, although I still have much to learn and improve.

Animation would not be a desired role for me as I find it tedious and not rewarding enough with regard to the time put in. however I can do some small animating for environments if it is called for. rigging is also another avenue I will avoid as it is very long winded and while I can do it to some extent I do not have the skill set to fix some of the major issues and problems that occur during the process.

Character art is something I  will try in the immediate future as I have a good understanding of anatomy as I have years of experience with life drawing. Whilst my Z-brush skills need some refining I will be able to improve them through my dissertation and apply my keen eye for anatomical detail.

however for the time being I will focus on further improving my environment art skills, firstly though my A3D level of a W.W.1. dock with dazzle ship, but also by creating a series of smaller environment pieces. these may consist of a jungle temple possibly based on the Fantasy Warhammer Lizardmen temple city of Hexoatl to demonstrate organised yet weathered buildings with foliage. the other scene should be something different, possibly sci-fi to contrast the dirtier temple level, so I may make a star wars or even Firefly/Serenity as I can then mix the aesthetics of science fiction and western.

Good and bad Portfolios

Good examples:

Tor Frick

Tor Frick has a very good example of a simple minimalist layout for a portfolio where the art speaks for itself and the background doesn't distract from it. the artwork is all presented in one big image which links to other collection so the aforementioned piece with minimal load times. I will more than likely follow this template for my own portfolio.

Daryl Mandryk

Daryl Mandryk is a concept artist whose portfolio is a tad more fancy than Frick's, he has selections of galleries based on year and projects with a side bar of small thumbnails which then load up quickly into a large centralised image.

The grey works just like Tor Frick's allowing full focus on the artwork, however I feel that the grey is less overpowering and duller maximising artworks colours. saying this any black and white works do work better in grey.

One thing Tor Frick has done that Daryl has not is create a website with a unique web address thus making it easier to find, this is something I will have to look into when creating my own website.

Bad Examples:

Shaun Williams

Shaun Williams website is a bad example, as his art isn't the best and the website doesn't showcase it very well either, the images aren't very big and the header seems to portray more of a media or film-maker aesthetic rather than games artist of any avenue. Furthermore the random green highlight is very distracting and adds to the already cluttered top.

Alexandre LUTZ

Lutz' website is an example of poor planning where the opening page does not showcase any art, on moving to the next page the art is mixture of good and bad but more notably there are spelling errors riddled throughout the website from small and lazy grammatical errors to misspelling names of projects he has worked on. some of his screen caps are also do not showcase his work very well due to poor framing.

from these I have come to realise that a simple minimalist website with minimal text (with the exception of the about page) maybe a slight flare of colour in the header to break up the monotone minimalism without overpowering the art, to have a unique address and to have large high quality images. additionally I will create a small favicon (the small image by a tab to denote what website it is like the YouTube play symbol) to make my website easier to find among other tabs on screen.

References:

http://www.torfrick.com/

http://www.members.shaw.ca/dmandryk/

http://www.shaunsgallery.co.uk/Envselect.html

http://www.alexandrelutz.com/#!stargate-sg1-unleashed/c149t