An Interview with 'Invader'

Invader

My colleague also told me about and artist called 'Invader' he is a French urban artist who pastes up characters from and inspired by the Space Invaders game, made up of small coloured square tiles that form a mosaic. He does this in cities across the world, then documents this as an "Invasion", with books and maps of where to find each invader. There are even some in manchester!!!

I thought this was a great way to bring gaming to life ... it is literally placed into the real world like anything else! It is a part of us and who we are. It is also interesting that they are placed in different cultures which is very like a video game ... they are played but all kinds of people with different backgrounds and stories.

Primary Colours

The use of primary colours in my animation will be suitable for both groups of target audience ... 6-12 years and 18-44 however blue is still the dominant colour!

Van Der Leck

Van Der Leck was part of the De Stijl movement ... i just wanted to look at examples of his work to get a greater understanding of the movement. Just like Mondrian and other artist within the movement the use of simple shapes and primary colours are used.

De Stijl Movement

Dutch Artist Movement founded in 1917 ... 'Proponents of De Stijl sought to express a new utopian ideal of spiritual harmony and order. They advocated pure abstraction and universality by a reduction to the essentials of form and colour; they simplified visual compositions to the vertical and horizontal directions, and used onlyprimary colors along with black and white.'

Example ...

Ideas

While playing around with the cut out silhouettes i made i realised that it wasn't really going anywhere! While i was at work my colleague was talking to me about the Pompidou Gallery in Paris she recently visited. She was telling me about the De Stijl movement exhibition and how they only use simple shapes to represent something greater and they only use primary colours accompanied by black and white. Sonic's character design itself is only primary colours except his eye colour which is green so i thought looking at the simplicity and colour pallet of the pieces within The De Stijl movement might be useful.

Talk with tutors

After a chat with Chris i that Film Noir realised had nothing to do with Sonic and was pretty much opposite! However the idea of a silhouette seemed ok. The reason i want to use a silhouette is to simplify Sonic to show that without colour and detail he is still a recognisable and iconic gaming character.

Project Overview So Far

I have spent alot of time so far on researching and trying to get my head around 'Sonic the hedgehog' and it's history. I thought by looking into the game and character futher it would inspire an idea ... some ideas have been created through the research however they haven't been too strong. I have jotted down all my ideas and thoughts even though some may not work. The reason i want to keep all ideas logged is because i may want to develop an idea more in the future or even use some of the other ideas and combine them to create an ALMIGHTY idea. I will continue with my research to gain more knowledge about the game and Sega itself to help the project along however I need now to focus more on the idea so that i can get going on the production side of things.

Development of Sonic

I had a quick look at this because i thought it was interesting to see where the original Sonic the Hedgehog came from and how Sonic has developed. This may not be completely helpful to me but i thought it may inspire some sort of idea ... i was mistaken ... but i still think its interesting!

SEGA

SEGA website!

http://www.sega.co.uk/

Sega Blog

On the Sega blogs website i found this short video created by Mrstupes created on an IPad ... i just thought it was interesting because you know its Sonic however the design is very different and the colour has been striped and colour for Sonic is one of the dominant features.

SEGA Blogs

http://blogs.sega.com/usa/2011/01/04/20-years-of-sonic-the-hedgehog/

I have been looking at this brief all day and i have only just found this Sega Blog website. I think this might be useful as it has opinions and ideas for Sonic and other Sega games...it might give me more of an insight into the target audience's.

Sonic Through The Years

I wanted to add this video below to help me gain a greater understanding of the Sonic the Hedgehog development through time. I want to see all styles of Sonic to try and figure out a style of design i could use within my piece.

Sonic 3D Blast

Sonic 3D Blast was released on the Genesis, Saturn, and PC in varying forms. The Genesis version featured an isometric, pseudo-3D ("2.5D") view and the Saturn version features 3D bonus levels that more closely resembled those of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 than the ones in Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Sonic 3D Blast (also titled variously as Sonic 3D Blast: Flickies' Island or Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island in different regions, and also called just Sonic 3D) was developed by Traveller's Tales.

Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine

Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, a puzzle game that was basically an American version of Puyo Puyo set in the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog universe. This is arguably a Sonic game in branding only; in the words of an IGN reviewer, "Curiously, Sonic himself is nowhere to be found in this game. It is just the good Doctor and a mighty stack of beans." An 8-bit version of this game was also released.

Sonic Spinball

Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball, a pinball simulation with a story based on the cartoons Sonic the Hedgehog and Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. It was the firstSonic game to be developed entirely in the United States.

When i say Sonic you say?

I asked a number of people who have played any of the Sonic video games but also who haven't What came into their head when i said Sonic the Hedgehog ... i got alot of the same response such as blue, fast, cocky, golden rings ect...i wanted to get an overall picture of how different people see the game.

Sonic a brief history

Sonic the Hedgehog is a video game character and the main protagonist in the Sonic video game series. The first Sonic game was released on 23rd June 1991. Sonic first appeared in the racing game 'Rad Mobile', but his major appearance which made him notable to the gaming world was in his very own game 'Sonic the Hedgehog' for the Sega mega drive which introduced his nemesis Dr.Robotnik.

Previous Winners

I wanted to look at previous winners of the other competitions to get a sense of ideas and outcomes the judges will go for and the quality i need to produce. First of all i looked at all category winners from the YCN briefs. The one that stood out to me the most was for an 02 brief asking you to 'Bring to life the idea that 'we're better, connected''.

I know this isn't moving image but i loved the use of taking the symbols of the people that we see everyday and never really pay much attention too and bring them together. I think it is really simple yet very effective and maybe thats the root i need to follow.

SEGA

I looked again at all the brief and i think the one that i am going to go for is the 'SEGA' brief.

Brief

Sonic will be celebrating his 20th Anniversary during 2011. The opportunity is to create a piece of communication that celebrates / is inspired by this and that could be shared and showcased throughout the year. The work could live online, in print, in a physical space or anywhere else for that matter.

This is a very open creative brief and you are free to respond in any media type including (but not limited to) video, print, paint, audio, online. This should be seen as a piece of brand communication rather than a specific product communication.

Competition

I have looked through the competition briefs and have picked two that i am the most interested in .... The disney brief and The Ted Baker brief.

However i went back over the briefs again and decided that the disney brief is out of my league as i have no experience in character design, well successful character design anyway. I went back over the Ted Baker theme again and i couldn't quite get my head around it fully so i continued to look through all the briefs again and realised the SEGA brief was probably the most suited to me.