Throughout this project I have developed and learnt new skills that have helped further my work. This has been extremely important in making my characters, which is shown in my final designs for the characters. Before starting this project, I spent some time learning anatomy and bought some books by George B. Bridgman that were specific to anatomy to better understand human form and the base I should use to build anatomy off. For my first character it took me a few attempts to get the hang of, having to use a variety of poses to properly achieve what I wanted from the anatomy but by my last character I had stopped copying Bridgman exactly and instead softened the lines and stopped using the aggressive box shape to outline the waist and chest and used other shapes that followed the look I wanted to achieve more. As a big part of my project was character design anatomy was very important for this project to work, as without an accurate character’s base to work with my designs would look off and as character design is a big part of why a player chooses to play a certain character this would alienate a big group of my player base. I would like to improve my anatomy further; in the short time I was doing this project I improved greatly with my work and if I continue the way I am now I will be at a level where I can comfortably create characters swiftly and with more variation in body types and ages. Next time I do a project around the area of creating characters I would like to spend more time doing anatomy warmups before I began drawing and spending a few weeks before a project doing 30 second sketches of people in various poses so I can get more adventurous with how I pose my characters as while the poses I put my characters in shows of the designs well, they are bland.

 

The idea to create a MOBA game came about from me wanting to focus on concept art, specifically character design, as a final project. The main inspiration for my game came with League of Legends a multiplayer online battle area (MOBA) released in 2009 by Riot. The game involves a 5v5 match where the opposing team’s goal is to invade the others base and destroy their inhibitor, games can last anywhere from 15 minutes to upwards of an hour. The game has over 140 characters which means every possible character/design has mostly been done so the game is very good in terms of inspiration for my own characters designs as they have the references, and they also have poly limits they need to meet for their models so I can see what is suitable in terms of accessories. I knew I wanted my final project to be focused on character design as that is the area I have mostly been focused on since the Sengoku project in year 1. When deciding which genre to focus on for my characters and the overall game I wanted to make I chose between an MMO and a MOBA game. MMO games are one of my favourite genres of games and the characters in those games are always story rich and have outfits that showcase their history and affiliation to the character from clothing alone. MOBA games however have better character design as each character is shown constantly compared to the small amount of time a MMO character is seen on screen, this means their design gets allot more attention than the NPC’s in MMO games. MOBA games also must sell a character to you with their design as pretty much all of the characters shown to you in a MOBA game are playable, having interesting character design makes a player more invested in a character and makes them want to play them more as they have to look at that character for most of the game My goal for this project was to create a variety of characters with interesting backgrounds, play styles and character designs a player could see themselves becoming invested in.

 

I have managed to create three characters which I believe fit the goal for what I was trying to achieve. The way I have presented my characters allows the player to digest the characters at a pace that they feel comfortable as well as showcase the world of Oldion which I have created. Whilst I had originally planned to create five characters and could only manage to create three narrowing down the number of characters was for the best as the characters I designed had a much higher level of quality than what I would have done if I had to fit in 5 characters into the 8 weeks. I definitely understand the MOBA genre better now at the end of this project and what goes into creating a character and their skins.

 

 

For my initial research I focused mainly on media I was familiar with over various media types. RWBY, League of Legends and Genshin Impact being my main focuses in the beginning. I then narrowed this down to cut out RWBY as it wasn’t as focused on character design as League of Legends and Genshin Impact. I believe my research was thorough enough as I kept a big focus on character design and researched everything I used in my final project from small logos to the clothing and colour scheme the characters wear. Primary research was very important to me in my project. One of the first things I focused on learning was what the average MOBA player looks for in the characters they play, and character design was important to almost everyone that answered my survey being the make-or-break factor for the characters they choose to play. Secondary research made up the bulk of my research as I was focused on textures, colour theory and concept art from MOBA games. My research allowed me to build off work made by those in the industry specifically Riot hired artists to create something new to the genre whilst also giving the players the familiar feel they look for when starting a new MOBA game.

 

I have developed a variety of practical skills throughout this project that has directly contributed to the pace and quality I was able to achieve during this project. My developed skills in drawing specifically on anatomy and proportions were greatly improved during this project and I have achieved some of my best work during this project. This will directly benefit me in future projects I take at university as I am focused on a Game Art course and will focus on concept art, specifically character design so being able to accurately draw anatomy is very important. For this project I learnt a new drawing software, Procreate. I decided to focus on Procreate due to the accessibility it gave me in working from anywhere as in previous projects I have struggled with time management due to the fact I couldn’t sit at my desk for hours drawing. Drawing on Procreate means I am not stuck drawing at my desk and can travel around with it, which increases the time I have for each of my characters so I could spend allot more time going into detail for their outfits and just being very particular with their designs whilst also keeping in mind the environment they are going into and how whist designs are allowed to be complex and have allot of accessories and different colour schemes going on I need to keep the games environment and the poly count the models would have in mind to create characters that fit the genre.

 

Compared to other projects I have done this project went allot smoother. I was able to create pieces of work within the desired time span I had in mind and was keeping up with the quality of the work despite the speed I was working which is a big improvement on my previous projects where my ideas were too complex, and I spent too long focused or distracted by one area and neglected a good chunk of my practical work until the last moment. For this project I set myself weekly goals via my Gantt chart and have mostly followed them only veering off a couple of times when I felt myself growing bored of my current task and decided to take a break and work on another area to keep myself interested in the project. I also find working on various areas of a project at once to be beneficial for me rather than hinder my work as it allows me to connect various ideas I have more cohesively and speeds up my workflow. This also allowed me to do ongoing reflections allot easier as I wasn’t doing it at the end of a drawing and spending hours going back and changing it as I was able to move to another aspect of my project for a day or so and return to the piece I was working on and spot my errors before I develop them too far.

 

The final product of my work is something I am very proud of and is the best work I have produced so far on this course. The strength of my final product is definitely my final project page something I modelled from various MOBA pages and took the parts I found the most useful and visually aesthetic and put into my own work. I have created a unique experience to viewing my characters as well as letting the world of Oldion be showcased alongside my work which increases the investment people have towards the characters and they can sympathise allot more with their situations and understand the reasonings behind their character designs and backgrounds. Some of the proportions in my final designs, especially the first two characters I made could benefit from a few revisions. The neck on Lucian is too long and Bonny looks too squished height wise. I also think my characters could improve with more simple things such as improving on the fabrics and materials they are wearing and spending a little more time developing those and adding more texture to my drawing so you can look at them once and know exactly what materials they are wearing such as on Lucian’s waistcoat, a leather texture would make what he is wearing allot easier to recognise. I made a few changes to my characters mid production that improved the final product. Alette originally was a more agriculture character and when I created them, I had envisioned them to be a darker character as they would follow a more grunge clothing style and had a slightly different backstory to what I have now given them which followed them fighting for their family’s farm to bring them out of poverty. I also changed their gender from female to non – binary. When I was researching goblincore I read that the genre is associated with those in the transgender community and thought it would be nice to have my character who follows that clothing genre also be apart of that community. My final product is suitable for the intended audience as I adapted my final product page and characters designs to reflect the answers, I received in my primary research to further push my project in the right direction. I changed Lucian’s design allot from what I originally wanted him to be due to the fact that when I tried to push him in the direction I wanted him to be people did not receive it well and it was a big chunk of the feedback I received. He originally was wearing a short overall outfit which I preferred to all his other designs and thought gave him the most character however people said he looked to feminine and that his design was bland.

 

The audience response to my products was very useful but at times a few of the answers felt a little unwarranted and off putting – such as when I was requesting feedback surrounding the characters clothing the anatomy was brought up a few times. But overall, the replies I got were very helpful and mostly positive however a few times they misunderstood the product and pushed a narrative that went against what I was trying to achieve in my end goal such as giving the character that is linked with nature shoes or giving the character who is supposed to be dead a more vibrant skin tone as her current one is quite grey. Giving the audience more information on the characters next time when I request feedback would solve this issue.

 

In conclusion to this project, it has been a big success for me. At the start of the project I was unsure in my own skills regarding anatomy and dedicated some of the time I spent during the research period of my project doing quick sketches to learn how the human body is proportioned. But overall, after putting in the time and energy towards further developing my skills I have achieved what I set out to do in my project proposal form, which was to create a variety of characters that fit comfortably into the MOBA genre and be something my audience could see themselves being interested in lore and design wise. Moving forwards to university I hope to further develop my skills being able to create more in-depth characters that are not flat in colour, and I can put in dynamic poses. In preparation for this I am going to further work on my anatomy and do more research into adding shadows and highlights to different textures.