3.3 - Delivering a Final Design

 In this post we're going to be finishing off our mini Mesoamerican project by bringing our dagger design to completion and providing a final concept sheet. Our focus today is not so much about the design process, which we covered in the last two posts, but rather providing a concept that showcases ideas such as mechanics and functionality alongside the subject matter's visual appearance. Without wasting any time, let's jump in where we left off.

Producing A Final Render And Overcoming Hurdles

In our last post we more or less reached a final design for our dagger, with the caveat that it was still fine to make alterations at this late stage. The first task following on from this point was to produce a final render. Depending on the task and the client, the required level of finish for a final concept will vary, so I've tried to shoot for the middle ground of a pretty well rendered final concept for this demonstration. Let's have a look at a working capture of the dagger's final concept.

Final Concept WIP Document

Previous Design Sketches

Alongside the final render sheet, I've also compiled the design sketches from the previous post so that you can take a look and compare the final render, to see how some design details were changed or added at the final stage. What I really want to call to attention though, if we have a look at the final concept working sheet, is my process for producing the render, since this is something we really haven't talked about yet. When I first introduced the blog, I made it clear that I wanted the platform to be more about concept art theory and processes than actual painting technique, so sticking to that here I want to talk about how I approached the final render, not how I actually painted it. 

The first thing to notice is that my render is surrounded by reference imagery that I used for inspiration when it came to things like materials and colours. Riot Games' illustrations of Nagakabouros' tentacles for instance were very useful as inspiration for the glowing, jade-like material of the dagger's blade. It's useful to have these images in your workspace, or perhaps on a separate monitor, to avoid having to switch between windows constantly, breaking up your flow. The second thing is that you'll notice I did a few material studies (left) while making the final dagger render. I don't consider myself a great painter, and in fact sketching/ideation is much more within my comfort zone, so I found myself with a bit of mental block when it came to successfully rendering the materials of the dagger. This is when I decided to take a step back and do some good old material sphere studies. While the materials in the final render didn't end up matching the studies I did beforehand exactly, the process of doing them allowed me to overcome my mental block, as I felt like I'd learnt something new and could now approach the dagger again with an improved understanding. The key takeaway that I want to get across here is that when you find yourself against a wall, there's no point bashing your head against it repeatedly - you aren't going to knock it down. It's a much more effective use of time (and much less frustrating) to come away and do some research or practice - maybe watch a few digital rendering tutorials and do some material studies as I did here - and come back to your task fresh. The practice will not only improve your abilities, but also probably your confidence in approaching the task, which needless to say, helps a lot.

Producing A Final Concept Sheet

So we now have a final render of our dagger, but what else do we need to consider in our final presentation of the concept? Oftentimes, concept art is about more than just detailing the way something looks - the way an item functions can also be an important thing for concept art to convey, and that's what we're going to be looking at now. We're going to start by making a list of the things we want to include in our final presentation of the concept, so first let's establish a description of our idea for the dagger:

• An ancient, unique weapon that is a fabled artefact
• Its blade charges up in combat (from dull to glowing)
• at full charge a successful strike will turn the target to stone, consuming the charge
• in game, also serves as a 'key' to unlock a bossfight - inserts into the guardian's head to awaken it

Based on this description, we can now make a list of the things we need to cover in our final presentation of the concept:

• primary render - charged blade
• secondary render - uncharged
• charging mechanic demo
• petrification mechanic demo
• bossfight activation demo
• description/lore

As a quick note, including a description/lore section wouldn't be necessary for industry work as this wouldn't be within your role to provide, but I've included one for the purpose of my portfolio as I aim to expand this into a larger project there, to indicate ability in world building. It can be a good idea to provide this sort of stuff alongside personal work, since you should of course be creating original concepts for your portfolio rather than fan art, and so a bit of a description can develop and compliment the ideas on display in your art. You can either put descriptions on the sheets themselves or in project descriptions, if you're using a platform like artstation.

With that out of the way, let's take a look at the final sheet.

As you can see, I've brought over the final render from our working sheet, which showcases the blade in its charged state. Next to it is our secondary render, which showcases the uncharged state. We also have our demonstration of the charging and petrification mechanic, showing the progression of the blade's glow as it builds up with each attack. I've then provided a sketch of the guardian, our boss design from last post, in its dormant state with an indication of where the dagger is inserted to awaken it. The guardian's own final sheet would be the place to go into more depth for this, with a sequence of sketches like this one showcasing the awakening process as the dagger is inserted. Finally, our description gives a bit of background information on the dagger's owner, the dagger itself, and a hint at key events in the world history that relate to the dagger. I've tried to condense this information into a relatively short chunk of writing, because after all the art should be the star of the show; remember we aren't writing a book here!

Hopefully, this demonstration has given you an idea of some of the things you could think about including in your final presentation of concepts. I wouldn't recommend using the content of this sheet as an exact checklist for your own presentation - of course every concept is different and requires different breakdowns and information. However, things like alternate states/modes like we've shown here with our blade charging mechanic for example, are things that you should be providing indication of, if they are present in your designs. 

Summary

Today we looked at the process of taking a (relatively) complete design, and presenting it in a way that communicates both the visual aesthetic, and any additional information that is central to the concept. Working in this way will add depth to your personal work by showcasing design thinking, which is ultimately just as important as artistic skill, and it's also just generally good practice for industry, as this is the sort of stuff that you're likely to do a bit of problem solving on as a professional concept artist.

This marks the end of our discussion on this project for now, as beginning with our next post we will be turning to the subject of collaborative work. Hopefully this past chapter's mini project has showcased the sorts of methodologies you can employ in design work, in order to reach an outcome that you (or your clients) are happy with.