Good evening all!
I've been on vacation the past few days, but that hasn't stopped me from chipping away at the game. That's why this update is a couple days late. Since I've been away from the computer, most of my work has been illustrative. Enjoy some visual arts!
First off, the icon/portrait sprite style has backtracked, in a good way. This is the original look I wanted and went for in concept sketches. Last week (or atleast in the last update) I was working on more "final" sprite designs in higher res (500px instead of 200 something px), rougher crayon-like brushes, softer 3-toned shading, and a static 3-quarter angle. The more I looked at it, the less I liked it. It was too traditional, too "moe" and too bland. It didnt have character or "fun" to it. That's why I went back to this original concept artwork, which I had actually come to appreciate more after that high-definition exploration, and just straight adapted it. Now, this sprite has interchangeable eyes and mouths, which can be mixed and matched to my content (hopefully) through Unity animations. They're also faster and easier to draw and change, meaning I can make more eyes/mouths more efficiently. And I look at this and I have no doubt left that, yep, that's Cliff! This will serve as a reference/model for the rest of the charcaters icons/profiles in-game.
Next up has been character design ideations for Lang (final name still pending) and his outfitting! This has been alot of fun. Having honed my pipeline with my Cliff design (my approach was backwards then, which cost me time and effort), Lang's design is moving forward much faster and more confidently. I started with a nude base to figure out Langs body proportions, especially in comparison to Cliff. I wanted him to be muscular, but not naturally; more visibly gained and sustained, perhaps out of compensation or insecurity. They're a vain show or power and confidence, but also show he doesn't fuck around and can seriously throw down. But Lang isn't a hyper-masculine character, so his outer-layer of expression is in his clothing. Here, I've gone leagues more feminine. Right now, designs #1, #5, and #7 are the most interesting and promising to me. They show skin and msucles, but are highly vogue and stylish, through also intimidatingly sharp, almost combat-ready. He's like "Yeah, this is how I normally dress. What're you gonna do about it?". Now, it's just honing down and refining, and nailing colour and materials. Definitely black, black, black mesh and leather.
I also did these 3D model draw-overs for Cliff. The face has just not been doing it for me, so I thought I needed a better guide on how to translate his look into the next medium. I've seen this done on films like The Bad Guys and Spider-verse, so it seemed like a good approach to take. This will really help clean up the vertices when I get back to the model.
The next big development has been in the environment designs! The Hospital set is still in its infancy, but planning things out on paper, like the progression of the level, has been central in translating it right. I started with a written description, then a drawn map, and then built it out in Maya. This is where I could actually see the problems presented in the design, like the right side of the long hallway that basically leads to nothing, and doesn't serve much of a purpose beyond getting to the Lab. Its visually uninteresting. I need to make the hallway as interesting as possible. How do I do this? A combination of forced-perspective, camera placement, mise-en-scene, and a more dynamic level layout. I tried to work this out by painting over screenshots of the 3D set, as seen below. What this instead showed me was more-so the potential in colour and lighting design, as well as how to lead the players eye with these. Interesting!
In the next week, this biggest thingsd to work on are still Cliff and the Hospital. That comprises fixing Cliffs face, giving him hair, and perhaps finally getting ahead on clothes modelling. This should take about a day. For the Hospital, it's back to the sketching and ideating phase to fix that hallway before I model and decorate further. I mourn not really being in Unity alot these past few weeks, but it's hard to think about that without the visual vision to know what I need and where. Thats a concern for post-art-direction-development.
Yours,
- Monkeydog
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