Aamina Khan MA Games Design

  So after the ups and downs of my semester 3 I ended up concepting again - this time a South Asian character which I researched and found references for (yep). So after the research I did into how to make representation authentic for players of that culture and focusing on facial features and skin tones I thought it was time to put that into practice to see what I could come up with, i.e. is what I said in the last post actually relevant when it comes to concept art?  I had been playing with the idea of doing a non-human human for a while now (well since the beginning but I had to get humans down first) as I wanted to explore what it would be like to depict something that isn't human but is tied down by human physical appearances. So, depending on what kind of creature they were, could I still depict the character authentically? Or does fantasy really mean to abandon realism entirely? (I'm referencing Schwartz here from my semester 1 literature review, and this is a rhetorical

  In between my Pakistani research I did a few impromptu sketches to practise sketching poses quickly and try concepting quicker (I am still timing myself so I can do sketches in 10 mins). I used Pinterest as reference for the following poses. I thought it would also help with my understanding of how to draw clothes on a person and general anatomy of the human body: I tried to go for variance in poses, styles and ethnicities. These poses took me about 15 mins each to complete which I would say is a plus for me as I wasn't stressing about time and it felt naturally done. I'm not sure when I've not been stressed out about everything during lockdown but it was nice to know I achieved this small victory for myself. I hope I can concept quick sketches like this in the future in under 15 mins and hopefully with some colour too! I just have to keep practising!! Also as a way to relax I decided to draw some fanart (I remember Jim advising this to me last time I was overwhelmed afte

  So, moving forward from the research I did, I decided to focus on skin tone and facial features. I focused on South Asian people, in particular Pakistani people, for this. I guess I wanted to show that even when you are trying to depict a whole country such as Pakistan, there are a lot of variations in appearance that should be taken into account. I hope by doing this I can perhaps inform someone of something new that they might have not known before regarding Pakistan (also the country has a very negative connotation with most people due to um 'terrorism' so I kinda wanted to get rid of that bias too).  So for me Pakistan seemed like an obvious choice to show variations in skin tone and facial features as as a country it's pretty much a hodge podge of different regions and cultures that happen to be bound under the same national border. Within Pakistan the main ethnic sub-groups are: Punjabis (from Punjab region), Pashtuns (originally from Afghanistan), Sindhis (from Sin

  My aim for this semester was to analyse the issues regarding poor representation of minority cultures in video games and address these issues by creating and testing a design process which ensures authenticity. As a concept artist I feel that my artistic input matters a lot when it comes to authentic design. Even if the person in charge (Art Director or Game Designer etc.) has given me a character brief to adhere to, it's up to me to depict ideas which are in essence 'cool' (as I learnt from interviewing practitioners in semester 2) and also interpreting the brief into something unique or less known. If I don't even try to propose a suggestion which may be a bit different than what everyone is used to, then my idea remains in my head and never gets put out there. If the issue with lacking authenticity could be partly down to ignorance (not knowing of something) then I at least can make it so that they are made aware of the concept/thing and therefore clear that barrie

Before I talk about my work I want to address the lack of posts since my previous one. In all honesty, this semester has been pretty difficult for me. Ever since lockdown came into action I've felt this way and still I wonder how I managed to finish semester 2 (although perhaps it was because I had already completed more than half of it in uni). Anyway, with semester 3 this wasn't the case as I started it and had to complete it all the way through lockdown. I was lucky that I could use my drawing equipment at home but not being able to go into studio took a massive hit on my productivity. I was used to going to studio 4 days a week and whenever I was at uni (the physical space) I was able to focus and work all day. Being at home during a pandemic wasn't quite the same and I did struggle with motivation as my mood was low and my eczema flared up a lot over the summer for a number of reasons (stress, environment, weather, temperature changes etc.) so at times it was quite har