During the second tutorial, which we did in small groups, I presented the work I done so far for the practical element. The feedback I got was mostly about what the world settings/history are and how it informs design decisions. I've a idea of what my world will look like in my head, but after the session I decided to write it all down.
The aim of my practical element is to create a set of characters that will be appealing to the mainstream audience, people who are either in their teens or older and play a lot MMO games (wherever they are player vs player arena based or more traditional role-play games). I'll look at the eastern MMO games, like Final Fantasy XIV or Ragnarok, to inform the style of the concepts.
World settings: fantasy, inspired by Final Fantasy series, magic and technology blends together. There are races that are less advanced than the others and don't use the advanced technology that is scattered around the lands. For the purpose of this brief and time constraint I got, I'm going to concentrate only on two different races that are in a state of war and fights for the land and better resources (the futher development of the conflict history could be done as a part of the extended practice, where also more sides could be introduced).
Since I was asked to scale the number of races I'm looking at down, I've decided to work only on two different fractions that will compete in this world.
Humans, first race, are going to be the technologically more advanced than the other fraction. They'll still use traditional to the genre things, like swords, horse carriages, leave castles or houses build from bricks. However, the remains of advanced technology they have access to, like medical inventions or more complex methods of creating swords/access to the better materials (resources), have impact on the way they dress and act. At this point I want to make it clear, that I'm not after creating a fantasy mix with steampunk, I really want to stick with the only one genre and only indicate via the designs the availability to the higher technology. As mentioned, I'll be looking at the eastern RPGs, however, designs will be influenced by medievil armours, town structures and way they build they houses will be based on the German and western-south Poland architecture.
Second race I'm going to introduce are
Orcs, which are going to be still in the prehistoric era. They built their houses on the remains of the past, most advanced technologies, which are unable to use it. They have a very spiritual orientated tribe, with shamans and warriors. Weapons they have are really primitive and made from basic materials (also basic set of tools and skills). African tribes are going to be main influence when it comes to clothing, color pallete, marking on faces.
With this setting I'll be able to work with two opposite color themes, gold-white-blue for Human fraction and red-orange theme for Orcs (long list of ethnic groups in Africa
on wikipedia, but mostly I'd mostly look at the Maasai tribe, since red is their favored colour; red also connects with warriors and bravery; and at the Ndembu - red is a symbol of life and health).
Type of game: MMORPG game, where player can choose to play either side of the conflict. As mentioned before, I'm only going to outline the basic reasons of the conflict in this module, but there is potential for the further development during the extended practice. Player will have to choose a character from one fraction and join a guild to battle enemy.
Next step is to make another list of the character classes I'm going to work on and look closer into the meaning of colors in various cultures.
Before starting on character concepts I've decided to create few moodboards, which will influence my drawings.
Fashion shows were one of my main inspirations, mostly Alexander McQueen (fall 2011 is full of medievil inspired dresses and accessories). I've also google searched for medieval armour and renaissance clothes. There was no trouble in finding a knight armour referance for men, but complete lack of female armour somehow suprised me. Purposedly I've avoided 'chest plate' (or 'boob plate') skimpy and impractical armour, that shows more skin than it covers (whats the point of fighting in it?). The only decent armours I was able to find came from LARP communities, but it's not historically correct. As suggested by Annabeth, I'm going to contact someone from Royal Armouries and see if they have any records of female medieval armour in archive.
League of Legends is a free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena game developed and published by Riot Games and first released in 2009. It's a very competitive game, where players use champions to battle each others (player versus player). Moreover, Riot Games organizes the League of Legends Championship Series, where 8 teams from different parts of the world compete for a grand prize.
On my search for concept art I've encountered many great artists, like Katie de Sousa (whom I followed for years on Deviantart) and Trevor Claxton to just name few. I've decided to look at overall qualities of champion (character) concept and splash art instead of focusing on the invidual artists and their styles.
As for concept art,again there are some similarities. Pose is rather stiff, but show whole figure and costume, no lineart in finished piece, yet it's nicely rendered. Another thing worth pointing out is back view, which gives a bit more information about the costume/armour. As usual, concept art comes in handy when drawing more complex illustrations.
Kekai Kotaki was one of the artists involved in creating vast fantasy world of Tyria and worked in Arena Net for over 8 years. He has a quite specific, personal style thats easy to recognize. Part of his website dedicated to art made for Guild Wars overflow with the character and creature concepts. There are many costume variations for each of the characters, they are also different to each other in terms of silhouette. Faced same direction, each set hold a repeating pattern in terms of colors and style. Similarly to Mr--Jack, figures are lineless. However, in most cases, colors are rather muted, browns, yellows and oranges being the most used ones (but there are occasional bright purples and reds). There is also a good handful of more finished illustrations.
The Guild Wars 2 category showcase more environments and illustrations, but still have a section dedicated to concept art. Again, a lot of variations and different characters are shown, with the same drawing style - lineless, just blocks of colour. It seems like there is more variety in races this time.
Before finishing 2nd year I got involved in making a short promotional animation for Leeds City Council. Teamed up with Sara from our course and two girls from Vis-Com. Brief sounded very interesting and challenging. Me and Sara attended couple of meetings with council employers to brainstorm and share ideas for this project. I've produced few character illustrations and storyboard for the animated part of the video (for approximately 1 minute). Unfortunately, project had to be suspended. However, it was a great opportunity for me to learn new skills and work with the client that doesn't have art education.
On 15.10 I've attended an Adobe Creative Cloud Event, hosted by GBM Digital Technologies at Headingley Cricket Ground. Creative Cloud products were presented by Tony Harmer a senior solution consultant. 
Players can join clans and embark on the various missions together or just use the match making system and be paired with two other players randomly found by the system (yet, they will be on the similiar level). There are 3 different classes (Titan, Warlock, Hunter) to choose from and each one of them can be levelled up and upgraded. Official website is a vital part of the experience, which slowly becames a usual thing for the big budget titles (e.g. inFamous). 
At the beginning I was thinking about creating a short 2D animation, stylized and in a way similiar to the Trichrome Blue Lois van Baarle shared on Deviantart few years ago, but moved away from this idea due to the multiple factors. First of all, my dissertation moved from the interest in just social networks and how websites like Facebook, impact our lives and the way we communicate with each other (you can be miles away from your family and friends) to the more specific interest in just online games and why they are so addictive. Second reason for changing my Practical Element is due to the availability of specific programs and resources. To make a short animation I will probably have to visit college quite often, as the AfterEffects on my computer doesn't work great (render time is beyond ridiculous), not to mention any film editing softwares. Since I'm 6 months pregnant I have to remember that there might be days were won't be able leave home. Therefore, I have decided to change my Practical Element to more concept art orientated, as it can be done from home (where I can take breaks more often and work whenever I want). I will still try to test out Photoshop CC in college (I'm stuck on PSCS5 since it works great for me) and maybe record the process of drawing, which then can be shared via YouTube (in a form of timelapse).
Back to the actual presentation - I've talked about the character concepts I did over the summer. While creating a completly new and unique alien race I also had a great opportunity to test the work flow and new painting methods. From the beginning, I knew that the race I'm trying to portrait so not technologicaly advanced and mostly tribal influenced - think undeveloped African tribes. Started with simple, quick thumbnails to explore certain look, followed by deeper exploration of different head gears and hair cuts, with a range of full body figures as the last step. As mentioned in my presentation, I stepped out from my comfort zone and used a different approach to painting. Instead of spending extra hour or two on drawing a good, solid lineart, I've painted directly on the sketch. This way I was able to cut the painting time down to 6-8hours and concentrate more on the forms than clean lines. Moreover, this approach to concept art is typical for the MMO games (e.g. World of Warcraft).
