Project Proposal 26/01/2018

Final Year Project Proposal
26/01/2018


Introduction
The “Hearthland” project is a design for a fantasy, open world, exploration, role-playing video
game. I will produce an art book that includes a selection of various landscape, character and
prop designs to demonstrate the style and atmosphere of this game.
Hearthland is set in a province of a world of mountainous topography with natural hot springs,
extensive grasslands, deep forests and luminescent caves. The theme is to be based on the
Viking Age, including fantasy elements (a world with magic, mythical creatures, etc.).
I chose this project, since I believe it would be a great way to practice drawing various designs
and show my potential future employers what I am able to produce. A vast majority of my past
projects were mainly focused on characters, so I have decided to accentuate the environments
in this project, whilst still including plenty of character, creature and item designs. I am sure
this project will help me grow as an artist and I will enjoy the entire process at the same time.


Deliverables
I will produce an art book and submit a physical copy of the work (a printed art book and
two CDs with a PDF version). I will include development pages to show the process of
character design and creation, based on their gender, age, personality and origin. There
will also be several creature designs, items (such as weapons, accessories,...), and finally
a variety of environment designs - from snow capped mountains to deep caves, based on
real life locations with a touch of otherworldly ambience.
I will create a set of various final images to evoke the sense of scale and immersion.


Style
The design will be predominantly based on various photographs and documentaries about
Iceland and Scandinavia, historical illustrations of Vikings. It will also be inspired by films
and video games such as Ice Age, How To Train Your Dragon, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,
The Elder Scrolls Online, Ori and the Blind Forest, Fable III and Monster Hunter: World and
their concept art.
My plan is to use various media, such as traditional drawings using traditional media for the
sketches and digital illustration and painting using one of the Wacom tablets in the university
labs. I will be mainly using Adobe PhotoShop for the digital images. My stretch goal is to
potentially animate a few of the final images in Adobe After Effects.


Inspiration: Concept Art for The Elder Scrolls Online by Jeremy Fenske
Gameplay
As I have mentioned above, Hearthlands will be a fantasy exploration game. Played in first
person, it will be very immersive with a great sense of epicness. Since it is an open world,
there will be a number of main quest lines and plenty of side quests, but the player can decide in what order they are going to complete them.
Schedule
I have put together a project plan to help me with time management and to ensure all the tasks have been completed.
Proposal
06/02/2018

Project Planning
6th February
Vision and goals, conceiving the structure of a game, basic story line
Research, Start blog
8th February
Producing moodboards, gathering resources
Initial Environment Sketches
(Update blog)
12th February
Rough environment thumbnails and sketches, discovering different colour variations
Initial Character and Creature Sketches
(Update blog)
19th February
Character design, tools, weapons, fantasy creatures
Environment Development
(Update blog)
5th March
Forest, mountain, cave, village designs
Character Development
(Update blog)
12th March
Various designs regarding the characters’ attributes
Creature Development
(Update blog)
19th March
Further creature development
Review
26th March
Review progress, update blog, look back and analyse any potential mistakes
Character Design Final
(Update blog)
2nd April
Produce polished images of the character designs
Creature Design Final
(Update blog)
9th April
Produce final images of the creature designs
Environment Design Final
(Update blog)
23rd April
(if time permits, animate some elements)
Review
30th April
A look back at the project, final touches and edits
Put Together PDF
30th April
Create pages to match the theme, add descriptions (use blog as a guidance)
Art Book
7th May
Printed Art book
Deadline
11/05/2018
Turn in Artifact, Final Report


Initial Sketches
References


  1. ^ Ice Age, 2002 [film], Directed by Chris Wedge, Carlos Saldanha (co-director), Blue Sky Studios, 20th Century Fox, United States
  2. ^ How To Train Your Dragon, 2010  [film], Directed by Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois, DreamWorks Animation, Paramount Pictures, United States
  3. ^ The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, 2011 - 2017 [video game], Directed by Todd Howard, Bethesda Game Studios, Bethesda Softworks, United States, Canada
  4. ^ The Elder Scrolls Online, 2014 [video game], Directed by Matt Firor, Zenimax Online Studios, Bethesda Softworks, United States
  5. ^ Ori and the Blind Forest, 2015 [video game], Directed by Thomas Mahler, Moon Studios, Microsoft Studios, Austria
  6. ^ Fable III  (2010 - 2011)  [video game], Lionhead Studios, Microsoft Game Studios, United Kingdom
  7. ^ Monster Hunter: World (2018)  [video game], Directed by Yuya Tokuda, Capcom, Japan

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