Status update: A quick brainfart

**just a quick brainfart about the new direction of my project. I'm going to make it even more practical, since after talking to Corne it seems like the only way to go**

Notion #1: I've always been very interested in the applications of other creative fields. I think this is because of my background in graphic design which I take to the creative realm of games. Especially in my school projects I've always tried to give the games something special, a kind of visual flair not often found in games.  

Notion #2: Because games are still a very young medium, I think there is still a lot to be learned from these older, more well established fields. 

Notion #3: As a game artist, I think it is always relevant to inform your work with different influences. Too many game artists wear their influences too much on their sleeves and don't stray too far from the beaten paths of the standardized fantasy and sci-fi clichés. 

Notion #3: Thanks to the rise of the digital medium a very interesting development has occurred; The tools that all these creative mediums use are the same. The borders seem to get vaguer with every technological leap. 

Notion #4: The thing that separates them are the different design approaches they apply. Is there anything between these different approaches that can be interesting for the game artist? And if so, how do they translate to games? 

Notion #5: So for this thesis I delved in to the different design approaches of the animation field, the graphic design field, children's book and illustration. 

For this project I will create a character and design it for these different media. By researching these different approaches I hope to find a way to inform my current game design skills and see if there is any overlap between these fields. 

Notion #6: The reason I'm focusing on characters is because they are common in all these media. It's also easier to research the different approaches concerning character design, because they are present in all these medias. 

Let's take some archetypes from games and see if I can design them for these different fields, each with their own approach and techniques. What happens to the character hopping across these different fields and how does this influence the design process?

A crucial phone call

Hi there! Last night I had a very long but very helpful and informative phone call with one of my best mates, Joeri van Ees. I can now truly say that I have a better idea and direction of where I want to take this final project. Yes it took some time, but hey these things don't come easily.

Instead of focusing on culture, which seemed like the focus during my last presentation (and it is pretty vague), I now want to focus on doing research on how to design for games and animation and what the (assumed) differences are between the practices of these two related creative fields. I mean, what happens when you leave out the interactive aspect with the whole design process?

This may seem a bit coming out of left-field, but thinking about it makes sense to me. Before I came to the HKU I did an education in Games and Animation, with an emphasis on the latter. At that time I thought it was not my thing, but these last years my interests have shifted back (again). Seeing Mac 'N Cheese, a project by some 3rd Year animation students made me realize how much potential there is on our school. Why are we not working together? There is a huge amount of knowledge over there which I think can also be very useful to us game artists.

Cheers,

Tom