Ba6: Specialism

Ba6 is entitled "Specialism", this is where i can choose the direction i want to go in the games industry, based on my experiences inside and outside of my course from the past two years.

When i applied at NUA, my only interest and learning goal was become a concept artist. I wanted to improve my skills at 2D art, particularly digital art. I came from a traditional, fine art background. I had painted allot in oil, acrylic and various mixes of different mediums.

(an oil painting of mine using an impasto technique)

 I started to become interested in figurative works, i loved the fluidity of organic forms, and the human body in particular, i started to produce character concept art using hard outlines with an ink wash. my use of this technique was inspired by the art of illustrator Quentin Blake, who was a childhood hero of mine, and later by the concept art of James (Hawkprey) Hawkins, as well as the general use of line art in anime. 
It was this interest in figure that pulled my interest towards exploring those forms 3D. i felt like exploring these forms in 3d would be just an interesting direction to take my art. For my portfolio (as part of my application to NUA's ( then NUCA) Games Art and Design course i experimented with a couple of both clay and wire figure studies, as well as more character and creature concept artwork.

During my time on the course I have so far avoided working in the areas i feel most comfortable in so that i can push myself artistically and expand my skill-set, though i did work on creature concept art as part of my work for Ba4. I now feel that i am at a point  (and this has quite happily coincided with my specialism project) that i can push and develop in an area that i am really passionate about.

This is ultimately how i have come to choose to keep my "specialism" broad, in the sense that i don't want to limit myself to specialising in either 2D or 3D, i have chosen to embrace both. my specialism, for this project at least then will look at figurative art within game design. By this  mean that the subject of my work and my specialism, will be the form of either a human or animal. As apposed to specialising to become a landscape/ environment artist by designing  inanimate object or vehicles. 

Since i have started this course i have often considered my specialty to be character and creature design, though i haven't had the opportunity that i would have liked to show that. When it comes to 3D design, up until now i have been leaning the basics of 3D modelling, where it has been easier to learn the fundamentals with less organic shapes. It will be good to to tackle character and creature design as my specialty, even if i am still experimenting with 2D and 3D tools.