Four Week Project Reflection/Wrap-up

Over the last four weeks, I've been working on a concept for an apocalyptic settlement based in the UCLan campus and set in the Last of Us universe. With this project, I set out to explore working styles to figure out what suits me. I went with an established universe because creating something completely new and cohesive might have been a little ambitious for four weeks, and I chose TLOU because it is a world I'm very familiar with, and fond of. In emulating the styles, themes and ideas of the franchise, I hoped to find out how much I enjoy working within the scope of a 'dark and gritty' vision (overused phrase, I know). Having reached the end of this four week period, I now know that I really enjoy working with darker themes and material, which is perhaps unsurprising given that media operating within this zone often appeals to me above most other things. However, it also kind of made me want to now explore areas that lend themselves to a more vibrant,  joyful or freeing tone. I also want to explore sweeping landscapes, which would be an interesting change of pace from the confines of cities. This is probably the direction I'll be heading next, likely working with more fantastical aesthetics.

I've really enjoyed the creative challenge of coming up with something that feels like a good balance of fitting cohesively into the franchise's world, but also bringing something new. As part of this I had to broaden my research beyond the series and into other franchises such as Mad Max, and I feel like this helped bring out a new dimension, particularly later into the project when I was working on concepts such as the Canopy. In terms of what I think went well in this project, I think the main thing would be that I've noticed my digital skills improving over the course of the four weeks. Admittedly this is probably unsurprising considering I'm still new to digital art (3 to 4 months now), but it's a step in the right direction. Before this project I hadn't tried photobashing, and for a first attempt I'm pretty happy with the outcome in my Armoury concept. I've started to increase my speed as well, which I hope to keep improving on consistently throughout the year. I'm also making progress in my understanding of the design process more generally; through this project I've learnt the value of taking time to gather up some research rather than jumping in cold, and I'm also using techniques like thumbnailing rather than jumping straight to finalised concepts without developing them first. 

I'd also say that I've managed to be quite disciplined, putting pen to paper almost every day. However, I've definitely had my fair share of slow days, and when I look at the body of work I've produced, it doesn't cover the features of the compound as extensively as I might have hoped. My biggest takeaway has to be that I need to be covering more ground in four weeks than I have this time. Going forward, I need to learn which elements of my process to keep, and which to strip away so that I can increase my productivity by improving my efficiency, rather than simply rushing stuff out.