Second-year students on the BA (Hons) Games Art and Design course at Arts University Bournemouth (AUB) have exhibited a collection of 3D prints on campus.
The exhibition took place on Monday 8 December, with the collection featuring a mix of environment, characters, and assets, offering a broad and insightful view into the course for visiting students from other years and courses.
The students were introduced to two pathways that influenced the work: environment art and character art, taught by experts from industry – Paul Hilton, Lead Environment Artist at Treehouse Digital and Jonathan Pearmain, Senior Character Artist at Expression Games, with additional technical support from Joseph Holroyd, Art Producer at Hip Flask Games.
One of the exhibiting students, Tom Wykes, explained his piece:
“This is a steampunk whisk from 1920s Paris. It probably took about 9-10 weeks to make, from modelling, texturing, 3D printing, and putting it into the environment afterwards.
“I really enjoyed the process as a whole. I preferred some bits to others, but overall it was great. I’m loving second year so far – there’s lots more freedom and it's made me a lot more like focused on what I want to do.”
Meanwhile, Mikhail McMorrow created a 3D print of a character bust.
“Ed was my first design, based on a very traditional cowboy style of clothing, spurs, boots, a wavy poncho and a hat," he explains. "He was designed as a character asset for a game I’ve conceptualised called The End of the American Frontier.
“Before the modelling began, I wanted both a full turnaround of my character and a set of textures that would define the overall feel of the model. Following the monstrous, vaguely human yet still unnatural element of design, I made both a skin and leather texture. The skin, warping and waxy, like hastily cut-together clumps of raw skin; the leather a geometrical form, juxtaposing the smooth skin of the design.
“I was going to originally print out my whole character, but the 3D print required a lot of changing and if I had done that for the whole model, it might have ended up looking off balance and have broken.
Mikhail praises the staff, particularly lecturer Jordan Cutler, who he says was "really helpful with the whole process of taking it into Bambu studio, seeing what works, going back and changing some of it to make it more 3D print accessible. And then going again until eventually it's at a stage where you can 3D print it.
“I'm very happy with the outcome. It's nice to have something physical that I can take home. My family, especially the younger siblings, are always asking to see what I’m working on and now I can actually show them something they can hold, which is really nice.”