30 DAYS OF CREATING A GAMING MAGAZINE CHRISTINE DO @chrispdough

THE PROJECT Tales in Gaming is a passion project magazine that follows my personal journey in the games I’ve played throughout my childhood until now. Showcased are illustrations and journals of my experience and memories in the games I love with the people I love! view the project @chrispdough on Instagram! THE AUDIENCE The audience I want to appeal to are, firstly, game developers that resemble my style of illus- tration and tell narratives within their games. Developers such as Beautiful Glitch that created the Monster Prom series, Witch Beam that made Unpacking, and SFB Games that created SnipperClips and Tangle Tower! I also wanted to appeal towards consumers that range from teens to adults as I am referenc- ing games played with those age group eras. The general interests from my audience would revolve around gaming and art; specifically zine art as the ultimate goal is to be able to print and publish the work. The feelings towards this project would revolve around nostalgia as ref- erence towards older games and friendship as I plan to camouflage the people I’ve met along my journey in gaming.

MY STRENGTHS My time management was number one when it came to knowing what I could do and how long I could take to complete a full spread in one day. For the first 24 days in which I was creating the illustrative spreads, it was key to have time to sketch, do the lineart, color, and then finally render for just the illustration alone. Balancing such a large project while attending long, three to six hour classes throughout the week was a challenge but doable with my speed and timing. The organization I had prepared for my Instagram posts were especially convenient when it came to the social media requirement for the project. The way in which I pre- sented my work made it so that I could easily relink mockups and spreads. My illustrative style and moodboarding made streamlining the illustrative portion by a mile. Focusing on making my figures and form in my simplistic style and being able to refrence real, in-game areas by either looking it up or simply playing for an hour made my love for the game bleed into what I wanted to show in the drawings. #1 #2 #3

GOALS/OBJECTIVES My primary goal is to showcase my illustration skills alongside my organization in typesetting as I narrate my interactions and thought process with the games that I have played. I wanted to challenge myself and see to what extent could I create an illustration and really hone my style. As the days passed, that challenge became increasingly diffi- cult as other priorities, and several other assignments, crossed over with the day to day project. Thankfully, my strengths (listed above) made the process easier and more efficient. Though there were some bumps on the road that consisted mainly of a couple of internet issues, I was able to successfully pull through each and every day.

MY STEP BY STEP PROCESS (1) MOODBOARDING SKETCHING LINEART My primary goal with my moodboard was to pull from the actual game rather than immediately thinking of the scene that I wanted to concept. It’s important to capture what the game is about so that other players from that game can rec- ognize the scene or scenerio that I would be representing. Here, you can see that I wanted to see outfits and possibly the inclusion of an ATV driving scene. The game is about shooting animals and drawing that isn’t exactly up my alley so I wanted to focus on characters as I’m also not that great at environment painting. The sketch was done with a free Sai brush pack made by Scribz on ProcreateFoilo! The Hunter: Call of the Wild Lineart is a rather straight- forward process where I clean up my sketch and conclude what I want to keep and not keep. I get asked a lot, but I use the monoline brush provided by Procreate.

COLOR & RENDERING WRITING MOCKUPS MY STEP BY STEP PROCESS (2) The Hunter: Call of the Wild One of the easiest ways to color, across all platforms, is to color drop. The way many people tend to do it is within the same layer of the lineart, but because I like to keep my lineart, I simply make that layer a “refrence” on Procreate and it lets me color fill on any other layer. From there I lay down some flat colors and render by adding texture and layers of lighting with clipping masks and masking! The transfer from Procreate to Indesign is easy because I am drawing at the size of my magazine which is an 8.5x1 1 page and 17x1 1 total. When it comes to the writing portion I had no prior writing done. I wanted the commentary to match my exact thoughts at the moment I was writing and how it felt! I made it enjoyable for me as it was basically a journal. It also was easier to fit the spaces I had to the amount of writing I did. There was, suprisingly, not a lot of 8.5x1 1 mockups. The standard free ones were considerate of sizing like A4 and A5 rather than letter size. Therefore I purchased a mockup from creatsyofficial over on Etsy. I just wanted a simple , front-facing spread that show- cased how the drawing sits with the fold.

FORMATTING POSTING MY STEP BY STEP PROCESS (3) The Hunter: Call of the Wild Formatting was somewhat difficult as the sizing of my work was large and made Illustrator lag so much so that I made separate files for every ten days or so. The first slide I wanted to include the mockup I had made with a single-colored background picked directly from the scene. Sometimes I picked a highlight color but for this instance I went with one that matched the ground I made (I was also considerate of using the same shades or colors of previous days as not to meld the colors on my profile feed). The most important battle was making the spread fit. I did not want to make 1:1 pages so when it came to showcasing on Instagram I simply enlarged the journals I wrote to fit the empty space at the end. Posting was one of the quickest parts of the process. I had a template with the tags and headline I wanted prewritten in my notes app. I transferred my formatted images through Dropbox to my phone and made sure I had everything set and sent it off! I usually spend a bit of time after to make sure the post is showing in the #30dayproject tag!

INSTRUCTIONAL WORKSHEET The Hunter: Call of the Wild 1. CONSIDER RULE OF THIRDS: Figure out your composition before even starting! Predetermining which column within the rule of thirds you want to draw in makes finding refrences and sketching quicker! 2. SKETCH: Be quick and no need to be clean! Put your ideas out and readjust in either another layer of sketching or when doing the lineart. 3. LINEART: (Procreate only) I usually turn up my stabilization to 55% and my streamline to an amount of 37% and pressure to 18%. 4. CHANGE LINEART TO REFRENCE: (Procreate only) Press layer. 5. PICK A COLOR PALETTE: Sometimes I make my own, sometimes I pull from an existing color palette! 6. COLOR FILL: Be quick! You can change it up when you see it in full! 7. MASKING TO ADD LIGHTING: I usually mask with hard or soft light. 8. MASKING TO RECOLOR: Usually done with overlay and adjusting the opacity, it makes all the colors blend by having a common color. 9. ADD NOISE: For Procreate, it’s around 2%. HOW I MAKE AN ILLUSTRATION IN A DAY

PRESENTING MY FULL BODY OF WORK INSTAGRAM POSTS & FAVORITE ILLUSTRATIONS

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POKEMON: BLACK AND WHITE Played in 2010 •Page 14-15

COOKING MAMA Played in 2010 •Page 20-21

UNPACKING Played in 2010 •Page 20-21

THE HUNTER: CALL OF THE WILD Played in 2022 •Page 46-47

LEAGUE OF LEGENDS Played in 2022 •Page 52-53

MINECRAFT SMP Played in 2023 •Page 54-55

SELF REFLECTION I knew I was completing my objective as I wanted to, but admittedly it was a difficult challenge to overcome mentally and physically as I was balancing a lot of things at once as I am in my final semester. I took more shortcuts than I wanted to when it came to details and really making the scenes I wanted rather than what I could do within the day. Despite that, I really loved the project, just not the timeline. The only thing I would change is the amount of time I give myself to rest in between these full blown illustrations. Some of my favorite “wins” from this project was, firstly, reviving my use of social media. I’ve been super focused in this semester and being able to post again was fun and fullfiling to do. I especially enjoyed connecting with more classmates and seeing the amazing work they came out with. Many projects that we are assigned are heavily influenced by professor prefrences so it was nice to see what others were really intrested in doing. It made connecting with those who had my same intrests easier! One of the biggest changes I had with myself this project was recognizing my style and my process. As someone who has struggled a bit with deciding what niche I really wanted to present myself as and pursue, this project was eye-opening when it came to understanding how I pick up the visuals of a game and how to implement them to my style. As I am narrating the worlds I enter, I have to be sure that other people are seeing these worlds through my eyes and I think I was successful in doing so. ANALYSIS

SELF REFLECTION My top performing posts were at their peaks because of timing. When you post in the day is pretty important, especially when it comes to reaching your current followers rather than new ones. I even did some experimenting with this early on and saw that mid-day posts on the weekdays did really well as I presumed many students were bored in thier classes just scrolling away. Evening posts were decent on weekends as staying up or out late is rather concurrent for my audience that games and/or studies. That being said, I was more than late with my last two weeks of posts and it killed my viewing rate. Therefore, earlier posts are a must when it comes to this project! TOP PERFORMING I didn’t really get any technical feedback on the way I drew or the formatting that I did. Rather, I got a lot of comments of encouragement and even some about my commentary of the games! Due to the pandemic, there was a large increase in gaming as we were all looking to spend the free time we had on something. Seeing other people relate to how I felt about some gaming communities was something I figured would happen as many are ongoing topics. HELPFUL FEEDBACK

INFLUENCES Michelle Cheng is a Toronto/LA based aspiring story artist. She is a BFA3 Character Animation student at CalArts currently on exchange at Gobelins - l’école de l’image in Paris. She loves (nearly) every stage of the filmmaking process, and strives to create thoughtful, well-researched work. Aside from drawing, she enjoys writing educational videos, listening to dark academia playlists, photography, and travel. She is perhaps, one of the most well spoken Youtube artists that I have ever come across. I first found her through her animation, Birdsong, where she combined both graphic design and animation to create an entrancing story of a now extinct bird species. There I have followed her channel to listen to her though process of every aspect of her animations. She doesn’t post often enough on Instagram but the most wonderful thing about her work comes from how she engages her Youtube audience with her clear, concise, and personal connections she makes with each piece she creates in a verbal story. As a fellow student, she is rather busy so we have no personal connection, but I do like to comment and like where I can. Most of the time I have her videos playing in the background as inspiration. There are times when I do reference her work for color studies as I particularly love her use of the color green and what shades she uses to paint nature. She can be found @lemoncholy_ on Instagram. Michelle Cheng

INFLUENCES Tommy Parker is a British illustrator based in Devon, UK. After graduating from the University of Plymouth, he briefly worked as a designer in Bristol before fully diving into the full-time world of illustration in 2017. His work is both character and colour-driven, and whilst graphic, it retains a tactile warmth and quirkiness. He aims to show intimate moments in accessible worlds that have been featured in editorials, book covers, branding and advertising campaigns. Tommy was perhaps my biggest influence when it came to narrative illustration and being ab- let to fit in space for text. His client list is as overwhelmingly impressive as his work. I am rather particular about the artists that I keep up with in all spaces but when it comes to someone whos website I basically stalk, Tommy’s is perhaps at the top of that list. I tend to reference the work to really hone in on character poses and understanding the impact of form! Social media wise, I like and comment! I plan to reach out as soon as I am able to see if I can get some advice on my own work of that is possible! He can be found @t_mmyparker on Instagram. Tommy Parker

INFLUENCES Annie Nguyen is a graphic designer and illustrator born and raised in Dallas, Texas. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communication Design from the University of North Texas. As a student, she discovered a love for packaging design and branding. Being able to express herself through her work is something that drives her as a designer. Annie is the person I have followed the longest. Of all the people on this list, I would say she’s an outlier visually. I am heavily influenced by the way she really puts herself in her work as I literally do with some of the illustrations I had made. She oozes personality and it warms my heart to see how, even with the silliest little doodles, you can be successful. I actually comment and keep up with her personal and art Instagram and Twitter. I also buy quite a bit of her merch where I can afford it! She can be found @tabetaaii on Instagram. Annie Nguyen

FUTURE WORK This project has taught me that I am completely able to create and finish work on a smaller time limit. It makes me realize how much I need to love what I do to be able to finish it and there are no shortcuts to that fact. If I were to do another 30 day project there are three things I would need to prepare. One, sketches and concepts in advance in order to post at optomal times. Two, reasearch ahead all the specifications of your deliverables and the market of it. Finally three, some sort of accountability! Do this with others, tell people about it, and most of all, make sure you have fun!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME! CHRISTINE DO Designed SPRING 2023 [email protected] Contact me! chrispdough.carrd.co View my portfolio!