Back to basics!

Alright then, back to basics. This week my 2D drawing course started in school and it has so far been a very fun experience. I got to learn how to draw basic humans using simple and fast methods. I've never really been taught by anyone on how to draw or sketch before and most of my drawing experience comes from drawing whatever came to mind. I got to do sketching of nude models which felt weird at first but I got used to it; it was very useful for studying how we humans look.

I got to know the dynamics of a picture and it's importance. It's how a drawn character can really feel alive and genuine. I feel as if everything I did up until this week was wrong, as if this was the first thing I should have learned. Although I say this, previous work is never wasted. Humans learn from every experience, even failure; perhaps even more so than from succeeding. You fail to get better!

As for some of the artwork I did this week, we got an assignment to draw about 20 thumbnails of a main character for a game. The purpose of this was to quickly be able to prototype a character and capture the feeling and look of said character. Here is my final product!

I'm kinda satisfied with the results but there is always room for improvement (always!). The bottom ones were quickly made in about 3-7 minutes. I put more effort into the three at the top, I wanted to capture the theme of the characters, I thought that the characters below all could fit into the three themes. Those three took longer time, maybe about half an hour. The blue one was just a quick study on anatomy and the human body. It's so hard to resist going back and changing finished characters!

Thanks for reading, peace out!

Everybody Is a Noob Jam

Today I had my second game jam and it was very fun and a learning experience. We had to create a game in Game Maker in 5-6 hours. The game was to be inspired from two words, these were Everyday and Doom. In a team of 3 coders and a poor artist (me) we started planning out the game. Luckily everyone worked really well together and we quickly decided on our idea.

A retro-styled platformer in low resolution was what we had decided on. I produced all the art and the coders did their thing. During the assignment I noticed how important it is to do things in the right order. Because we didn't do things in the right order things got very hectic and chaotic. But in the end, we pulled through.

Working together in a team with people you don't know can be a double-edged sword. If our ego takes over nothing will get done and people will argue over the simplest things. One of the big advantages in working with random people is that you get a new and fresh perspective on things.

I look forward to my future game jams and I will use the things I learned today to make the best game possible in the shortest amount of times. It has been a privilege to work with Stefan, Gustaf and Martin this fine day.

Keep in my mind that this game was made in a very short time and has its flaws. We did get very positive feedback from other fellow students and teachers. Feel free to try the game we made out, just click the link below!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vbxhn6tn4u2t2wj/GJam_YouGotMail!-Default-1.0.0.0.exe

Peace out!

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to my blog!

My name is Valdemar Ribbing. I am an 18 years old Swedish student currently studying Game Design and Graphics at Uppsala universitet - Campus Gotland. I am aspiring to be a concept or 3D artist for games and that is my current goal in life. There are tons of reasons why I have chosen this path but mostly it's because it's really fun and enjoyable.

This blog will be gradually be filled with my concept art and thoughts on games. Let me start things off with some concept art I drew today. It took me about 4 hours to draw.