Logo

What I have probably spent the most time on this week though is probably the logo, I started with some super fast sketches, just to get some ideas to base it on. After conferring with the teachers and my team I decided upon one design to continue working on one of them. I had a font in mind that we have used so far, after not finding anything better I decided to take it into illustrator and made it thicker and adjusted the size of the first and last letters.

Original Logo

Quick sketches for basic layout

Since Illustrator is not a friend of mine I decided to take it into Photoshop and continue working on it there. Probably the main change I did was making the serifs pointier and at a better looking angle. I started thinking of how I should go about colouring it to get the style I wanted. One night, inspired by one of my team mates asking me if I would take it into z-brush and do it properly as a joke, I thought of trying to create the letters in max so that I would have a base to work from with straight edges and basic lighting.

Font exported from Illustrator and fixed in Photoshop

Early version of Layout in Photoshop

Creating the letters went really fast, I started with planes and extruded until I had the basic shapes, then I added loops in the centres so that I would get the effect I wanted (see picture below) and moved them slightly forwards. The final step of the modeling was extruding the edges back so that they got some more depth. I did the same for the frame, I only made a quarter of it and mirrored it twice.

The next step was trickier as I had to figure out how to place the smoothing groups to get the straight edges where I wanted them. The letters that were rounded, O and R, I had to add edge loops around all edges so that I could meshsmooth them as they were looking jagged even with smoothing groups. It was hard to figure out how to place the loops on the complex shapes on the R so that I would keep my hard edges but not get any unwanted ones. In the end it turned out quite good though not perfect.
Had I had more time I would probably have experimented with meshsmoothing all of them and taking them into z-brush as I think I could have added a lot of character to them that fits the art style. It might not be the best way to do it but it would be fun to try it out.

From the rendering process in Max

Instead I added a light pointing in the direction I wanted and rendered PNGs of the text, frame and symbol that my team mate created for the main menu book and is seen on Tamarrion's armour. I used them to create colour blocks of the shapes, by doing it this way I managed to get very straight edges which are important in case we would like to print the Logo on a larger surface.

I duplicated the layers and played around with layer modes and a base colour layer to get the general colours and lighting that I wanted. Then I started hand painting in coloured highlights and shadows, making the text and frame more interesting and most importantly, truly visible. When they were very clear I added smaller details in the form of little cuts to give it more character and look more hand-made. This is the part that might have gotten a really good result in z-brush.

Frame and Font at point of only needing details and polish

The next step was to fix the background and the symbol so they would be at the same level of polish. This gave me quite a challenge, in the end I added colour to the shadows and highlights of the symbol and used a textured brush on a lighting dodge layer to make the background more interesting. I did not work the symbol any more because I do not want it to steal attention from the name of the game, but also from the time limit.

Final Logo that was handed in

If I have time I might continue doing some work on it but I do not see if it will do any good as everything it should be on will already be in print at that time. Also I am not at all happy with the background, I do not think it looks the way I would like and it looks a bit unfinished which I do not like. The text and frame turned out really well though, and most importantly they are very visible even when zoomed out.