Ruth O'Hara's Critical Thinking Blog

For the essay topics, I had to both evaluate what interests me personally and what issues are important to me as an artist, I chose other areas like video games and AI art generators because they not only interest me but I also find there are issues that can be discussed.  While I could discuss the AI generator topic and the concerns of AI replacing artists among other debates, I don’t think I’ll take this one forward as it’s a brand new concept as of this year so there will not be as many sources for me to research. With the video game topic, this area relates to my practice as I would like to be a concept artist and I could learn the process of creating the style of a game. My peers have also helped me realise there are issues to discuss within this theme such as triple A games vs indie games and the niche market possibly having more success, or the obsession triple A developers have with graphics becoming more realistic rather than stylised. This made it harder for me to choose ...

These sketches are character designs I helped create for a fighting game project c.2014 that unfortunately didn’t get any further than the concept stage.  Dwarf, Moth girl and Grim Reaper character concepts Izzy the Tech Mage character concept Shark girl character concept The character designs included super humans as well as mythical creatures like dwarves, fairies, the grim reaper, animal humanoids and mages, which I have listed above. Looking back I think my style practice leans more towards designs children would find appealing so maybe I wouldn’t be versatile enough for game concept art.

These are sketches of a character called Calico I made for a children’s book concept back in 2015, the top left sketch is a character called Fee from the cartoon Harvey Beaks and Calico is based on her design. Character art design for Calico Character art design for Issac the dragon Calico is a fun loving and energetic child always looking for the next big adventure, and Issac the dragon is Calico’s guardian, he is more timid and anxious of the world and always worries about Calico’s safety. I didn’t get any further than their designs but I would like to explore story ideas for the characters.