Tom Batty created a fanzine reviewing the Gears of War video game franchise. He provided background information on each game and shared his personal experiences and reviews. He included several images that he edited using various Photoshop effects to relate to the game's themes. The fanzine's design utilized the franchise's black and red color scheme. Tom felt he improved his layout and design skills but could have planned page content better. Overall, he was pleased with his work and learning experience.

1. Evaluation
Tom Batty

2. Type of content
The types of content I involved in my work that I used was my own personal reviews on the subject I had chose. I
gave a brief description on the background of the subject for those who don’t know much about the content I was
speaking upon. I mentioned the release, who made it and which platform you could access the content on. After
that I moved onto the campaign and the basics of the storyline within each game I spoke about. I did this because
not every who could possibly read my Fanzine will know about the franchise and hopefully help the reader
understand the carnage within each game. Also I see this as an advertisement to help build the community more
and get the game out there because compared to other gaming communities it isn't the biggest. After mentioning
that introduction I gave off my own personal experiences and reviews of each game. Talking about graphics and
how well the game worked and ran as a whole.
I repeated this process for three games and a side subject relating to the content I have placed in my Fanzine.

3. When it comes to to the imagery I used in my Fanzine, I had gathered a lot my own images by just playing the
games and recording them but with some complications I was inly able to use a few of the images I had collect. So,
unfortunately I had to retrieve some more images off the internet just help myself proceed through production.
But with all the images, I used what skills I had gained from Photoshop to make some really nice designs that
elevated my work massively. I wanted to add some effects that almost related to each game, for example for Gears
of War 3 its based in a desert/post apocalyptic waste land, so with the images I added some cracking affects to
give it that broken down crusty look.
I managed to do different styled effects for each
topic I covered and each effect varied in how
simple or complicated they were to replicate. All
the effects came out just how I wanted to and
even though they varied in difficulty they were all
equally as impressive.

4. Design
When it comes down to the design of my Fanzine, the colour
scheme I used was linking with the franchise I chose. The
primary colours or colours related with the franchise are black
and red mainly with a small bit blue. But The main colours are
simply black and red so I wanted to keep the same scheme
throughout all of my Fanzine because I wanted to have some
professional feel to my work to help its presentation. I left the
background of each page black just like the front cover and I
chose to do this because I felt that it would suit the whole
design better and help everything stand out more. I kept every
title and masthead with the same colour scheme and font
throughout because I felt that it suited in with what I was
going for. The colours I used for the titles and mastheads was
red but to add in a bit of variety and make it seem less bland I
added in an outer glow of the colour orange and it fit in
perfectly. I again used the same font for the titles and
mastheads because I actually managed to find the official font
that the game uses, which was perfect and helped my work
massively.

5. The font I used when writing all my text and information was a font called ‘Travelling Typewriter’. When I found the
font, I knew straight away it would fit well within my work because it gives off that feeling of when I first played each
campaigns and throughout the games it is used on collectables and small notes through playing. I kept the colour of
this font mainly white to help contrast well with the black background. But to add in some variety and to make my text
seem less eye pleasing I changed one block of text to the colour red. It keeps with my colour scheme and also in
my opinion it contrasts well with the all of my pages.
When it comes down to my text and image ratio, I feel
that over al I could have done better but on some pages I
think I had recovered form my problem and made
everything look decent. This comes down to me not taking
into consideration of how much would actually fit on each
page. When I was writing up everything that I was going
to involve on each page of my Fanzine, I was focussed on
writing enough to fill each page. So I wrote up to atleast
500 words but never even thought about how it would all
fit around the images I was adding. So it came down to a
lot of last minute changes but I managed to get everything
to work.

6. Subject and Context
I have briefly mentioned what my Fanzine it about and what I have covered but not in much detail. The topic I have
covered the Gears of War. I have spoken about the second Gears, third and fourth game. Then to finish it all off I
spoke upon the Esports side of Gears 4. When speaking about each game, I gave some context behind who made it,
when it was made and what platform you can access the game. After giving that brief description, I proceed to give
a quick run through or idea of each story line and what happens but trying to not give too much away for those who
may want to play the game. To finish off each game, I gave my own honest opinions on each game. Ranging from
how much I enjoyed the game all the way to the graphics, how well the game plays, in game activities and in game
content such as microtransactions.
I personally felt that I have a decent
amount of knowledge on the
subjects but obviously not on a level
of someone who worked on the
game. But when I spoke about the
Esports I only really gave my own
knowledge on what happens. Such as
tournaments, teams and in came in
game content linked with the
professional team within Gears
of War 4. I felt like adding this
section in just to add in some variety
to my Fanzine and maybe for ever
may happen to read it, help give it a
lot more attention.

7. The context in which my Fanzine was created, was just during lesson time and only during class time. This is down
to the fact that all the resources I needed were during time in the classroom and at home I don’t have Photoshop
or anything on my laptop to help me. But I still see this as a upside because at college I can ask for help when I
get stuck.

8. Reflection
When it comes down to any new skills that I had learnt through this process, I wanted to add in a variety of new effects to
my imaging and style of layout. By doing this I felt that I was advancing my talents and skills which will eventually give
myself a high standard of work. So for every image I used, I varied the effects. I have already mentioned and shown off
one style of effect before and that design gives the image a nice cracking or aged look to it. Even though that design gives
off a really nice effect, it was also very simple and easy to create on Photoshop. All it involved was a clipping mask of
some cracked up wall or floor and then mess with the opacity to your own liking. The masthead was probably one of the
more enjoyable and satisfying to make. I say this because of how many steps it took and how the end product came out. It
came out a lot better then I thought it would have, this then let it fit into my Fanzine perfectly. Also on the front cover I
added two characters from the Gears of War series and added in my own unique style to them. I did this because again
they were images off google so it gave me a chance to get creative. I coloured one red and the other blue because those
are the colours linked in with them both. To give them a more unique style I went through some different image effects
and found the perfect ones.
Now going back into the Fanzine and the
other designs I created. The first style I used
was a thought I had from my
previous knowledge of Photoshop but I had
never created or attempted to try this effect.
It only involves the Marquee tool, layer via
copy. Once selecting a segment of an image I
layer via copied it and repeated that along
the whole image. Once doing that hide the
original image and then I just moved the
segments up and down giving off a small 3D
style effect and a last little touch I just added
an outer glow. I slightly copied this again
further down the line but didn’t move the
segments and just changed the colours of
each different segment.

9. Moving onto the next effect I added in. With this one I wanted to try something gory and more relatable to my topic
then the other designs. So I found a slashing/cut effect and to be honest I feel like it came out better then I thought it
would have. This was a combination of a dark long cut in tree bark, clipping mask, blending tools, polygon lasso and
paint brush. Get the tree bark on the image and use the clipping mask, blend and fade the free bark till a black shade,
cut out a small part of the tree bark shape from the edge so it looks like a cut and finally to finish it off select a dark
shade of red to paint around the edges to give off a bloody effect. The third last effect I tried out was a 3D glitching
effect. This one effect was probably the best out of all my effect used personally just because of how nice the effect
comes out and how eye pleasing it is. It involved three layers of the same image, Marquee tool and blending options.
As a I mentioned, first duplicate the first image and change that one to black and white, then duplicate that layer, go
into blending options to deselect the red colour for it, then move that layer slightly to the right or left and that will
then give you that classic 3D cinema effect. Once I had that, I added on top a image of scan lines and lowering the
opacity so it fades in nicely. Finally to finish off the masterpiece, I used the marquee tool to move segments of the
image to give that glitchy look. I used this effect about three times and that due to the fact I enjoyed the way it looks
and how well it advanced my work.
My final effects, these were some nice and easy
image and all it involved was the clipping mask,
I got some page tearing marks and just place
image inside of image but it came out really
well and gave me some more creativity to my
Fanzine. Then with the other one I just used the
paint brush to go around the edges of
weapons, using a variety of colours. Once
finishing the outlines I added a nice glowing
effect.
Overall with the images I ran into some image
problems where I didn’t like the way they
looked so it was a lot of trial and error but got
there in the end. I also feel like I've pushed
myself slight more then my last project with the
amount of effect I've added, but for next time I
might try some more challenging effect rather

10. I felt like I have kept to my usual self and worked really hard throughout this project. I am very pleased with how all
my work has come out. With my content I placed inside, I'm pleased with it but also annoyed that I had to remove
some of it due to my poor planning this time round. I didn’t take into consideration how I would fit all my text
and images onto the same page, so that’s why some of the pages come across as cramped. So for next time I have
really learnt and understand the importance of planning and not to make silly mistakes during planning. I felt like I've
improved my print skills though with design and content which has really advanced my work. As well as more
progress towards interviews. I know better ways of writing up the interviews and how to get more effective answers.
By doing this I know that it makes it more of an interesting read and shows off more talent in my work.
Even though I made some silly mistakes, I still feel that I'm making some really good progress and advancing my
media skills further and hopefully I keep going with the remaining projects.