Freshman year was... a learning experience. I know for a fact that I became a lot better in different facets of my artwork; especially composition, value balancing, and color scheming. I think my Drawing II class taught me a lot about creating depth and organizing environments and got me into something that I otherwise wouldn't of cared about. (It got me really pumped for the GAD major in general, too.)
Some stuff I did in Drawing II.
I also really enjoyed my animation class. It helped me understand that I really enjoy doing looping animations-- or idle standing animation. (Which, conveniently, is animation typical of video games.)
Overall, I wouldn't trade my experience for anything. However, I would never want to repeat that. Ever again. It was a painful year of learning, yet totally worth it.
Picking /one/ favorite trailer was... extremely difficult. So I narrowed it down to two. After a long debate.
So I picked something recent and something not-so recent. For my first trailer, I chose the original World of Warcraft trailer:
World of Warcraft has almost regretably been a huge part of my life for a long time. (Mainly because of how time-consuming it is.) This was the first thing that peaked my interest in the game-- seeing something this fantastic in 2006 blew my mind as a 13-year-old. Even though I was young, a trailer as enticing and brilliant as this was difficult to forget.
Now, the beginning is pretty boring, but notsomuch for those of you who've played Warcraft I-III. The beginning narrator provides a bit of context for the situation, which was almost not even necessary because the cinematic is just so dang beautiful. The trailer gives us a preview of each of the races and even though each one is only on screen for a few seconds, their actions speak so much more than words.
World of Warcraft is based almost entirely upon character creation, so emphasizing the characters was an extremely intelligent move for the director of this trailer. As soon as the potential player sees this, they already know which character fascinates them. Heck, they're already deciding who they're going to play based on how they look and how they behave in the trailer.
In conclusion, this trailer follows one of the old and not entirely ethical rules of making a great trailer: make the trailer look WAAAY better than the game itself, and boy does it look way better.
...My Second trailer actually effectively breaks this rule. This trailer was released a few months ago at E3, and begins with actual game footage.
The Metal Gear Solid 5 E3 trailer. Yet another trailer that blew my mind. Luckily Metal Gear Solid is already an extremely cinematic game, so editing the trailer into an awesome teaser reel was not difficult for the guys at Kojima Studios. The thing about this trailer was it was so ridiculously simple yet so ridiculously enticing. The trailer simply consists of around 5 minutes of gameplay inbetween in-game custscenes. This alone, edited along with music, makes for such a great cinematic. In the beginning, they show off a few interesting game mechanics, then explore new controls and show the player that they have options in strategy. Kojima studios then shows off their new Fox Engine-generated cutscenes, which look so real it's almost disgusting.
There really isn't much to say about it. It's a simple, elegant, and awesome trailer. It really shows a little editing can go a long way!
Hey readers, welcome to my blog. Here you can find a bunch of posts related to my ~exploration~ in game design, particularly while I'm a student at Ringling College of Art and Design. This blog will follow my process in my 3D artwork and my Game Design-related perils, which is intended to improve the way I work and help me get a better grasp on my process.
Before I get started, I need to have an obligatory, maybe even somewhat cryptic introduction post!
My name is Tudy Gallahan. I was born in New York City, raised in Virginia. My primary entertainment when I was growing up was -- yes, you guessed it-- computer and video games.
I owe A LOT to video games. And like I said, I might begin to sound cryptic here (and I apologize for that), but I sincerely do. Video games are what brought me into the art world, and to this day motivate me to pursue art as not only a medium but a form of expression. I'll go more in-depth about my design ideals later, though.
All that aside, I just really, really enjoy video games. I mean, so does everyone else, but what makes me unique is the style of games I seem to flock to, or have flocked to throughout my life.
My favorite style of games, (that I also intend to stick to when I'm designing them), is --put very bluntly-- "Cartoony". Studios that interest/(have interested me in the past if they are no longer in production) are ones like TellTale Games, Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Suckerpunch Studios, SCE, and Doublefine. I believe I can work in any style, but whimsy is just my preference.
Well, I think I've covered the basics for now. I look forward to posting some actual progress here soon !
