Lucy Post-mortem

This project, has been nothing more than a success in my eyes. I’ve never felt such pride for any piece of work before. From pre-planning to production and the overall execution of this book, everything flowed well. There were very few issues with designing, and none of these hindered the completion of this book, nor predisposed the final quality either.

If I were to stick to my original idea of doing this by myself with an original story, I feel things would've turned out a lot differently. I think amount of work I’d set myself would take its toll, and would have had to cut down the scope of my project. I would still work just as hard on quality, but I think my designs would suffer greatly. Due to not having someone to ask for their opinion or to collaborate on my work with. If I were to go to others, I feel I would've become very precious with my work, as it would be solely me working on the project. Therefor I wouldn't be open to change and my design could have turned out flat with very little iteration.

My best decision for this project was to team up, and it truly did pay off. I felt that both me and Ed worked well together. We were able to decide on, and stick to a pipeline and working structure, to get the work done on time and to a high standard. I feel the strongest element of our final book, is how unified it appears, despite have two people, with two different styles working on it together. We naturally chose to design the two sides of the society of the world of Metropolis. Yet we still managed to make both sides appear to co-exist in this world together. I feel we achieved this through constant communication and collaboration. I would always ask her opinion on my designs, and I feel they turned out better because of this. I feel the final book really does show that iteration, with the text really understanding, in depth, what our thoughts were at that time, and why we went with the decisions we did.

My biggest struggle with this project, was the workers city environment I had to design. As this subject covered a huge area of the world of Metropolis, I really found it hard to pin point the area to design and also exactly what they were going to be. I spent 4 – 5 weeks on this environment, and this way over shot our goal. We set up a time scheduled and it worked out as one mini project a week, so a character designed in one week, and environment designed in another week. To get over this design block, I asked Ed for her opinion and she drew up a simple diagram that easily explained how she saw the infrastructure. This cleared things up in my head and really narrowed down the areas to design. I still took longer then planned after this, but the final result turned out a lot better than I expected. I went from hating the final image, to seeing it printed in the book and it being one of my favourite pieces of work I did for the whole project.

My weaknesses were definitely designing environments. I feel with each one I improved and I applied new techniques, such as white boxing and this really did help, However, I feel I still need to practice this technique, as well as normal PhotoShop painting. I felt there were times when I relied on photo-bashing too much, and I feel this hindered the look of my work slightly. I think if I were to do it again, I would've relied less on photos and really trusted my own painting techniques more. I feel using the photo-bash technique did make me lazier when it came to the final concept art painting. Because of my reliance on this technique, I felt a little out of practice when it came to digital painting. I think for future projects, I’ll try to keep the use of photo-bashing to a minimum and try to use my painting skills more. I feel doing this will give my work more authenticity and there'll be more fluidity to my final images.

Another element of the project that went well, was keeping to the pre-determined time scheduled. After printing the tester book from both Blurb and ePubli, we decided Blurb were the more reliable option, and they also produced a better quality book. The blurb book arrived in one week after putting the order in. So we decided for our actual book, we would put the order in two and a half weeks before the deadline. As it would be bigger with a lot more pages, we felt this would ensure we'd definitely have the book ready for hand-in. We managed to get the book sent off for the exact date we planned, and this really proved to myself that I can time manage very efficiently.

The book turned out great and the print quality was very nice and rich in colour. The only negatives were that a couple of my black and white design work, printed out a little too dark. We mentioned possibly printing off another book for degree show to correct these errors, as well as a couple of typing and spelling errors. However, for now our main focus for degree show, is the art gallery level idea, to showcase our work interactively. If we were to reprint the book however, I would like to readdress the layout. As we nearly doubled our initial page count, we didn't take time to number the pages and add a contents page. I think that could have been a chance to showcase our graphic design skills a little more. Plus make the book a little easier to navigate through, however I feel the lack of a contents page doesn't jeopardise the quality of our final book.

For portfolio, I feel the book looks highly professional, and for interview purposes, it would be a great asset to bring along with me to show my work. However, it did leave me with very little diversity within my portfolio. As it is just characters and environments, there isn't much variety in the work. We thought of adding vehicles for stretch goals, and this would add diversity. Also, we never got round to modelling small example assets as we thought we could do for stretch goals. I feel the work I produced for this project is of a high quality standard, but just lacks in diversity for portfolio purposes. A lot of developers are looking for generalists, so in that aspect, this project has left me a little short. However, this work has been the best quality I have produced during my whole 3 years on this course. I can honestly say I’m proud of what I have achieved. We exceeded our initial page target and still managed to not drop the quality. We managed to still convey our ideas well, and were able to describe our thought process’ within the text of the book.

Ultimately, I see this project as a success. I set out on this task with a very specific idea, and yet it turned into something that I never could foresee. If anything, it has been a huge confidence boost for me. I’m believing in my ability as an artist a lot mare, and I only want to continue to improve. This project has taught me so much about myself and how I work, not just by myself but as a team on a collaborative effort. The lessons I have learnt from this will be important reference to future projects. I plan to set myself several projects to increase the diversity in my portfolio, in the hopes it will make me appear more employable to developers. I want to increase my range of skills and I feel this project has given me the tools and self belief to try and diversify my skill-set. This includes 3D modelling and engine work. To have a physical book of high quality, that I can hold in my hands filled with all my work, is such an amazing sense of achievement. I hope for degree show, the people from industry will see and appreciate all the hard effort, both me and Ed have put into this book. I hope they can see potential for their companies and help us get that oh so important foot in the door. I also hope the final grade I get overall, reflects my efforts throughout my time at De Montfort University, and set me up onto a successful career path.