Thursday 13 December 2012

Halo Magazine pages


This is the article I have chosen, it is about the new art look on the Master Chief in Halo 4. It is written how they went through different steps and many changes to get it how it is now. I cut out an image of the Master Chief and decided to have him expanding on to both pages. I then outlined him to place the text around his image. Originally i had it go everywhere but decided to use the negative space on the second page to only have the part of the title, the  quote and the page number. I decided on the Bangle MN font for the article writing, Courier for the quote, Ayuthaya for the page number and Bangle Sangam MN for the magazine name. I downloaded the Halo 4 font for the title and the XBOX 360 font for where it says XBOX 360 at the bottom right of the second page. At first I had a completely black background but then I chose to split it with an almost white background on the second page to create a half and half feel but still have it connected by the colour of the writing.

Article


How Master Chief Got His New Look

Halo 4 artist talks to IGN about the Chief’s new design.

Gabriel Garza (aka Robogabo) has spent the last four years drawing pictures of scabrous aliens, painting lush azure cosmic sunsets, journeying into realms of sci-fi imagination. But his most important job has been to touch-up this fella....
Halo 4 is more than merely a new episode in Master Chief’s story. It’s a new start. And while the super-soldier has always undergone cosmetic dibs and dabs during his Bungie years, 343 Industries understood that the time had come to look again at every inch of his armor suit and see what could be tweaked.
“It's a very organic process,” says Garcia. “We wanted to bring something new, but at the same time, stay true to Halo, all the past elements from other designs. There were no set rules.”
So how did he spruce up John-117? Turns out, it’s a long process of zooming in and out of the character, of rejigging details and seeing how they work within the whole, of collaborations and meetings and U-turns out of dead-ends.“I began with Master Chief’s iconic qualities. The visor, the color, certain shapes in the armor. The little shoulder things he has in the back. Once I had that, I would just do a lot of sketches, 20 or 30 sketches.
“We'd go to a meeting and I'd get feedback from [art director] Kenneth Scott. He’d say, ‘I like this one, I like the feet on this other one...’ I'd combine all that together and do 10 more. Show those sketches. Then they'd pick two out of those and I'd do five more, and so on.
“So after starting with 20, we'd end up with maybe three. Of those three we'd choose one and I'd polish it up, bringing it to a certain level where everyone could understand the different parts of it. How the hands look, the feet, the shoulders. Then I'd take one part at a time, the hand for example, and detail it all the way to the fingertips.”
The prime directive was evolution. “I would say it's a more mature look, but at the same time we're as close we can to past Halos. We had a couple of buzzwords when we were designing the Master Chief. Words like ‘tank’, ‘heavy, ‘tough’. When you think ‘tank’, there are certain colors, types of materials, reflectivity. That helped me to take the Master Chief to another level.”
He believes that character-design should contribute to the telling of the game’s story, which is everyone’s responsibility, including writers, modelers and animators. “Even before we started all this, we were trying to have everybody become a Halo expert. Read all the books, play all the games, just get all the way into the universe. People on the team would say to us, ‘it'd be cool if the Chief could do this or that’. So I would change his shoulder in a certain way so he could do that particular movement.”
Garcia has always aimed himself at designing game characters like Master Chief and aliens like the Prometheans. He began his career knocking out infographics and maps for a newspaper in Mexico, before moving to the U.S and beginning work in video games. When he met with Scott, he jumped at the chance to work on Halo.
So what are his tips for aspiring game artists? He says, “Draw every day. Then you can start to worry about getting together a portfolio. Make sure your portfolio is focused on the kind of things you want to be doing. My portfolio at first would be focused on getting into any game company to do concept art. Once I got there, what's my next goal? To do a game that's science fiction. So I'd do a new portfolio with just science fiction pieces. It takes time. It's not easy. It's just practice and never giving up.”
More images now available in the coffee-table book Awakening: The Art of Halo 4.


Thursday 6 December 2012

Brodovitch inspiration



I like the way the writing has similarity to the image on the left. It creates a flow and familiarity which can attract the attention of the reader by visual interest and make them want to read the article ten more. In my article i plan to do something similar but with the opposite effect with the writing. Instead of the writing copying the image, I will use the negative space as the image and the writing will flow around it.

Thursday 15 November 2012


The o's have o's. This is a letter sculpture made with many a o overlapping their neighbour o.

Thursday 8 November 2012


We must step into other people's shoes to truly understand them and see how they see the world. This is a simple image created from jacksonpollock.org and edited to resemble eyes.

Money Is Cruel


In my poster, I am creating a message to the people of the world to show ultimately how money is in control of our lives. The title "Money Is Cruel" is an overall image of the rest of the phrases which can all connect to each other. "Money Makes The World Go Round!" is view of how the world is run. Without money, in today's world, there is poverty. In a world where people have money, they will have power. Unfortunately most of that power is used for personal gain which shows that "Money Is Corrupt." Those with power usually want more power, so they need more money. This brings us to how "Money is taken from the poor" and "Money is given to the rich." To live in a peaceful world we need equality, and it should begin with those who have more giving to those who have less, because while they live comfortably, somebody else suffers.