Hello :)
The last illustration workshop was great fun. Tons of great entries, stuff to learn from and energetic discussion about drawing techniques and ideas. It's been 2 months or so since we did one, and I'd really like to see another one happening sooner rather than later. The saccharine lure of the joy at being part of a group of people all working on creations with the common goal of improving and learning is too tempting for my creative sweet tooth. So, this raises a number of questions:
1. Are people ready for another one? Is it a bad time of year to be holding such an event? Will most people be able to find time in 3 weeks to do another piece again?
2. Is Andail willing to run another one of these workshops for us?
3. Is there a topic we'd like to cover? I know portraits were mentioned last time, and I am personally in favour of a portrait focused illustration workshop, but would also welcome a workshop on, well, basically anything. :)
Interested to hear thoughts!
I'm all for it!
Portraits would be great but any other topic will do fine for me.
I really enjoyed being part and around talented Agsers.
I'm not too much interested in portraits, but I think I might join nontheless. Please wait until after Mittens :)
Yes, I agree that waiting until after Mittens is a good idea, to make sure anybody that goes and wants to participate can join in.
As I said, I'm not biased much more towards portraits than anything else - I'd quite happily do one on characters, forests, cities, anything, really - but I saw someone mention portraits last time, and it's definitely a weak area of mine.
Glad to see some initial interest already.
What about a character design workshop? This could include a portrait, but also the complete figure and considerations about the character's personality, role, look,...
There is this amazing book by Tom Bancroft about this topic.
That's a nice idea. Perhaps a character concept for a video game, even.
I'd love to see it, even if I don't end up participating.
I do need to hone my skills, though, so I might end up joining in.
I haven't taken part before as I'm pretty new around here but I would be interested in taking part! I vote character concept :)
Quote from: ThreeOhFour on Mon 29/07/2013 11:43:06
That's a nice idea. Perhaps a character concept for a video game, even.
I LIIKE the sound of that! Colour me interested!
Yeah, I've thought of starting a new one, but wanted OROW to finish, and also as you say waiting for mittens is probably a good idea.
I'd happily administer it. We can discuss the theme here, and eventually I'll go for whatever seems viable. And fun.
I'm all for a new workshop as well! Character design could be fun, but I feel that it needs to be a tad more particular than that to really spark people's imaginations like it happened last time. "Monster" was a great topic, because it allowed for your imagination to run wild, but at the same time gave a strong enough vector to start thinking things up. We need something similar this time as well, I think. Or maybe we should do it completely differently, either way - I'm onboard with this. :)
First I was thinking a box art workshop - every participant will be given a random game from the Ags database, and the finished result will be something that could work as a box/cover illustration. Then there was a background painting round that used splash screens for a theme (imaginary but still) so I figured it had been done already.
If people don't mind the unoriginality, I really like the idea, because it's s complex design that needs to take style and genres into consideration, as well as more refined versions of the characters, but still everyone has an idea of what such an illustration is all about.
I totally suck a portraits and I'm not that interested in improving on this... but I'm definitely interested in a new workshop. Also backgrounds, from forests over deserts (draw an interesting desert scene!) to megalomaniac cybercities sounds interesting to me.
I agree with Ilyich that a more specific focus than simply "Character design" would be better than a generic idea - specifying something like "Public servant" or whatever would be a great kicker to get ideas more focused.
I like Andail's game cover idea a lot, too, and I'd be sad if we let the splash screen kill this idea. I really love cover art for games and books, and it'd be quite fun to try and interpret a game into a piece of promo art. Great idea!
As for backgrounds, a background workshop would be absolutely cool (like the first one), but I think it'd be fun to focus on stuff we don't usually draw very often for now. There's already a background activity, and while it's not a workshop, there's not really a "Design a character/portrait/box art" activity, so those voids would probably be better to fill first.
I really like the box-art idea too - it's a fun challenge and you can approach it in many ways, which should allow pretty much anyone interested to join in. And I don't think the splash screen blitz is a problem - that one was mostly funny and silly(and awesome :)) and didn't require participants to try and interpret existing characters and worlds, which, I imagine, would be a big part of this one.
Not too sure about assigning random games to people, though. Personally I don't have a problem with it - I know I'll have too hard a time choosing one myself, and I'm willing to draw pretty much anything, but if someone would like to use this opportunity to make a nice cover-art for their own game, or for a game they love, or have some clever idea in regards to a particular game - I'm not sure it would be wise to stop them - it's mostly about challenging ourselves to improve our skills and having fun, not having a fair competition, after all. :)
I love Ilyich idea about specific characters. There's so many possibilities, and it could be set in teams as well. Like lets do Public Servants From Mars on one team VS Public Servants From Australia on another!
Teams would be given colour costumes and they should come up with a "Boss", a "Grunt" and so on...
Or not.
Box art sounds great, too! But I'm with Ilyich, I think everybody should choose themselves which game they want to make the box art for.
Hm, I strongly disagree. I can almost guarantee (trust me as an art teacher here:)) that being given a random game will improve the learning experience vastly, plus I think it makes the competition more fair (no preparations in advance, etc).
Getting another person's game also mimics the experience of being a freelance illustrator, where you don't have a ton of emotional investment in the subject.
I'm also having second thoughts about waiting until after mittens - that's almost 3 weeks away, which means that most (other) people will probably have started working/studying again. Maybe we should get going as soon as possible, and then we could always set the final deadline well after the end of mittens, giving those participants some extra time.
Andail does make a good point about the notion of being a freelancer and being thrust into something you're not 100% familiar with. It's relevancy depends a little on how many participants actually want to do the freelance thing, but it's still relevant to everyone, I guess. I personally quite like the idea of working with a randomly picked game, as daunting as it seems.
That's the thing, though - I sort of am a freelance illustrator (and so is ThreeOhFour, which is why his opinion doesn't matter :P) - I have no problem with painting whatever I'm told, and this approach would make it easier for me, while possibly pushing me out of my comfort zone in an interesting and educational way, but most people have no intention of becoming professional artists(or even not interested in trying out that role), and this is not an art class either - people can come and go as they please. Improving your drawing skills might be a big part of it, but it's still a community activity, and such activities need volunteering participants.
If there's enough people willing(or better - wanting) to participate in it when you get assigned a random game - great, I'm all for it, really, my only concern is whether we'll get enough people so this workshop can end up being as splendid as the last one. :) I'm trying to think from someone else's perspective here, so it's entirely possible that I'm mistaken on several of my assumptions - feel free to disregard the opinion of a person I constructed in my head. ;)
I guess we can also solve some of the problems of random generation by allowing people to re-roll their game until they are willing to participate, although that has it's problems as well :)
Quote from: Ilyich on Tue 30/07/2013 13:41:25
(and so is ThreeOhFour, which is why his opinion doesn't matter :P)
My opinion that "Ilyich is a pretty cool guy" has lost all relevance with this statement. :D
Rather than choosing or assigning a game from the database, I'd be more comfortable with using the Video Game Name Generator (http://videogamena.me/), like a high resolution version of the recent Background Blitz (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=48539.0). I thought that produced some great results.
This way, I wouldn't feel like I was intruding upon someone else's property. It also avoids the risk of designing a cover for a game we may not have played or enjoyed.
This would also allow for us to make something we could use later, should we decide to make the game.
I would like to see a new illustration workshop that focuses on the creation of box art, whether or not it uses random games. That sounds fun.
What I'd like to see more is a three-part game-making "Master Class" focused on character creation that lasts roughly a semester and is guided by experienced adventure game creators from our community, with three projects and a "Final" that polishes and combines all three. I see the three projects being:
Project 1: Character Sheet -- Format can either be loosely prescribed or strictly decided by whomever guides this section. This is both a write-up of the character, their various qualities and history, along with some sketches to demonstrate their look. Emphasis here is as much on storytelling as visual illustration.
Project 2: Portrait -- This gets down the basic look of the character's head n' shoulders mug shot, and works toward visualizing both the physical and personality traits identified in Project 1.
Project 3: Model Sheet -- This would be a 360 turnaround of the character, ala animation model sheets. This gives a full head-to-toe view of the character, and a demonstration of how they'd look in an actual game.
Final Project: All of the above, with modifications to reflect communal feedback, plus a left-to-right walk cycle.
As I've structured it, the trajectory goes from conceptualization to visualization to actualization. I think this sort of thing shouldn't have a prescribed subject, ala the Monsters Workshop, but should be open to whatever participants see fit. That way, at the end, they'd have a fully-fledged character that could serve as the anchor of a new game.
I'll go with Eric's ideas. Looks really cool to do.
Wow I love Erics idea, I would love to take part in that! I'm not sure using someone elses random game is a good idea.
I like Eric's idea, although it's a pretty big project. I wonder if we shouldn't do a couple more smaller workshops first before we dive so heavily into the deep end. A great idea, though.
Why not make a workshop for each of Eric's topics?
Well, aye, but it's still a huge project when you look at it split up. :)
True, but one week should be enough to design a character sheet, another one for a close up portrait and so on...
It doesn't look that ambitious or a huge project. A month-long workshop it would be. But maybe I'm wrong and not really getting the difficulty of it.
I'm not personally interested in a character workshop, and spending a whole semester on one character is just not realistic (nor necessary). But if that's what people want to do, I'll just wait with my box art idea.
Eric's idea is great, but very ambitious. It's a very large undertaking.
Personally, I'm still into the idea of randomly generated game box art.
Yep, Eric's idea is great, too great for me to participate, but I'll surely watch this ...
Quote from: Andail on Wed 31/07/2013 14:15:19I'll just wait with my box art idea.
I was going to send this privately, but I may as well do it publicly -- I didn't mean to offer my pitch as a replacement for yours, or be dismissive, but going back and reading what I wrote, that's what it sounded like. And I also sound like a bit of an ass. I'm sorry for this!
Instead of saying "What I'd like to see
more," what I should have said was "What I'd like to see
eventually." I didn't wind up participating in the monster jam, because, while I would have enjoyed the communal critique, monsters aren't applicable to the projects on which I'm working, and so any time spent on that would have meant time away from my other stuff. I also would like to see more connection between the workshops and game making. I enjoyed the emphasis on storytelling that grew out of the monster work, but I don't think that was necessarily embedded from the beginning.
My proposal aimed to marry the craft of illustration with other concerns of game creation, and I anticipate the box art workshop would raise similar concerns of "It's not enough to draw a pretty picture, because that picture also needs to effectively represent the people/situation/story/emotion of the game." You're also probably correct that a semester is too long -- I'm currently working on my syllabi for the fall, so I'm in semester / three projects and a final thought mode.
Again, sorry if I came off as a jerk! I'm a big fan of your work, and
Samaritan Paradox is top of the list for me as far as my most-anticipated AGS games go. Please don't hate me!
Little late to the thread, but just wanted to say that I absolutely loved the last workshop. Great learning experience and made me push myself in ways I hadn't before. Strictly portraits doesn't really interest me too much, but I love all the concepts being discussed here (box art for random AGS games, character design...) I'ma take a back seat in this thread and watch the awesome idea development unfold.
Eric, relax, we're just voicing opinions here, why would I be upset? If anything, I was the one sounding a bit harsh when I dismissed your master class proposal :)
Let's keep throwing around suggestions, and on Saturday I'll get something started up.
Glad to hear it!
I'll be happy to join in whatever you decide. I do love portraits, btw!
A random game from the AGS list sounds better to me than the random name generator. The results are always too extravagant and we'll end up mocking the title.
Quote from: cat on Mon 29/07/2013 11:20:13
I'm not too much interested in portraits, but I think I might join nontheless. Please wait until after Mittens :)
Er yeah - what she said... :smiley:
Okay, I've gone ahead and fired up a workshop. I didn't exactly compromise very much on my initial idea, but hey, we can do the portrait thing next time :)
Also, about Mittens - do check out the Mittens clause.
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=48770.msg636463932#new