Perspective

My gf's Game Boy and one of the Pokémon games (red).

I've not yet had drawing lessons in any kind, so for improvising, I think it turned out quite nicely.

I tried to do as much detail as possible. It turned out ok, though I think I can do better. In the second one I wanted to do some lines as kind of guidelines for the perspective but it didn't work out, so what I couldn't erase I turned into the notebook the game was laying on.

Can

I wanted a challenge so I started drawing a crunched Red Bull can.

 I had the lights and reflections so well, but when I tried to do the color pattern and the logo and letters and so on, it completely ruined it. The result looks... decent enough but it was so much better when I started. This paper is kind of rough so it was a real challenge to make the reflections and the shine look like a real metal can. A lot of fun nonetheless.

Giraffe

It's a big concrete giraffe in a park in Sofia. 

This guy is a very important part of my childhood, and one day, in a burst of nostalgia, I went to the park and drew him.

Gryphon

A drawing of my  Alliance Gryphon hatchling plushie. Also one of my first tries at shadows and perspective. Though it's a little smudged I am satisfied with the result.

Kat

Katarina was the first character from a video game I actually finished drawing. As I normally just sketch it was challenging to put in a lot of detail, especially because I had to erase a lot and I cant use photoshop layers with pen and paper. Her face and left arm are slightly off, but the paper was getting ruined from all the erasing and redrawing,  so I had to leave it like that.

Crab

I drew a similar crab when I was around 11 years old, and a few months back I found the drawing in my desk. The drawing was ruined and the color (it was drawn with a blue pencil) faded. So I decided to redraw it, also quite curious how my style had changed after 7 years.

I often like the simple, sterilized style of drawing, more a design and sketch than an actual drawing. I also like crabs. 

Sun

Simple drawing, a flower and a sunrise.

Something I drew somewhere in high school, using only a pen and some imagination. Drawing a sun and the sky has always been challenging to me, especially with a pen, but with some imagination I succeeded in making it look pretty, even if not very authentic.

Random

Was playing with color pencils once. Here's some stuff.

 This is a stork with shoes, because I don't really know how to draw stork feet.

Those were some random objects laying around that I drew - a little turtle clay figure and my eraser. Was slightly amusing to try to draw my eraser while I had to use it.

Digital

My first finished drawing with a tablet. Inspired by a children's book "Le Petit Prince" and drawn in my own (kind of) style, using only one brush in Photoshop with only one setting. It was interesting to test how much I can do with just one tool.

And this one is a drawing of my turtle plushie, and my first attempts to use photoshop and a tablet.
When I do digital art for this kind of style I always use outline everything, and sometimes with a brighter color than the one used on the object itself, which is mostly the case with darker or black objects (like Clappy's tire on the next pic)

A gamer joke, caricature and crude, fast drawing of characters from 2 different games. The first is Claptrap from Borderlands, who considers the player as his minion and often screams at him in the very annoying voice he is known for. And the other is a purple caster minion from League of Legends. I saw something similar on a blog, and decided to draw it myself with my own kind of style for my girlfriend.

Banners

I took the initiative to make banners for the websites of a few World of Warcraft guilds I've been in. Simple Photoshop work but it took a lot of time especially for the first one, as I always prefer to manually crop out a logo or call to arms banner etc out of a jpg file. And especially for the first I worked with another person from the guild that was making the decision on how the banner should look like, so it took hours to adjust the font, font color, background, brightness, saturation of the full banner and the levels until we were both satisfied with the result.

 This is the final result for the above mentioned process.

And the extended version used for the guildsite.

And the same thing for the other guild. The person choosing the style was the same, therefore I didnt need to do a lot more in the second one as I already knew what she wanted.

*Note: The background appears a lot brighter than it does on the taken out of context pictures here.

And this one is more of a joke (obviously) for the name of the previous guild before it was changed to a serious guild called Awakening.

Other than the banners I mostly help the guildsites with suggestions and feedback.

T-shirt stamp designs

I've made drawings (or photoshopped designs) for T-shirt stamps for some friends. I am really happy with how the shirts turned out so I will definitely do some more in the future.

The Baron Nashor mage one that I really like from one of my contests. He looks quite nice on a shirt. Just missing a wizard hat.

A messy crayon drawing of a camera hanging on the shirt-wearer's neck.

I didn't draw the picture itself, but I drew on top of it to fix some quality issues with the colors and the outline. Again a video game character, who is actually mute and communicates using only her music instrument, therefore the quote and joke.

Another inside joke, this one a bit rude, about paladins in World of Warcraft. The stamp is for a black shirt and is meant as a joke gift to a friend who plays the said class.

And I have a few more ideas that are still a work in progress.

Contests

The contests I participated in and my submissions for them

• The League of Legends Digi-art throwdown contest - October 2012

The theme was characters of League of Legends outside the arena; and there must be at least one season 3 item included.

Though my drawing was a little sloppy and far from the level of the professional artists that won the contest, I did a lot of effort and gave it my best shot even if I knew I had no chance of winning.

The picture will likely make no sense to a person unfamiliar with League and its inside jokes and references, but it's about the item vendor taking a break in the park and letting the champions enjoy themselves with the items they would otherwise have to farm for.

• The J!nx T-shirt design contest 2013

The theme was champions IRL - or what would the characters do outside the game. 

So outside League Nocturne has his own weather forecast show.

• A League of Legends unofficial contest - spring 2013 (a private contest with 2 parts - create a unique champion for League of Legends - with skills, lore and a drawing; and make a drawing of a scene on League of Legends)

This is the character I created.

Zamorak

the Void Hound

jungle/top/mid melee AP assassin

P: Void Beast

With every spell and basic attack, Zamorak applies a stack of Void Scent.  Void Scent makes the target leave a trail of void Zamorak can follow, lasting 2 seconds with one additional second per stack (5 seconds duration at 4 stacks)

Q: Ferocious Charge

Leaps forward a short(moderate) distance dealing magic damage to all enemies in his path. Zamorak can use this ability twice before it goes on CD, and his second leap has a slightly longer range.

*Deals small-moderate damage per leap, as it is his only aoe ability; short-ish CD

W: Void Bite

Zamorak bites his target dealing magic damage (medium range). Deals more damage the more void scent stacks the target has.

* High single target damage, moderate CD (for a melee spell)

E: I see you

Consumes all stacks of void scent on nearby targets revealing and slowing them for a short time. Slows by 10% per stack and lasts 1.5 - 3 seconds (3 when maxed)

Additionally Zamorak sniffs out all other nearby enemies that dont have void scent and applies one stack.

* Moderate range, high CD

R: Killing machine

Passive: Zamorak's basic attacks deal bonus magic damage on hit (scales with AP)

Active: Zamorak goes on a rampage gaining increased movement speed, tenacity and magic penetration for a few seconds. Killing an enemy champion refreshes the buff.

*small damage on his passive, moderate CD on active, small % scale with AP

* Exact scales with AP and Cooldowns are not set due to need of testing how OP/UP he gets in practice. There are only pointers to how big they are, all things considered.

Lore:

The blind, mute, seemingly tireless monstrosity horrified the scientists of the Institute of War as they caught it with their spells in an attempt to stop it from rampaging on Runterra - apparently the latest world the creature stumbled uppon. The beast broke through their bindings with ease and ran loose in the Institute bringing utter distruction to everything in its path. After a while the mages of the institute succeeded in restraining it as they found the only way to stop the demon was by binding it to the League.

As they studied the creature they learned it was incapable of verbal speech, yet it responded to it, and seemed to understand the meaning of words, proving a level of intellect unexpected from a beast whose whole purpose seemed to be nothing but destruction. Even more, after a while they found it responded to a name - Zamorak. 

It was clear the creature came from deep withing the void - but from what world, and why, they didn't know.

It took a while to find Zamorak's real purpose - the scientists saw the creature was cunning and smart in its own brutish way and it seemed as if it was jumping from world to world in an order known only to it - as if searching for something. Zamorak was clearly made for destruction, but more than just that. It seemed as if he has been trained - the bindings on his paws signified for it.

The Institute deduced that Zamorak was searching for his master, angry and tirelessly rampaging from world to world. What kind of demonic master would have this monstrocity as a hound dog, the scientists could only guess. But one thing was clear - Zamorak may posses a surprising intellect, but was far too dangerous and unpredictable to be let loose. So the Institute decided to bind it indeffinitly to the League - and in the meanwhile scientists continue to search for its origins and study it as it fights tirelessly for the summoners of Runeterra.

My idea is to create a champion who, even though not so unique and imaginative, was possible and fits well in the game. Most contestants would do amazing super-imaginative champions but that would never work due to being too strong and/or impossible to balance. The champion I made is meant to be easy to learn, with not too much skill required to play him, but able to do really nice plays and jukes when used by a skilled player. And the theme for him was to be as creepy as possible, with a little twist in his lore hinting he is simply misunderstood, kind of sad, yet still really powerful and creepy and would rather rip your face off than let you pity him, as he doesn't want nobody's pity.

And this is my drawing for the other part of the contest (also the part I won)

Again - it's a League of Legends inside joke. The theme of the picture was of personal choice, the only condition was that it is a pencil drawing and it related in some way to a person all contestants know. This is Teemo playing as a support in bottom lane, stressed out and about to be yet again grabbed by the enemy Blitzcrank (an annoying support robot that pulls enemy champions to their death unless dodged).

• League of Legends comic contest - spring 2013

Unfortunately I never got to finish, nor submit my idea, but here is the sketch.

The comic is about a lonely minion making its way across the lane when it suddenly sees 2 champions -  Cho'Gath (as a Gentleman) and Nunu (on his yeti Willump) racing towards the scared NPC intending to eat it, as they both have an ability for which they need to kill a minion. Meanwhile Volibear is just coming in lane standing under his turret as he sees the minion approaching, running away from the 2 beasts each wanting the kill for himself. Volibear runs towards the minion intending to kill it as well but instead flings it into the tower - the tower killing it, and neither of the 3 get the kill because of Volibear's fail.

When it comes to video games (especially those I like) combined with fan art / comics / caricatures - it creates a combination I really adore, and I love involving myself into it even if my skill is not so great (yet).

Anything connected to gaming and art I find to be really interesting and fun, no matter how much effort and time I will need to put in it.

Software I use

• Photoshop 6 

I've been learning to use Photoshop for quite some time, I believe I had my first tutorials and lessons 7 years ago when my father would give me tasks - to adjust levels, fix mistakes, remove labels etc on photos. And about a year ago I started using it to draw - I went through some online tutorials but have mostly been practicing myself.

• CodeBlocks

I've only recently started doing programming, and I'm slowly but surely progressing through my book "Beginning Programming with C++ for Dummies". I'm getting accustomed to the interface and shortcuts, as well as the basics of programming and C++ grammar.

• Blender

Blender was the first 3D program I got my hands on (besides SketchUp), as it is opensource. Though I still have a lot to learn about 3D modelling, I've gotten accustomed to the interface and controls of the program, and can perform basic things like creating simple objects, and editing those objects in various ways.

• 3D Studio Max

Just starting, work in progress

• SketchUp

Sketchup is a 3D modelling program slightly different than what I've seen. I was using (or more playing with) that program when I was 10 - 13 years old, and just like Photoshop I went through basic and advanced tutorials and got accustomed to it, spending a lot of my time exploring what I can do with it. And there is a lot to be done with SketchUp - it's large variety of tools focuses more on creativity and drawing in 3D out of your head, yet it can also be precise and exact like Blender, though I would probably prefer 3DSMax or Blender over it for professional modeling and school.

• Other

I can work with basic programs like Adobe Acrobat, Libre Office (a free, slightly better version of Microsoft Office), Word and Excel and I sometimes would even use Paint.

Preparation

Books I've read (or am still reading) outside of school to help me get started with Game Design.

• "The Art of Game Design - A book of Lenses" by Jesse Schell (a book about the process of making a game, brainstorming, and the elements that a game needs to be good); brilliant book in my opinion, that definitely helped me get an idea of what I'm getting myself into, and how to handle it;

• "Beginning of Programming with C++ for Dummies" (a great book from the Dummies series, that helped me learn the basics of programming).

Courses

• Game Theory online course on Coursera (a 3 month long online course on game theory - predicting and understanding the actions of players in various situations - namely games, the possible outcomes, and the payoff each player gets) in January 2013;
• Game Theory 2 (continuation of the course in janury) in May 2013.

Tutorials

• I did tutorials for Photoshop - basic and advanced;
• Blender - basics;
• An online sketching tutorial course - basic things to help out with drawing something fast.

Other than those, I've mostly taught myself everything else I know, or learned in school.

My CV and Motivational Letter

I normally have my Resume and Motivational Letter separately from my portfolio, and would present them separately when applying, but here is my CV/ML for the Digital Arts and Entertainment program in Howest.


Lia Spirova
 Adress:  Yana Yazova” str. N.7, Sofia, Bulgaria;
 Date of birth:  23th June 1994;
 Email:  lea.6est@gmail.com ;
 Phone:  (+359) 886 040 413 ;

Graduated highschool: June 2012, Lycee Francais Alphonse de Lamartin - French School of Sofia, Bulgaria
With grades:
- 6.00/6.00 in IT;
- 5.50/6.00 in Math;
- 5.40/6.00 Overall grade;
(6.00 being the highest grade obtainable in Bulgaria);

Out of school activities related to game design:
- Participated in the Game Theory online course on Coursera (a 3 month long online course on game theory - predicting and understanding the actions of players in various situations - namely games, the possible outcomes, and the payoff each player gets) in January 2013;

- Currently (may 2013) participating in the Game Theory II course, a continuation of the first, and things get more complicated;

- Read the book "The Art of Game Design - A book of Lenses" by Jesse Schell (a book about the process of making a game, brainstorming, and the elements that a game needs to be good); while reading this book I started creating my own game;

- Read the book "Beginning of Programming with C++ for Dummies" (a great book from the Dummies series, that helped me learn the basics of programming);

- Did tutorials for Photoshop – basic and advanced; For Blender – basic; And an online sketching tutorial course – basics of fast drawing;

Contests participated in:
- The League of Legends Digi-art throwdown contest;
- The J!nx T-shirt design contest;
- A League of Legends unofficial contest (a private contest with 2 parts - create a unique champion for League of Legends - with skills, lore and a drawing; and make a drawing of a scene on League of Legends);

All additional information and my submissions to the contests are on my portfolio.





About my decisions and thought process
  I’ve never had an absolute plan about my future and abilities as I went through school. I’ve had a few professional advisors in high school but they have never been of much help to me, as I’m good in almost every subject, yet not especially genius in any of them. I’ve always excelled at math and sciences, so for a while I was considering continuing my education in chemistry. 

  But I realized it was not enough for me. I didn’t want a subject that consists of only pure logic and studying that logic – I wanted something artistic as well, somewhere I can use my full creativity and imagination. And then I thought about game design. 

  Video games – and all games in general – have always been a passion for me. But I wasn’t just a gamer and addict. I would look at a model and animations and I think what I would do to make that champion better (I often think about the game League of Legends). How can I make the model, the animations, even the splash art for that champion express even more about their personality; or even more, how to make the storyline behind them even more interesting and attention grabbing.

  So I thought that few things combine science, art and my two greatest passions – video games and storytelling (I’m a big fan of fantasy books) better than game design.



Why DAE?
  The Digital Arts and Entertainment program in Belgium was the first program I saw which sparkled my interest and the more I looked for similar programs, the more I found myself returning to this one again and again. There are a few reasons for that.

   DAE is the only program I found that combines game development and programming with arts and character modeling in just the right proportion. I have not yet decided on what specialization I will choose after my first year, and that’s why it’s so important for me to get a taste of everything.

  It’s difficult. I’m not expecting college to be a stroll in the park. On the contrary, I want to challenge myself. I want to push myself to find where my limits are and I know with a lot of hard work I can become a great game designer.



Objectives
  I plan to use the DAE courses to get as much knowledge and experience as possible on all the subjects I need to be a game designer. Finding a job as a game designer will require a good portfolio and experience, so I will need to work on as many projects as I can in my years in college to have a good chance. 

  I don’t want to be simply an artist/programmer in a big company. I believe a team (of game designers) works better when everyone knows a bit of every other’s job in addition to their own job in the team. This way each member develops their skills and grows as a game designer. And in the process they create a wonderful game, which is what is important in the end.



About me and my country
I must say, Bulgaria is not a country with a very good name in Europe and the rest of the world. Our history, and the impression we as a nation have made to other countries is far from great. But I prefer not to restrict my mind only to the boundaries of my country and the mentality of some of the people around me; I like to think more as an European, and a citizen of the world. I strive to be seen as a person, instead of being defined and judged as “Bulgarian”, whatever that might mean for anyone.

I believe I can be a useful addition to the Digital Arts and Entertainment program because I will aim to be the best I can - so people (and myself too) can see what I'm capable of.

About me and this blog

May, 2013

My name is Lia, I am (currently) 18 years old, 19 this June. I am from, and currently live in Sofia, Bulgaria with my father and brother. Soon (hopefully) I will live in Brugge, Belgium and study Game Design and Digital Arts there.

I am fascinated about games and art, and I plan on becoming a game designer. Since I graduated from high school (June, 2013) I've spent most of my time studying (that includes drawing, reading books and working on my own projects), gaming and traveling.

In this blog I will post all my achievements and works connected to game design. Right now I am posting all the ones I've already done (before the start of this blog), and hopefully in a few years this blog will be a lot bigger, and with a lot better works.

This page is more of a personal news kind of post, so all other "Game Design, Digital Arts and Lia"  information should be in my current CV/Motivational letter.

As this information will get old in time, I will post updates here.

Documents

Scan of my Application form for for Digital Arts and Entertainment:

A scan of my translated diploma, and the original:

A scan of my IELTS certificate: