Reflection...

Second blog and I feel after a particular lecture a little bit of reflection is in order. The lecture was on the horrors that some past student have drawn. Whether it be for the interview for the course, or things they’ve done very early on in the course. It made me realise how much of the game art industry is hidden to the public. It creates false ideas about the work people in the industry are expected to do. So many young people, including myself, instantly say they aspire to become a concept artist. Mainly because of all the beautiful finished pieces they see when they type, ‘Game Concept Art’ into google images. I know this, because I was exactly the same for a very long time. I designed a whole bunch of characters and even a storyline for a game. At one point, I actually wrote a letter addressed to a game company, that explained what I sent them, which was probably 100 odd pages of character designs and an in depth story of the entire game I had created. I did this at about the age of 13. Looking back it’s incredible to see how deluded a young teen can be. At the same time I think about the process I went through in order to create and conjure up the idea of submitting it. The whole writing and designing process completely consumed me. I was so inspired and passionate, all my gaming influences, even since before I could remember, filled me with the passion and drive to create something which is usually done by a huge team of people, all by myself. Obviously there was no way the quality would meet industry standard, but the point is I believed so hard and wanted it so badly.

As I grew older and cynicism of the teenager came into play, I lost that drive. I went to Art College as I loved art in secondary school. I saw school, as doing my time, a sentence, something I had to do, just to get through it. Then I could be free to take any route I wanted, but in the midst of all that, I actually looked forward to walking to that art room. Where I would be greeted with the biggest smile form my art teacher and I would be made to feel valid, not a person that people saw and never heard. It was here I was pointed in the direction of Art College. Where my passion for the subject, kind of nose-dived. Seeing as it was something I was constantly doing, it became a chore. Something that had to be done, and not because I wanted to do it. I lost all passion for concept art and I drifted through college like it was a monotonous dream. We had to specialise and I looked back at that game I created. I realised game art was all I really remember feeling passionate about, in terms of a career. So I chose graphic design, but as you know from my last blog, I hated it. Because of the tick box system of assessment they had there, I came out with the second highest grade available. At not one point did I feel I earned that grade. I was spoon fed to the point that one ‘wafer thin mint’ would have finished me and my integrity, would literally throw itself off the tallest building it could find.

I wanted to find that passion again, so I added a few refined versions of my character designs to my portfolio. With this post, there should be some photos of some characters I managed to colour in Photoshop. Since coming to uni I’ve realise they’re not the worst things in the world, but they are nowhere near industry standard. Bear in mind I planned to send even less industry standard scribbles from my 13 year old self to a highly recognised games company, I’m glad I saved myself the embarrassment. Even though I plan to get to industry and I’ll look back on the original character designs and laugh, but they were the start of this journey. Yet I’ve only just realised that. I want to earn my degree unlike college, and it seems the graft has to be there for this course in order to get it. So I best get my finger out, it’s a very fast paced work load, but that the industry for you. Just have to man up and get on with it. Wish me luck.

Starting on this technological journey

Hello there, my name is Lucy and I’m a small, redheaded female, who can run her mouth a bit, but hey, this height makes it difficult to be noticed…the hair…not so much.

So, I’ve just enrolled on this crazy uni course where we draw all sorts of stuff and turn it into a 3D world. Pretty cool huh? This is the epiphany of escapism, which I’ve found myself doing quite a lot in recent years. So, I’m a girl, who likes games. That’s right, it seems us girls like blood and violence just as much as you meat eating males. I think this comes from growing up with an older brother, who in all honesty, only let me ‘watch’ whenever a game was in the vicinity. I’m not the most skilled in the technology department, as I still have a Nokia 5310 Xpress Music phone, but that doesn’t mean to say I’ve only watched games. I’ve played a few, but they don’t consume my life, I own a Nintendo wii…enough said.

My very first love of the game world though, came from watching my brother. It’s probably the earliest, yet most vivid memories of a game I think I have. This game, in my opinion, was far too complex and pushed the boundaries for the technology to handle at the time and yet it still blew me away. This was the one and only Final Fantasy 7. Yes, one of those crazy FF fans, but only for FF7 if I’m perfectly honest. Sure I may have dabbled in completing FF10, but let’s not go into that shall we. The main thing I noticed about number 7 though, was its incredible ability to consume you into the world on the TV screen, with these blocky characters who didn’t have voices but this still didn’t stop me from feeling like I knew these characters. I was right there, gripped from start to finish. As much as I love the story characters, even the music, I don’t think I could ever play it myself. I’d shatter the illusion my brother created when I watched him play. It’s a story to me and not something to get stuck on, or stress about. The story is so complex yet beautiful.

This was the game that has become my main inspiration and the source of my love for games. I’ve always had a knack for art. I truly began to love art and enjoy being creative, during year nine of high school. A crucial year where you decide on your GCSE’s (doesn’t seem so crucial now I’m doing a degree in all honesty) It was here where I met my first ever hero. My art teacher, Mrs Sanky. She was a true inspiration and filled me with so much confidence in my work. I was a shy, timid little thing and she was a rebellious ex punk artist who fancied bold men with beer bellies and chest hair, but I’m going off topic. What I’m trying to say is, she was like a second mum. A cool, artistic mum, who always just let me do my thing and praised me when I finished. She suggested I look at going to Leeds College of Art to do a National Diploma in Art and Design. After an interview and an A* grade in GCSE Art, I enrolled and for the next 2 years I struggled to decide on what to do. During school, I designed countless characters and even a story for a game (next instalment of the Final Fantasy series to be precise) I love the idea of creating a world and characters for people to get lost and fall in love with. During college however, I kind of forgot that.

After the first year, I specialised in graphic design, and hated it. When the idea of university came about, I rediscovered my love of game design and decided to look at a bunch of courses related to the subject. Being the first person in my family to go to uni, I felt like it was the right thing for me to be doing. I happened to stumble across a place called De Montfort University, and after an open day then interview, the letter came through the door and I’m now sat here, in a room twice the size as the room I grew up in, writing a blog about how I ended up here. Sounds quite dull now that I read it back. But hey, I’ve made some great friends already and am really looking forward to loosing myself  in this course, to get me into a career, that I’m willing to get out of bed for; because after working as a waitress for a year, I know damn well, that the mundane ‘normal job’ just isn’t for me. Give me dragons and zombies any day of the week.