Brief review:
In unit 12, we are asked to engage with an audience in Art and design. Whether it would be Graphics or Games design. It is important to communicate with your audience in some sort of way such as a pitch or directly talking to them in an interview. Knowing my target audience will allow me to develop more focus and enchant my creative outcome.
In order to achieve this, we were asked to create our own brief to follow. The brief needs to identify the area of work in which I will be focusing. I must go high in detail whether it would be character design for a game, movie etc… or for an actual idea for a game or film. An example of this could be packaging for a product such as a cover case for a game or some sort of illustration to promote the game. It could also be a cinematography. Although the brief is open, my brief must specify what I am going to produce for my outcome.
My brief
Deadline : Wednesday 18th December 12:00
Unit 12- Engaging with an audience
Adding the thought of my target audience, I will firstly research a range of posters which focuses on different age groups in games and movies. I will compare and make a decision to which route I will be taking.
With the thought of already wanting to create a character poster, I will further research into character posters and see how artists have illustrated their posters in order to make it eye catching to their target audience. To do this, I will further trace the artist themselves and look into how they personally produce their outcomes to take inspiration from. I will be using primary and secondary research in order to make my research more diverse. I will also research other artists with styles that I admire and evaluate in detail to what I like about the art work, Why I like it and how I can take inspiration from the artist into my own work. I will also be using primary and secondary research for these artists. The maximum will be 3 primary research and 2 secondary research.
After choosing my target audience, I will research game/character posters which targets the audience I also want to target and evaluate it in detail. I may also create a survey to further get a bigger picture to the kind of things my target audience like and add it into my research. Then I will overall evaluate my findings and how I can use my research to create my final outcome.
Focus group
On 12/11/2019 I will be having a focus group with the class. Before generating ideas, I want to ask questions to my classmates about what they think about my idea and what they personally want to see in my outcome. The questions will be broad and not specific so that I am not directly going straight ahead with my ideas. My ideas needs to be open and have variety. I will ask their personal preference as well as ask them if they have ever looked forward to a character design but when it’s released feels that it was more disappointing than they thought. I want to ask them what things they dislike about that character and how they would want to see it change to their liking. I also want to ask them what they personally think makes a character interesting and likeable. I want my character/ characters to be unique so I would like to ask them what they think of when they hear the term “unique” and how I can add this “unique” towards my target audience in a way that is appealing to them.
After writing down the things I learnt from the focus group, I will then evaluate the ideas that my classmates have given me by saying what I like about it and how it has influenced me. I will breakdown the ideas and add it into a mind map to start the generation of my initial ideas. I really like using mind maps because although you’re not going to use all the ideas placed on the mind map, it really gives freedom to generate as many ideas as you want before breaking it down to create more refined idea
After discussing with the focus group group, I will then create a proposal based my my audience feedback. I will then create a pitch on power point writing up my ideas based on my proposal and then present it to the class. Furthermore, I will research more about artists as well as what is popular in the industry and huge game companies and how they can help me create my final outcome. I will then start to draw my ideas down on paper based on my feedback and more research that I have done to back up my ideas as well as evaluating my ideas down on WordPress and why I have created my designs and how this links to my target audience as well as my pitch and proposal. After this I will then get feedback once more to see which ideas they liked the best before going on to design my final outcome on Photoshop. I want to present my work as if it was done professionally in the industry so I will relate my research towards how I am going to present my final outcome.
Focus group feedback:
After discussing with the focus group, getting their opinions on my ideas, I found out that most agreed on a semi-realistic style. This was shocking because I was expecting them to like more full realism kind of styles. Personally I also prefer semi-realism games like Overwatch where characters are more diverse and you have more freedom to be creative.
When asking more questions about what kind of characters they would like to see and what abilities they personally think are cool based on games that they have played in the past, I discovered that they generally prefer characters with personalities that they can feel attached to. They also prefer Unique characters with designs that are so bizarre that it’s hard to forget about them. When asking what they meant, some relate characters from anime series with spiky hair or characters that looks tough on the outside but really soft and friendly on the inside.
I have asked many questions about their preference on a character since my target audience is in their age range. I did generate a range of ideas I had already based on what they have said and they dislike and liked some that I have forward. The most popular one was my idea of having two twins who is very different from each other in terms of one being really dark and one being light and kind. I wanted these characters to be separate however when played together they become very powerful since they can give each other buffs and bonuses. The one thing that they would love when developing this idea is having them to have a very tragic but yet beautiful backstory so to do this I will research real life scenarios to help me get inspired. I want the story to feel realistic as just like the focus group suggested that they want to be able to relate to the characters so having my characters based on a real life story I feel I can achieve this attachment effectively.
other ideas that I suggested ranged from crazy maniacs like the joker with crazy spiky hair and tattoos to dwarfs and mythical characters however they felt that this is too much as well as being overused. So I will stay close to realistic scenarios as much as possible.
Proposal
Based on audience research and feedback from the focus group, I have come to a decision that I would want to do a character design for an existing company. My designs will be semi-realism with a fantasy feeling. My chosen platform is a multiplayer base game as it’s very popular among the successful games right now in this industry.
To further understand my target audience, I will research more on what is popular as well as search more about companies who have been very successful with multiplayer based games currently. I would like to search some of their artists as well as their inspiration and motive to get a better understanding of their company. I will then pick one of the companies and research more in depth about their work and Why I think that this company best fits the theme that I have chosen as well as how I feel they meet my target audience well.
Before creating my final outcome, I still would like to build up my ideas on the super fantasy twins however, I will create multiple initial designs based on this theme. Since I am planning on researching real life tragic stories feel that each designs of the characters depending on the stories will also be very different. To decide which idea fits my target audience the best in terms to what they think is cool, I will be creating a survey and ask people of my target audience to which ideas they like the best. #
For my designs, I would want to create a digital painting on Photoshop however to better understand how tom professionally lay my final piece out, I will research multiple concept art from the company to make my design actually look like it belongs to that company.
Pitch
Overall I had a positive feedback towards my pitch presentation however what could definitely be changed is that I need to communicate more with my audience as I was looking at the screen most of the time. To resolve this, I will need to make notes on a piece of paper on what I wanted to say. This help because all I need to do is look down quickly at my notes instead of having to turn around to look at the screen. Other feedback I got about my pitch was stuttering at times as I have lost my track or repeating what I have said. In general I was pleased with my presentation. I have successfully met the time limit for the presentation as well as giving a clear understanding to how to to present my work. Compared to the last presentation, I have definitely done better with this one due to confidence and preparations.
Research
Riot games
Riot Games is an American video developer and tournament organiser based in West Angeles, California. Riot games operates 24 offices around the world, in which employs over 2,500 staff members. The most famous game in which Riot games have created is League of Legends as it is the company’s flagship product. because of this, the company have gone out of their way to to operate the LOL World Championship, Championships series and Mid-Season Invitational esports tournament for their game.
This is an example of their grand Championship opening.
The company also releases cinematic to please their audience and players for whenever a new character is release which is very successful and loved within the community.
LOL (League Of Legends)
League of legends is a multiplayer online battle arena game developed and published by riot. This game is available only for PC (Microsoft and MAC) however, recent news suggest that they will be bringing this game onto mobile phones. This games was inspired by World of War Craft 3. The game contains violent towards non human looking characters with some costumes exposing a large amount of skin particularly in women. The age rating of the game is 13 of age however to register into the game you must be 12+ as it holds a PEGI 12 rating.
The concept of LOL is that the role of the players assume an unseen “summoner” that controls a “champion. These champions often have very unique abilities and back stories. Players are able to choose these champions and battle against a team of other players or computer-controlled champions. The goal is to destroy the opposing team’s Nexus which is a structure that lies within the heart of their team’s base. This is also protected by defensive structures which players will have to destroy before elimination the base. The goal is to be the first team to destroy the opponent’s base.
Within each LOL match, all champions will start off relatively weak but increasing strength by collecting items and experience over the course of the game. These champion’s designs range from high fantasy to steampunk and lovecraftian horror.
By July 2012, LOL became the most played PC game in North America and Europe in terms of number of hours played. In January 2014, over 64million people played LOL per month with 24 million per day and over 7.5 million during peak hours. LOL also has the largest streaming media communities and fan base such as youtube and twitch. The game continuously ranks first in the most watched hours.
From this diagram, the age at which players play LOL the most art ages around 16-20. This is also similar to the LOL forum where players vote their ages to determine the average age. Although this is not very reliable, It is still shocking to seem very similar results throughout my research on these average ages.
http://forums.euw.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=244980&page=3
To back up my research on the statistics of LOL players here is a link to the LOL’s official Statista page.
Statista is one of the best places to get statistical analysis of facts and figures as it is continually updated.
https://www.statista.com/topics/4266/league-of-legends/
Evaluation
Overall I feel that the game fits my brief perfectly as shown through the graphs and statistics, the ages that plays this game the most are ages of 16-20 which is within my target audience. I also feel that their character concept fits well with the discussion from my focus group and from my proposal. I originally intended using LOL as an example to what I wanted to do with this amazing fantasy semi-realism feeling. Now that I have done more research on the game, I am even more convinced especially from the statistics.
Blizzard
Blizzard entertainment is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California. The company originally concentrated on the creation of game ports for other studio games to begin with before developing their own software in 1993 with games like Rock ‘n’ Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings. The company then was known as chaos Studio before become Blizzard Studio.
Shortly thereafter the beginning of Blizzard, Blizzard have release Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. They’ve also created other games including the Diablo series, the starcraft series and in 2004, the massively multiplayer role-playing game World Of Warcraft. #
From then on, blizzard has continuously made games and on July 25, 2013, blizzard announced the purchase of 429 million shares from majority owner Vivendi. As a result, the company became a completely independent company.
Blizzard Entertainment hosts conventions for their fans to meet and promote their games. it is widely known as “Blizzcon” held in California, United States as well as the Blizzard Worldwide international in other countries, including south Korea and France.
This is a video of the famous Blizzcon for 2019 opening ceremony.
Overwatch
Overwatch is a team-base multiplayer first-person shooter developed and published by Blizzard entertainment. Players are assigned into two different teams of 6, which each player able to select from a collection of over 30 characters known as “heroes”. Just like LOL each of these heroes have their own unique abilities however unlike LOl which is more of fantasy feeling, overwatch is very futuristic and uses real life places around the world to determine their look on how these countries would look in the future. Although not highly realistic, Overwatch does give more of a realistic feeling unlike LOL.
Players on a team work together to secure and defend the control points on the map or escort a payload across the map within a limited amount of time. Which is also very different from LOL as with LOL you have unlimited time and the game can only be finished by one team either destroying the towers and base or surrendering.
Players gain cosmetic rewards that do not affect gameplay such as skins and victory poses. This game can be played on the Xbox One, Playstation 4 and PCs (windows). recently the game has now also been release to the Nintendo Switch in October.
Overwatch is Blizzard’s 4th major franchise. The game was hugely inspired by the cancelled Titan project as it contains elements from the now disband game. The developers aimed to create a diverse cast heroes for the huge growing multiplayer shooter games. They want to create a diverse cast of heroes that spanned genders and ethnicity as a part of the setting as well as creating a narrative that reflects the near future Earth setting after global Crisis which I did mention before about the futuristic feeling.
The company claims that significant time is spent on making sure their heroes are well balanced as well as making sure that these heroes will still be able to be loved and enjoyed by players which apparently is a huge challenge.
A sequel Overwatch 2 was announced in 2019 which will include player versus environment and a shared competitive multiplayer environment. This means that both versions of the Overwatch games can play against each other. Because of this I feel that if I was to crate an overwatch character, I will definitely use my imagination to create a character for the new Overwatch.
this is a diagram to show the average age as well as genders to show the amount who plays overwatch and shooter games in general. As shown in the graph ages 25-24 players plays this game the most which is a bit out to my target audience which is actually a surprise to me as Overwatch is PEGI 12 which is around my target audience.
Evaluation
Over all I do feel like Overwatch does not really fit with my target audience and brief however it does share that multiplayer feeling as since shooter games is booming in popularity the past years it’s still a really good option. Although I still feel like i prefer the fantasy creative freedom from LOL as it fits my target audience well and also fits my discussion from the focus group and my general idea. I feel that the idea does not fit well at all within this theme however I can still adjust the twins combo to fit the environment of overwatch which is not difficult. The difficult bit is finding a very tragic backstory that fits within this futuristic factor.
Again the style is very semi-realistic however more adult like appearance. It doesn’t have that much variety as all of the heroes share the same futuristic feeling whereas LOL is very diverse in this which i like as give gives more freedom for extreme creativity.
Digital Design portfolio 