Seior Development Write Up

Analysis of Work Done

From working on this project, especially the character turnaround, despite the shamefully low
quality of the sketches, my skill with using the digital Art Tablets has actually increased
greatly simply through practice and application. I have also, from repeatedly sketching and
copying the line-work and skeleton for a human body, gained a better understanding of
proportions in human anatomy, as compared to my original sketch, the arms and legs are in
much better proportion to the rest of the body, the head isnt too small, etc, as originally this
was a big issue for me, I was unable to make an anatomically accurate drawing of a human
being, it was always misshapen. I also learned how to fix some technical issue that arose
when using the tablets, such as cached data preventing setting changes from taking effect,
which was a difficulty as it meant pressure sensitivity and movement sensitivity on the pen
were not active and way too high, respectively.

Having been told that I didnt have to the storyboard and turnaround in high detail, I decided
to simply leave it as a quick sketch style, as if I had hoped to do several high detail images it
would have taken too many hours for me to start practicing and complete them in a good
quality leaving them as sketches give a higher base margin for error, meaning any
mistaken proportions or distorted details can be relatively overlooked, such as the wings of
Seiors helmet being misshapen and badly scaled in the fore image. In the future, after
purchasing an Art Tablet for home use, I hope to be able to get several hours of practice in
per week to allow me to produce higher quality designs in a more useful timespan.

Analysis of Research Done/Concepting

My research and planning skills still need to be vastly improved, as I actually just threw out a
few ideas and settled on one, expanding and building on that solely, which invariably left me
with a limited set of development options and branches once I had gotten a short distance
into the project as I would have had to have backtracked too far and redone too much work
in different styles with different research (thankfully however, the setting and idea I chose
and created, respectively, I was quite happy with, so the development went relatively
smoothly) which would have effectively doubled my workload. Instead, I should have drafted
up several different origins and base concepts, preferably for at least two historical
backgrounds, before cutting them down to choose one and then build up on it.

In the end, I chose the Vikings simply because I personally, actually have quite an interest in
Norse mythology and the style of building and armour used in medieval Scandinavia. The
history and lore of the culture is deep and rich, with a bounty of potential backstorys to draw
from, from a raider king to a villager at arms. Eventually, an interest in Norse spirits and the
undead lead to the concept and creation of my character, Seior, a resurrected Wight, a
vengeful spirit who was once a form of Warrior Priestess (the word Seior is actually a form of
magic practiced by Norse priestesses and witches) who has come back from the dead by
the will of the Gods, after her village was attacked and raided and she was slaughtered.

Final Evaluation

Overall, in terms of my creative skills and abilities, I know I have the potential to do much
better. Ive made high quality pieces of art before, and I know I can do so again, but Im
severely out of practice with almost every medium and process, however, I know with time
my ability will return (this can be seen to a degree in the progression I have made since
starting the course and now small it may be, its a step in the right direction., certainly). My
main objective and hope is to actually become proficient in modelling and 3D design, but to
compliment this I also want to become much more skilled in the use of Digital Art and
traditional mediums, mainly for the purpose of concepting and drafting ideas which can then
be used to model off.

But, also, as with my evaluation of the finished pieces specifically, I feel that the storyboard,
at eight slides with a level of fleshed out detail in terms of a typed up script, means I can
properly keep Seiors story accurate throughout the creation process for the intro cut scene,
while remaining within the one minute limit for the animation. Seior herself actually
underwent some changes in what I had originally visualised her as while I was making the
turnaround. I had originally intended to give her some heavier armour, such as a leather
jerkin and a sort of bear hide cloak, but while I was creating the turnaround I realised that is
she was as much of an unstoppable force as I had intended, she would have no need for
armour or warmth, so the jerkin was removed from the design and the cloak was
downgraded to a brace with a pelt pauldron, for a mixture of both stylistic choices and the
fact that the brace could be used to carry supplies or equipment.