Honours Project Portofolio - the process & final piece of art

Final poster for honours project.

After changing the research question and aim of the honours project through out the year, the final aim was to visually communicate character and theme through environment design. Once the aims and objectives were laid out i came up a set of criteria to research to carry out an exploration in environment design. It started broad and narrowed down to a short aim, as seen on the aims and objectives page. The research question came about by creating a jellyfish of ideas to ask questions i want to find out about and then looked for themes or words that came up over and over again. By doing this i was able to set activities for myself, for example reading on environment design and watching films to study.

Jellyfish of questions

I was mainly interested in environment design for film and also storytelling and was inspired by old buildings, especially the run down ones that look as though no one lives there. I think this was due to seeing an old derelict building and not knowing what it was or the type of people who belonged there so people make up their story and start to wonder what kind of place this was and why it now the way it is. I was in Barcelona and went to see Gaudi's famous building that was never finished called 'Sagrada Familia' and was fascinated by the shape and detail on it and tells the story of Jesus. This was an inspiration to create my own environment to tell a story but as the project developed i realized i was trying to convey theme more and did not really need a story as i wanted to create an old run down building. The idea needed developed more so i could make progress so after getting feedback in presentations i was able to go and think about the criteria i was to study and get some knowledge on each theory. The theories i studied were colour, light, texture and composition. This helped to develop an understanding of production design and was able to start doing media tests after the reading. 

I started to study films more and started a case study on Finding Nemo but never finished it as i realized it didn't relate to my project at all because the colour and light used was for underwater scenes where as i was not doing anything with water.

Photographs were a huge part of the project as i took my own photos of buildings to get ideas for shape and what i could include in my art work. They were useful for looking at colour and light and also took photos for textures such as walls, the ground, and wood.

After studying films and photographs and taking notes from books on theories it was then possible to create some media tests to practice with light because i had not done much work with lighting before. I am not happy with the first media tests created in semester one due to the fact they don't relate to my project, it mainly shows i was practicing with light rather than test each theory. I feel like they could have been improved if i had spent more time on them and tested each theory  instead of jumping into the project too soon because my idea wasn't finalised i just started making things to test out which does not show any theory or why i practiced with lights. However once the assets were made for the final idea i started to test them with texture and as shown on the issues page i had some troubles with texturing and had to look up tutorials on it as i did not know as much as i thought i did. Once the environment started to be composited i put some lights in and tried to create a believable day scene, one being a bright sunny day for the positive theme and one being a cloudy dull day for the negative theme, these tests were a great help in looking at how my lighting was not natural and needed changed and how it affected the colours in the scene as the bright light drained the colours and made them too bright they were almost white in some cases, like on the grass.
After some testing the final piece of art started to come together.

Instead of the Finding Nemo case study I chose to do one on 'The Incredibles' and one on 'Despicable Me'. It was interesting to see how different studios showed villains and how they used colour and light differently. Looking over the write up of them i tried to apply what i learnt in my work.

This is final render of the respected and cared for theme. There is depth of field applied to the camera, the background buildings are slightly out of focus but i feel they could be more out of focus to emphasize they are in the background so they don't distract the viewer. I also feel the grass a bit bright but i had problems with this due to the lighting. The toys in the garden aren't as noticeable as i had hoped they would be. However i am happy with the overall look of it as the textures show up well, they are not too harsh but still make it believable as a house. I like the wooden fence as the knots in the wood can be seen, i spent a lot of time in Photoshop making sure they would be seen on the model. I think the environment does show that the characters who belong here are tidy, they look after their house and garden. There are blinds and curtains up in the windows the the toys are carefully placed in the garden, for example the scooter is leaning against the wall and the football is clean and the doll is lying at the door as if she has only just been left there a short while waiting to be brought inside. The lighting creates the afternoon effect, it is bright and creates a hard edges shadow behind the house but it could be improved by not having the circle of the spot light so harsh to the left of the house.

This is final render of the neglected and deprivation theme. The depth of field was not changed for this scene as the focus should be on the house, the background buildings are the same as the respected theme. As mentioned there were issues with the light and the grass making appear bright so after adjusting the lights this was the best i could do with the grass but it could have been toned down a bit more but still gives the idea it is dead and overgrown. The toys in this scene are noticeable which is what i wanted, the doll has been left outside and has been drawn on and missing an arm,a leg and an eye. This was important to create when modelling her even though it is not noticed. Also the scooter is rusty, has chunks of foam taken out the handles and is dirty, this isn't as noticeable either so if there was more time i would have used different camera angles to show them. I am happy with the overall look of the house though, i like the smashed window, the dirty ones and the one the bottom is boarded up. the house is distorted showing it is falling to pieces and there is a crack in the wall above the door. The door is broken, its slightly distorted and the paint work is peeling off. the fence shows the garden is neglected as it is broken, there's panels missing, some have fallen off and never been repaired or picked up and there is moss growing on it. The toys show the kids neglect them and the family is deprived as they don't fix their house or look after it.

Although there were technical problems throughout the project i enjoyed the experience and i am proud of my work. There are improvements which could be made as stated but i have learned a lot from the research project and