Introduction:
This blog is my FMP project pitch. It documents my journey from my initial idea to my final three ideas that I’d like to pursue. As an aspiring concept artist, I’ve come up with ideas that are very design heavy and more visually appealing rather than interactive. Although I’m primarily working towards being a character and creature designer, I want to use this opportunity to further my skills in environment and prop design. Not only that, but I want to teach myself how to paint digitally rather than using cell shading like I have in previous projects.
Idea 1 – 3 Panel Comic
3 Panel Comics have been around for a long time, once used in Newspapers for entertainment, to inform an audience on a certain topic and as a way for artists to express their opinions and views (usually on politics). Can now be found everywhere, particularly on social media.
On sketchfab, I found artists like Lussytport and Ipkipi that make comic pages that look 2D head-on, but when you move the page around, you realise the environment behind the comic borders is actually 3D and has a depth of field.
For this idea, I’d like to emulate this style by creating my own 3D three-panel comic. However, I’d also like to include animated assets on each panel as well as an interactive element, where you can flip a page or press a button to see the next panel. Both of which you can do in Sketchfab.
Three-panel comics are often of the comedy genre, however, I want to use this FMP to learn more about environment design. Joke comics tend to be very minimalistic and only show what is needed to set the scene and land the punchline. Most of the time artists forgo backgrounds altogether. If I were to use this idea for my final project, I’d like to take on a kind of travelling montage approach. That way, I can design and create up to three environments as well as design a recurring character travelling through each area.
I had two ideas for potential travelling montage settings.
Story 1 – Fantasy
For this travelling montage, I’d have a knight going on a quest;
- Panel 1 – Knight on horseback, leaving their village – perhaps with a procession of villagers behind them and waving them goodbye. The knight – inspired by Link from Legend Of Zelda – could have a creature companion with them such as a fairy. The companion could float around them and be one of the animated elements in the scene.
- Panel 2 – The knight travelling through an enchanted forest. You can see eyes peering out from the undergrowth. Some trees could actually be dryads – people made of trees – and fairy-like particles float about the area. I’d like to go for a very stereotypical fantasy setting for this comic.
- Panel 3 (vers 1) – Could be the Knight arriving at a castle and the panel shows you them in the throne room. They bow down to the king while presenting a crown or magic item to them. The item could have an animated emissive aura surrounding it to really draw the readers attention. In this panel, it’s clear to see their journey is complete.
- Panel 3 (vers 2) – The knight arrives at a tower and the panel shows them mid-battle with a dragon whose leaning down from atop the tower. I’d love the dragons head to swivel and move as well as the knight’s sword rather than their fight being caught in a freeze-frame. This panel has more of a cliff hanger to it. If I have enough time, I might combine the two versions of the final panel. Making this a 3D 4-panel comic instead. The story would then be ‘starting journey’ > ‘travelling through forest’ > ‘dragon encounter’ > ‘arriving at the castle.’
Primary Research Opportunities:
- Forest – I live near a forest so I’m in no short supply of nature references. This would also be a great place to collect textures for foliage.
- Puzzlewood – Another great place to collect nature references. There are a lot of fantasy-inspired sculptures there. Particularly of people and creatures made of wood. There are even sections there based on fairy folklore also. Overall, this would be the perfect place to visit to find inspiration for a fantasy forest setting.
Story 2 – SciFi
This story follows an astronaut – maybe an alien – as they return to base.
This story would be a lot more of a challenge to do compared to the first story idea. On top of the environment design, an aspect of concept design that I am not very proficient in, this idea would require hard surface and vehicle design as well. This story would be a huge challenge for me and I would be very out of my depth, however, it does give me a lot more opportunities to learn new skills and new branches of concept design. Something my other FMP ideas haven’t allowed me to explore as much.
- Panel 1 – Astronaut walking towards a docked ship on an alien world. I imagine the environment being incredibly bright and vibrant, making the neutral greys of the space ship stand out.
- Panel 2 – The astronaut is now inside the space ship and taking off, showing us a sky view of the planet, where we can take in more scenery. Perhaps some alien life can be seen roaming about on the ground or the sky could be filled with flying alien creatures.
- Panel 3 – The ship has left the planet’s atmosphere and is in space. For the final panel, we see the tiny ship face a huge space station that’s docked in front of it. Looming ominously over the brightly coloured planet below.
Primary Research Opportunities:
- London Science Museum – The science museum is filled to the brim with old space ship models, current models and even shows off potential designs for the future. Not only that, but it has a wide range of space suits also. For a vehicle heavy scifi project, I can’t think of a better place to go to gather primary evidence.
Interactivity:
Originally, I was thinking of using a page-flipping animation to change from panel to panel. However, using that while on a 3D platform would be incredibly difficult to do. Instead, I think it would be a safer and more realistic approach if I used buttons or arrows to switch back from panel to panel. I’d use a very classic UI design that’s used on comic sites such as Webtoon and Tapastic.
As well as being able to manually switch from panel to panel, I’d love to make it so that you can move the comic around similar to Sketchfab, so you can really see how the 3D assets make up the scene behind the comic borders. I think it would also be interesting if you can zoom in and out of a scene to really get an idea of the depth each environment has.
Overall strengths and weaknesses of the 3D three-panel comic idea:
Idea Strengths:
- Can appeal to a large audience.
- Each story covers a large variety of job roles and new elements of certain jobs.
Idea Weaknesses:
- Very minimal interactivity
- It will be incredibly time-consuming making three separate 3D environments.
- With Sketchfab’s new update, it’s become very unreliable for someone who isn’t a premium member.
Idea 2 – Floating Island
This idea is a combination of the three-panel comic idea and the offhand branch – floating islands – on my FMP mindmap above. It spawned many more ideas as a result.
For this project, I’d create a stylized low poly floating island and tell a short three-part visual narrative taking place upon it – inspired by the three-panel comic set up. I think a floating island would serve as a great stage for these scenes to take place on as your focus will be drawn to the characters and props rather than getting distracted by an unnecessarily large world/environment. However, this comes with the added challenge of making sure the audience can see everything going on in the scene and that the island isn’t too crowded or compact.
This project is more of an art piece than a game but that doesn’t mean I don’t plan on including interactive or animated elements. I hope to appeal to my target audience by bringing the environment and characters to life through basic animations such as moving foliage, particles and moving characters while also letting them control the progression of the story by using a slider to change from scene to scene.
I want to specify that none of the ideas/stories below are connected. Each scene change will be connected to a time of day; morning, evening and night.
Story 1: Ancient Ruins/Stone Tablet
Environment: A stone tablet embedded into the ruins of an ancient temple. The tablet is in shadow beneath the rubble, but sprawling from the foot of the stairs leading to the tablet is lush greenery and wildlife – perhaps a little river turning into a waterfall as it falls off the edge of the island.
- Morning: Happy, peaceful and bright. I picture some deer grazing on the grass. Maybe some bunnies? Just an all-around innocent and idyllic scene.
- Evening: Calm and sleepy with blue and pink hues as the sunsets. I’d use an emissive particle to make it look like fireflies are dancing around the grassland.
- Night: Mysterious, still and oddly quiet. The fireflies have disappeared, the grass is barely moving in the breeze and an ominous glow begins spilling from the tablet as cracks start to appear in it.
Strengths:
- Brilliant for a tight deadline
- Although there aren’t many props, the props that are there allow me to practice a wide range of hand-painted texture techniques. E.g. fur, rocks, foliage, etc.
- A good opportunity to study lighting especially for how the glow from the tablet will affect the surrounding area.
Weaknesses:
- Too simplistic?
- Not an impactful or interesting story.
- Very few props – which could be a good thing, however, I’d have to make sure everything is to a very high standard or it won’t look appealing.
- Animations for animals such as deer can’t be sourced from Mixamo. I have very minimal knowledge of 3D animation.
- Minimal characters and need for animation.
Primary Research Opportunities –
- Caerleon Roman Fortress & Baths – I can visit the ruins to get primary evidence and inspiration for the stone tablet and temple. The baths are also surrounded by a field. An overall perfect location to source primary evidence for the environment.
- Newport Roman Villa – Compared to the baths & fortress, the villa is a lot more unearthed and intact. A great reference for the temple and tablet stone textures. The villa also has a small museum full of roman artefacts of which I could use as inspiration for the stone tablet design.
Concept Sketch:
Story 2: Campsite
This story takes place on a campsite, surrounded by trees and foliage. The forest around the camp is dense and the foliage moves in the light breeze. The forest floor is green with a few twigs and leaves scattered here and there but the well-tread ground signifying where the campsite begins is fine and dusty dirt.
- Morning: A character – either based off of a boy scout or backpacker – is setting up their tent. Bags and poles are scattered about the campsite. In the background, you can see deer weaving through the trees and watching the camp. The colour palette will be bright and happy. Set in the early morning, so lots of greens and yellows. I’d love to create the effect of light filtering through the branches of the trees and moving on the ground as the trees move in the wind.
- Evening: The character has set up a campfire in the centre of the camp and is roasting marshmallows as they sit next to the fire on a log. The tent is all set up. The fire will be animated and create small emissive sparks that will illuminate the surrounding area. I don’t think I’ll have any animals in the forest for this scene as I don’t want to distract from the focal point which would be the fire. Very calm colour palette with deep blues and oranges. I’d say this scene is set just before the sun is completely gone on the horizon, so quite dark.
- Night: You see the silhouette of the character illuminated in their tent. The fire is out, nothing but embers, an animated emissive texture can be used to make it look like the embers are pulsing and moving. Deep in the forest, you can see glowing red eyes and silhouettes of monsters – perhaps bigfoot? – Peering in and watching the camp.
Strengths:
- Lot’s of material to reference from.
- Plenty of opportunities for character and creature design.
- Simple but a good amount of animation and lighting VFX.
- I feel this story has the clearest beginning, middle and end.
- There are a lot of tutorials out there on how to make a hand-painted tree and plant assets.
Weaknesses:
- Floating islands with forests is a very common design.
- It’s difficult to create contrasting colour palettes for this type of setting. If it were the seasons it would be another story but to show a contrast between night and day is tough. Everyone knows a forest is green and an audience might be put off if it deviates from this palette.
- A lot of assets, especially if I want to show a variety within the forest.
- Foliage is difficult to paint, especially for a novice, so the practice would be very time-consuming.
Primary Research Opportunities –
- Forest – I live right next to a forest where there are plenty of abandoned firepits and campsites. With the forest so close I can gather primary evidence at all times of the day.
- Garden Centre – I could visit a garden centre to collect reference for my foliage textures. With such a wide variety of trees and plants at the centre, I can compile a diverse portfolio of texture reference as well as colour swatches.
- Camping – My family often visits my Nan’s caravan site on weekends and holidays. Recently the site has opened a plot just for camping in tents. Provided I have permission, I can use the campsite to collect tent references as well as see how campers set up their sites within a compact plot.
- I also own a lot of camping gear and equiptment from when I did the Duke of Edinburgh award. I could set up my old tent in the back garden and take reference shots of my brother or myself inside the tent to see how I am silhouetted from the outside.
Concept Sketch:
Story 3: Abandoned Playground
This island looks as if it’s been ripped straight from a city park. On the floating island is a square patch bordered by brightly coloured fencing with a small swinging gate. Broken and crumbling around the fence is a sidewalk. In the square plot is a swing set, slide and seesaw. All of the equiptment is fairly worn and used, but well cared for.
- Morning: Two kids – a boy and a girl – are playing in the park. Both on the swingset. I think it would be better if both kids are on the swings because when animated you could leave the swings on loop. If a child was on the slide you’d have to animate them sliding down, getting up, going around the slide and climbing back up to the top, etc. The swings not only take fewer animation sequences but are realistic if the scene is left on loop for a long time.
- Evening: Cool colour palette in contrast to the morning’s bright and warm palette. The kids are gone and the park is empty. The swings could move slightly in the breeze. Perhaps some birds could land on the floor and start pecking the ground – looking for crums. Overall a very peaceful and neutral scene.
- Night: Dark and eery. The playground is deathly still and out from beneath the apparatus crawl shadowy creatures with beady red eyes. They curl around the seesaw, peek from beneath the slide and perch atop the swingset.
Strengths:
- Unique – when sourcing the design sheets I couldn’t find a floating island or low poly model with a similar concept.
- Lots of opportunities for character and creature design.
- I can experiment with animated textures on the shadow creatures.
Weaknesses:
- Very animation heavy
- Has a very small range of textures for the environment; the majority being metal, rubber and concrete.
- Quite an open-ended, up for interpretation, kind of story. Could risk alienating or confusing the audience.
Primary Research Opportunities –
- Visit a playground – There are three playgrounds in my area, one is particularly old and abandoned and would be a great spot to take references of old and worn playground equiptment. There is also a more modernised park near campus which I could visit with less common apparatus which I could include on the island to make it more interesting.
- Volunteer at Girl Scouts/Brownies – I’ve been volunteering at a local Brownies for some time now. I can use the club as primary research for how kids act and behave and how they dress. However, taking pictures might be a problem considering I would have to get permission from all of the parents and staff first.
Concept Sketch:
Interactivity:
As previously mentioned, I plan on having these environments being interactive. My client or audience will be able to rotate the island around as if it was a turntable. That way you can get the full scope of the island and scene. I also plan for the day and cycle to be controlled with either a slider or button set.
UI I want to use as inspiration are;
Style:
No matter which idea or story I choose to pursue, for this FMP I want to challenge myself by learning a new colouring/texturing style. Digital painting is a very popular style in the art community. If the skills are developed properly you can use them to create highly realistic or stylised artwork. Hand-painted textures aren’t new to video games and it’s a style I have always been drawn to. I just love the creative freedom you have to design and make your own texture simply by painting a 3D model.
It is this style I want to learn and emulate throughout this project.
I want to take inspiration from games like;
The games above are beautifully detailed but surprisingly low poly. The detailed texturing and hand-painted shadows and light give each model shape and form. The games are stylized with saturated colour palettes. I especially love how the rocks and foliage are textured in Gigantic. I also love how Gigantic’s characters are designed and textured, making them look incredibly lively and full of personality.
Artists with a similar style I’m looking for and want to emulate when creating concept art and textures are;
Note: All of the examples above are of 3D environments/assets.
To achieve these textures I can use procreate and photoshop. Surprisingly, when researching these artists, none of the above use Substance Painter. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t. In fact, it might be easier for me to paint directly onto the model rather than using a 2D UV map only. I’ll have to test which methods are better throughout the project.
Conclusion:
Overall, out of the ideas above I have decided to scrap Idea 1 – the 3D three-panel comic projects that would showcase a travelling montage – and will instead pursue any of the three stories in Idea 2.
I think Idea 2 is more realistic time-wise and resource-wise. Since Sketchfab recently implemented a premium membership feature, it’s difficult to do anything on there without spending money. Idea 2, on the other hand, can be made in Unreal, has lots of concept design opportunities and pushes me to learn new skills in other areas as well. Such as lighting, VFX and animation.
Meg's FMP Zone 