Art Portfolio

The Queen Chess piece - Research

The Queen is the strongest piece although is not the most important. It has the biggest range of action of all pieces, being able to move along the diagonals, ranks and files.

What could I design? – Initial Ideas

The Queen could be tall with long, multiple limbs to reflect its big movement range and the fact it can move any number of spaces in any direction (diagonals, ranks and files).

Since it’s a female piece, it should be recognizable as one. I’m thinking of female-like features; talking about Statue of Liberty, horror game female characters etc.

The Chess Piece – Research, Brainstorm and 6 Initial Ideas

I have chosen to design the “Queen”. I have researched about this particular piece – what’s its role, how it moves on the chess board etc. I have also found some images to aid me in the creation of a “brainstorm” and my 6 initial designs.

Evaluation

Soon after, I managed to create 6 very rough sketches of my potential final Queen piece design. Looking at the picture, I wanted to create something that looked like it is half robot and half organic.

After giving it some thought, I decided that the first idea looked more female-like. Since the queen is a piece which can move a long range, the legs on the first design would suit that particular chess piece as it depicts it quite well.

Development of my idea

I have then created 5 variations of my chosen design and developed it further.

I have mainly decided to develop the eyes as it was the most important aspect of the design stage at the time.

I have asked my peers for feedback on this and most of them said that the 2^nd (top right) idea is the best one since the eyes look more feminine and predator-like.

Evaluation

I tried to stick to the idea of an organic-robot character and decided that the head and the eyes should look robotic since it is where we usually focus on and it’s the part that we decide what the character looks like most of the time, whereas the rest of the ‘body’ could be organic-like in the final design.

Since my peers suggested that the 2^nd idea looks best, I have considered the feedback and went off to create my final design.

Final Idea

I have taken under the consideration what my peers have said and decided to combine the eyes on that design with another one. When I was at the final design stage, I decided to combine the said character design with a 4^th idea (bottom left) which has two eyes as I really liked how those two looked.

I have also included a Queen’s sceptre which looks like the top of the original Queen chess piece and an orb in the pawned design to emphasise the role of this particular chess piece and to show how a final printed off piece could potentially look like.

Evaluation

I really liked the overall outcome of the final design although if I had more time to spend on my first initial ideas, I reckon that I would create something more creative.

Although creating the first 6 initial ideas was quite a challenge and very time consuming, I think it helped me to shape my chosen design at later stages of the development.

I have created a pawned version of the Queen chess piece to show how it could look like and how it could function on the chess board. I have also included the orb and the sceptre to make the piece look more the part which I really enjoyed doing as it helped me to visualise it as a final 3D object.

I’ve also used a gradient background which makes the final design look more professional and catches the viewer’s attention unlike the standard white/single colour background.