BA (Hons) Digital Games Art - (Top-Up)

This one-year Top-Up course is designed for students who have already developed foundational skills in games art and are ready to advance their creative and technical abilities to a professional standard.

Building on your existing knowledge, you will develop high-quality digital assets and explore advanced techniques used within the games industry. You will refine your artistic style while gaining experience in creating work that aligns with industry expectations, including character design, environments, and visual storytelling.

The course places a strong emphasis on portfolio development, enabling you to create a body of work that showcases your skills and prepares you for employment in the games sector. You will also engage in major creative projects that allow you to demonstrate your technical expertise and creative thinking.

Alongside your practical work, you will undertake an independent research project, exploring a topic related to games art, digital media, or the wider creative industries.

By the end of the course, you will have developed a professional portfolio and the skills required to progress into roles within the games industry or related creative fields.

Course Modules

Module 1 Games Art Showcase
This module gives you the opportunity to curate and present a powerful showcase of your best work in Digital Games Art. You’ll develop a professional-standard portfolio that reflects your unique style, technical strengths, and specialisms, whether in 2D or 3D. Alongside this, you’ll collaborate with industry professionals to respond to a live brief, creating a new piece of work that meets real-world expectations. You’ll also take part in a public group exhibition—giving you a platform to demonstrate your creativity and communicate your work with confidence.

Module 2 Games Art Major Production
Collaborate on a major creative production that mirrors the real-world games pipeline. This flagship final-year module challenges you to design and build a section of a game—known as a “vertical slice”—from the ground up, as part of a professional studio-style team. You’ll research audience needs, analyse market trends, pitch your concept to industry, and then plan, create and refine your product to meet a clear brief. This module is about taking everything you’ve learned—modelling, storytelling, team-working, software and more—and using it to deliver a polished creative production that reflects current games industry standards.

Module 3 Promotional Portfolio
Prepare to launch your career within the Games Industry with a comprehensive promotional portfolio. You’ll learn how to market yourself professionally through showreels, websites, digital branding, CV writing, and promotional materials. Industry insight sessions and career planning workshops will help you identify your target audience and employment sector while giving you the tools to present yourself confidently to agents, employers, directors, and producers across the creative media sector.

Module 4 Industry Investigation
Take control of your learning by researching a topic that reflects your personal interests and future career goals within the creative industries. You’ll explore an area of contemporary debate, emerging trend, or professional issue in depth—applying research skills, critical analysis, and academic writing techniques to create a fully developed research project. This independent investigation allows you to showcase your intellectual curiosity and professional insight alongside your performance training.