Evaluation

The theme of my project was initially intended to be a bullet hell style game, but over the course of the project evolved into more of a general theme of space and science fiction. I have developed my ideas from brief and extremely vague and rough initial sketches to a much more refined and detailed painting of the protagonist of my intended game's ship, which was largely created by blending together many previous detailed designs and sprites. I've found a sizeable chunk of reference material throughout the project, usually in the form of artist research, which I feel has made a substantial contribution to my project overall. Spaceships are large and difficult to draw without any sort of guidance, so having some images to give a feel for how to begin was certainly useful. They also helped with understanding of tone, colour, lighting and so on. I feel that my progress would have been not only hampered, but outright halted had I not had any reference material with which to first shape, then consolidate my work.

 When looking for artists with whom to take inspiration from, I chose to look towards concept artists for more prominent pillars of the sci-fi genre, such as Star Wars, Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica. I also chose a more obscure reference, namely Hans Palm, who is much more low-key, and develops models for games, such as guns or spaceships, rather than working on films or a television series. Their techniques and tools varied greatly, some preferring paint, others pencil, others preferring software such as PhotoShop. Although I used no paint throughout the project, pencil and PhotoShop were two methods I made frequent use of for the entire duration of the assignment.
 As previously mentioned, my project has undergone a gradual but steady evolution in goal as time has progressed. Initially it was intended to be much more chaotic and take on a much more specific theme, namely that of a traditional Japanese bullet hell style game set with a spacial theme. Eventually the bullet hell aspect faded before nearly dropping out of the project entirely, and more of a general space and science fiction theme gradually began to take over the main focus of the project.
 There were no specific or hidden meanings I was trying to convey with my design. The overall feeling of the piece should hopefully be one of curiosity, as the design of the ship is far from conventional, almost resembling more of a space motorbike than a spaceship. The ship takes on a rather bizarre and bright colour scheme, immediately drawing attention to it and making it stand out from the much darker and more bland background, and overall I'm satisfied with the result.
 Regarding my plan, I didn't stick to it all that well, and I do regret this. I feel the project would have been much more of a success if I'd time managed better, and for any future plans I'll attempt to stick to them a lot more firmly rather than getting sidetracked and spending extra time on relatively unimportant areas.

Bibliography

http://cdn-thumbthrone.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Screen-Shot-2014-01-31-at-5.09.43-PM.png (2014). (Accessed 11th March 2016)

https://sociorocketnewsen.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/th-2.png?w=580&h=435 (2015). (Accessed 11th March 2016)

https://reddingmineshaft.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/picture-12.png (2008). (Accessed 11th March 2016)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/African_elephant_warning_raised_trunk.jpg (n.d.). (Accessed 16th March 2016)

http://www.igorstshirts.com/blog/conceptships/2012/Ralph_McQuarrie/ralph_mcquarrie_06.jpg (2012). (Accessed 16th March 2016)

http://www.igorstshirts.com/blog/conceptships/2012/Ralph_McQuarrie/ralph_mcquarrie_17.jpg (2012). (Accessed 16th March 2016)

http://www.igorstshirts.com/blog/conceptships/2012/Ralph_McQuarrie/ralph_mcquarrie_26.jpg (2012). (Accessed 16th March 2016)

http://www.sideshowtoy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/mcquarrie.jpg (2015). (Accessed 16th March 2016)

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/fc/a7/7a/fca77a36f28ae763ec9040640daa9465.jpg (n.d.). (Accessed 16th March 2016)

https://www.artstation.com/artist/millenia (2015). (Accessed 18th March 2016)

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/P6aQy (2015). (Accessed 18th March 2016)

http://www.scifiscoop.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/star_trek_concept_art_by_james_clyne-5.jpg (2009). (Accessed 18th March 2016)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Transiting_Exoplanet_Survey_Satellite_artist_concept_(transparent_background).png (n.d.). (Accessed 22nd March 2016)

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/trevornace/files/2015/11/jupiter-largest-planet-1200x900.jpg (2015). (Accessed 22nd March 2016)

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/planetary/asteroid/ida.jpg (n.d.). (Accessed 22nd March 2016)

http://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?s=766f7807171046a02b2d4451c95ee224&attachmentid=256404&d=1377815546 (n.d.). (Accessed 25th March 2016)

http://rpggamer.org/uploaded_images/bg_galactica_over_earth02.jpg (n.d.). (Accessed 5th April 2016)

Final Piece

An Alternate Colour Scheme for my Final Piece

My Final Piece

Demonstrating the use of the Rule of Thirds

Demonstrating the use of the Golden Ratio

A Colour Palette

This is the completed version of my final piece. Once again, I struggled to decide on an ideal lighting for the scene, and even now I still consider both to be near equal. However, in the end I leaned towards the blue tinted skies, finding the black skies gave a bit too much of a contrast with the stars, and feeling the white glow at the top right felt a bit too intense and distracting.
I have added a planet to the bottom left of the screen. This was initially going to be a similar form as what I interpreted as the primary form in the piece I used for my artist research on Wassily Kandinsky, although after beginning to colour it I realised there was no real way for me to link the two. Nonetheless, I feel the planet adds to the scene nicely, as well as providing a vague sense of scale for the ship, and giving me a means of adding a glow effect.
Some lighting on the ship has been changed. Differences are subtle, but I tried to make the sides of the ship darker to indicate the sun was in front of the ship, outside of the scene, and that no light is being cast onto the sides.
I also smudged some of the stars to make them seem as though they were twinkling. I felt the sky was too plain with all the near identical stars, only differing in sizes, so I made some of them look more unique and eye-grabbing so as to prevent repetition and give the piece a sense of energy.
As you can see by the third and fourth images, I tried to abide by the Rule of Thirds and Golden Ratio. I feel that, when combined with the bright, alien colours that stand out against the dimly lit landscape, these techniques proved extremely effective at drawing attention immediately to the ship.
Overall, I am satisfied with the outcome of my project, and feel it was a huge success. Sadly I was unable to pursue my initial goal of making a bullet hell themed project, but I feel just as satisfied having completed the task I settled for.

Final Piece Ideas

At this stage the ship has been refined and finalised, and the majority of the detail has been added to the background (i.e. the stars). The piece is almost done, but I struggled to decide between the lighter or darker background, and a few, more subtle details are missing. At this point in the project, I'm also unsure of how to fill the large void in the bottom left. More stars would feel boring and plain. I eventually decide to use a planet, partially because of my research into Wassily Kandinsky (Although that was an initial source of inspiration, he has very little to do with the end result for the planet), and one of the images I used as artist research into Ralph McQuarrie:

Further Development

In the end I decided that using one of the previous pieces as a part of the PhotoShop experiment as a front for my ship and drawing around it to work that into a 3D piece (As seen in the first image) would be a much better idea. The above image is a rough sketch of my final piece. Below is the picture of the ship itself, created by skewing one of the other designs and cloning it to make the two side panels, and using another design (Again, skewed to give the impression of the ship being at an angle) as the front.
It was irritating to try and angle the three panels in such a way as they resembled a ship (Even now it seems like more of a space motorbike, or space rickshaw, although overall I'm a lot happier with this design), which was once again a matter of trial and error. It took roughly fifteen minutes to get an arrangement I was satisfied with.

Software Experiments

A further development in my project, this involves me blending the abstract shapes from my development ideas together in an attempt to get something that better resembles a spaceship. This was an experiment with PhotoShop to try and discover a style I liked, and although I disliked the results initially, I quickly figured out a way in which I could use them, so I consider it an overall success.
I had some difficulty trying to get all of the individual shapes to slot together, particularly in ways that looked different. On more than one occasion I found myself saving an individual design, only to realise it was the same as a design I'd saved previously, only tilted 30 or so degrees. This was more a process of trial and error, as well as using one's imagination to try and come up with something both visually interesting and something that could be considered a ship.