Aamina Khan MA Games Design

During semester 2 I focused more on developing concept art by implementing my research into practice. I chose to focus on character design over environment design as I considered it the weaker area of the two (I felt more familiar with building design due to having studied architecture).  I started off by trying different drawing techniques to develop a concept style that suited me and used a video game character (Edelgard) I was familiar with to draw in various art styles. This confirmed what I already knew: I was comfortable with illustration but found quick concept sketches difficult to manage. I then moved onto concepting a book character who is South Asian (Mehr) as practice for having a brief but no visual reference to copy from, so I found my own visual references to create my interpretation of the character. This time I was given a time limit for creating 18 different versions of this character. As I kept drawing I found that once I was familiar with the character, each d...

Due to time constraints I created a warrior design for the jewellery theme with base colours (foregoing shading and rendering).I used the colour palette from the jewellery mage design with the same thinking as when I did for the embroidery warrior and mage classes. I made some changes to the footwear and weapon to suit the jewellery theme better. As I had established a more concrete brief with the jewellery mage class, I used that thinking in this design too combined with the 'warrior' aesthetic by having heavy metal plated footwear and heavy metal weaponry. The dual weapon I had drawn before could be for an alternate warrior version, but for this one I wanted to develop a sword version as it felt like it portrayed the warrior concept a lot stronger. I chose a sword design that fit with the visual language of the character design (replicating the gold and red diamond present in headgear and footwear) and also so that it reflected the personality of the character wielding it. I...

I spent this past week finalising the jewellery warrior design by developing the last stage of design I'd reached with the 4 versions of alternating headgear and weaponry. I chose the heavy helmet + metal weapons to fit the rules I'd established for the jewellery theme (less decorative, more smooth metal planes). I played around with the headgear more and created alternative versions as seen below using colour palettes and motifs from the latest jewellery mage design I created. I also changed the rope design to create a more 'metal' look with chain links which due to their sharpness 'bite' the limbs when wrapped round. In addition I drew up some quick drafts of alternate weapons such as the sword which adapts from the chain aesthetic to form a 'chain' through a series of diamond shaped blades attached to each other. The sword blade is also detachable and made more portable (scale of sword is big as to exaggerate its appeal). I will draw up a full co...

Whilst f ocusing on writing my design research report, I've had time to um think, namely about the current situation we find ourselves in. I know I already mentioned this in an earlier post but living in lockdown has made me question certain things. As my degree focuses on fantasy games, I thought about how we define fantasy in context of our reality. That is to say, a couple of months ago, our current lifestyle would be deemed a 'fantasy' in the sense that we had not experienced having travel restrictions placed on us with businesses closed and queuing up to shop at the supermarket standing 2 metres apart. What once sounded like a dystopian fantasy has now become our reality. As a consequence I feel compelled to question what we deem as fantasy, is it simply that which differs from reality, or is it that which is deemed 'impossible' to exist in our reality? Or are they both just 2 extremes on a sliding scale where fantasy can be anywhere in between? Once fantasy ...