reflection

1. Production Reflection
Andrew Downes

2. Process Central Character
• I made some fan art at the start which took a long time to draw. I started with how the image should
be laid out and used the triangles that I found during my research (Page 71 Imagine FX March 2019)
to locate where the heads of my characters should be and then I started with the midgets head
which is the central character compared to the other two characters it took ages to sort out what
sort of clothes he was going to wear so I finally went with a kind of suit and a cloak on his back he
also had a sort of neck kerchief I also drew him an axe which was the most complicated part of the
drawing out of the midget was the cloak by far as it was a pain to show where the arms were and
how big or small they were also the bumps from the side of the cloaks which were going to be for
the arms protruding to show the arm bending back however I had to get rid of the arm like that and
make it look as if his arms are close to his sides. The other things I had to change multiple times are
the shoes the cloak and the face design. The shoes were difficult because feet are difficult to draw
anyway and then you also have to take perspective into account and so for the right shoe it used to
look like the left shoe but to make it look different and good from a perspective point of view I had
to make it look as if it were hidden behind a rock which looks alright but could have been made
better with more time and as for the cloak again the main issue was making it look tattered and well
used and the clouds that I added in at the end kind of helped with making the cloak look slightly
more mucky. Then it was time to do the face. I wanted to make it feel like a mystery as to who or
what he was and so I made it so you could only see the outlines of the eyes and the rest is either
black or grey to change with the lighting and there are splodges of light areas which is just to show
that it is alive and does have a set skin colour and you can also see that through the goggle kind of
design around the eyes. Then there is the final correction to the image that I made was to change
the arms into a kind of belt that he wears around the stomach/ chest area to hoist the axe up higher
than if it were attached to the belt which as its own intricate design.

3. Process Right Character
• When I had finished with the design of the central character I moved onto the character on the
right which is the first character design to use construction lines the idea that I had for the
character on the right and what I wanted him to be was a knight being a righteous, valiant and that
sort of thing and so I decided to have him be part of the knights of the Templar cross as they were a
well known knights group who were mainly made up of religious Christians which yet again adds
more to the characters story ( This was also an idea I took from an Imagine FX magazine and it has
been told to me in books and even some exhibitions such as the V and A museum video games
exhibition). When I had come up with the idea it was easy to say that he was going to be the clean
and tidy one but the deign came from the video game assassin’s creed deviating from those designs
where I added the chainmail and the arm straps and belts the only detail I think I should have
added was the small circlets to make up the actual chainmail but as it looks now it kind of just looks
like shaded clothe. I added the belt there to make the separation of where the torso and the legs
meet and as for the arm straps they are there just in case I wanted to put a weapon on his back
however I think it is made better by the fact at how he doesn’t have a sword and the only other
complaint I have about the character on the right is the fact at how the shoes are larger than the
ankle and makes the legs look slightly awkward and at the very end of this character I added the
arm creases to the chainmail to make look as if that was the point where the elbow was and so the
most movement in the arm for this character would come from there. One last thing that made the
drawing slightly more difficult was the fact at how instead of using a normal belt with a rectangular
buckle I used a circular buckle and so that is why the belt comes down and out towards the right
leg.

4. Process Left Character
• When I was done with the character on the right I went onto the character on the
left which also used construction lines which is pretty much the exact same outline
just with a massive amount of clothing design this character was supposed a
mercenary or assassin which was to be in keeping with the rest of the design to
make them all kind of feel as if they should all be opposing each other however
they are sticking together for some odd reason such as they could be fighting
something together for instance but the character on the left is supposed to be
the kind of character that is ready for anything shown by the utility belt and also
the shoulder strap with even more storage and then there are other belts and
straps which were going to either be for covering wounds and some of the others
were to make it look like he could be carrying swords and weapons on his back.
The character on the left also has a sort of dog tag with a key attached to it around
his neck and then there is black leather shoulder armour. Then there is the arm
bracers which were slightly difficult to draw as I needed to leave enough space for
the thread to be seen which you can see but it is difficult and then there was the
gloves which was the most difficult bits and then there are the elbow cut outs to
show where the movement would be and also there is a tight cloak to this
character and the one last big design I added was the belt with the holes and the
stripes and yet again it has the same problem as the character on the right which is
the shoe is bigger than the shin.

5. Process of the background 1
• It was based around a dark grey background and I drew the rock show that
they were the main characters and also to give them a pedestal to make
them seem taller and bigger than everything else in this scene, I then also
reused the triangles to create a design above the heads to make a centre
and it also creates some separation lines for the text which is “Skyrim”
and “Become Your Character” then I had also created the sides of the
cavern it is based in and the hole in the roof was made with layers of
different colours and also used Gaussian blur to create the feeling that
there is a light source near by and it is mainly there for the mist to escape
through the roof or whatever the hole is. The mists were made from
clouds and using the curves tool and made them a greenish blue and lead
them up to the hole and around the pedestal I used a png image of
jormungandr and I used the perspective tool to make it look as if it was
moving around the pedestal and I traced it with a red colour and also
rubbed out the bits around the characters. Also the light source is coming
from the side which is facing the characters. Also there is the same sort of
shading on each and every character apart from the midget who has
almost no shadow apart from the one which is made on the rock.

6. Process Front Cover
• At the very start of the Front Cover I found a picture of the main character of Skyrim and I added
both a colour gradient and a mask. The colour gradient was to make a blue tinge to the mist sort of
cloud and I used the used the mask to add a bit more shading to the arms and also to the
background with the intricate design. I then made the decision to move the Skyrim picture down
and coloured in the top area black and added a white stripe at the top of it, to then put the title (
which I had ended up changing from the proposal to RISING WARS) of the magazine underneath it I
used the Copperplate Gothic Bold Regular and it didn’t look quite right so added another white line
underneath the title and it started to look like an actual magazine cover. Then I had moved down to
the bottom of the magazine cover and added a bar code which was just found on the internet then
I went onto the writing which the poster already had and so I covered it up with a circle from the
shape tool which I changed the colour to fit in with the shaded parts of the rock and then also
decided to use it to put in an issue number I put the* because I didn’t know where to find the hash
tag and I didn’t want to use NO. as it seems to me to be a bit over used and I used the font
Copperplate Gothic Light Regular to write it. Then I added the subheadings of what is in the
magazine and the font used for the subheadings was Copperplate Gothic Bold Regular and then for
the smaller bits of information underneath the subheadings I used different fonts each time so with
the World of Warcraft subheading there was the font Cochin Bold Italic, for the Mass Effect 3 one
there was the Chaparral Pro Bold Italic and as for the game reviews I used Corbel Regular and the
last few details I added was a World of Warcraft logo without its black background and I also used a
mass effect 3 poster and added a black boarder to it to make it stand out a bit more.

7. Process Double Page Spread
• For the start of the Double Page Spread I found two more images to
do with the elder scrolls game Skyrim all of which I used the grey
colour gradient and the masks to make the images much darker one
was a dragon in the bottom left and there is an image of the main
character of Skyrim the Dragon Born which is on the right and I
added some shading for them both however there is only one
picture which wasn’t edited which was the mountains in the
background which was a random jpeg which just tied into the
Skyrim aesthetic and then there is the fan art that I made and
talked about at the start. Then there are the boxes The first one was
for the title of the double page spread which is silver and black and
the title used the font Darks Skyrim Font in black. Then there are
the two boxes containing the review the boxes are black one on the
left hand side and one on the far right hand side both using the
same font which was the minion pro in small writing to make it all
fit into the boxes but there is a hyphen.