Iain's images

Hi,
Now that we are back on the case with our blog, I can bung some of the images I've made or scanned on here.
I've mainly been drawing squigly lines, then putting faces on them. For the levels and the characters or level inhabitants.

This first two images are A3 sketches. I just sat down and put pencil to paper, without too much thought or deliberating. So I could keep it simple. Though in a couple of places, I have rubbed some lines out to get the best of it.

Also, one thing that has come up a fair bit in my drawing, is a kind of family, parenting theme. It is in these level images and later in the characters. It is perhaps the coloured balls that were in our earlier that gave me an idea of eggs. Or eggs in fallopian tubes? hehe. Im not sure why, but at the moment, I think Codey and I quite like it. It may take us somewhere nice, or we may just leave it as a backdrop for people to just notice if they want.

























Here are a couple of inhabitant designs. The cups are something I thought could just be floating down the screen. either in the back or foreground, on virticle areas of the level.




































This is just one section of the second level scan that I really liked. It has quite a nice flow to it, and is nice a minimal :)








Obviously none of these level ideas have been designed as playable. The are just to get the visual style right.
I think thats all from me for now. I do have some more images to upload, but im unable to do that for the time being. I think Codey is going to do another post soon if not today, there will be a fair bit for you to read :)

Thanks,
Iain

An extended rant!!!!

Well this blog update has been a long time in the making... where to begin? apologies first sorry for the long delay and second (upon a second reading) the amount for full stops I've used...

Our character and general aesthetic has changed dramatically as you can see from the images bellow the developments of the characters we in sale mate after doing 10's of pages of sketch's and reference work I had developed a character that seemed caught up in the 90's acid culture and with that it's art style. The art style, is long gone seen in only flyer culture and rarely else where. I blame my teenage obsession with everything Jet set radio. You've gotta hand to Sega.


After talks with our tutors and colleagues, Iain and I were going to look at a range of designers and artists, in the hope to develop and finalise our aesthetic. So began our further character development. I looked at numerous artists particularly Takashi Murakami, Fiona Rae, Geoges Vantongerloo, Umberto Boccioni, Ashely Wood and Kirsten Ulve.

I create numerous character template sheets drawing half my self, and asking friends to fill in the other blanks,I explained the general idea's and concepts of the game in as to mildly influence the designs... results were varied. As you can see from the images bellow there seems to be no real progression of character the template idea added fresh eye to the situation, but it also brought to light problems that maybe the shape needed changing so I started working on the shape in reference to it being a body.

(SORRY NEED TO SCAN IMAGE)

Our work effort strayed away form character design and now led us towards concept and level design, I will finish later come back to the character...


We decided we wanted it to be shapely but with possible the depth of image , like
that seen in Ashley woods work.... we further developed our aesthetic...

Both Fiona Ryes and Kirsten work fascinated me... Kirsten Ulves work had a shapely simplicity to it whilst still retaining a mild depth through the use of transparency.
Her work also seems to show a flow of movement, through her use of unconstrained blowing shapes and lines. It takes little thought to animate her imagery in your head.

Fiona Rye's work draws certain parrells to that of Kirsten's with its flowing shapes etc... although in a but in a much more traditional art sense.

Using all these influences I created a few concept art Images. Through the development of these concept images random ideas of narrative cropped up. One being the idea that your are an inanimate object and a good like creature has burnt a face into you, to give you life and prove your self as a potential species. The core mechanic was to stay the same we just wanted to add the depth that this god like create could move the world around the avatar. This is still a potential.......



Using photoshop and flash I created level mock up based around the ideas of flow, negative space and playing with peoples perception.



Both Iain and I liked the image and further discussed ideas of flow, negative space and depth perception. Ideas that the avatar could run off the side of the screen screen and reappear in what was originally negative space. To relate back to the image above, an example could be the character running off screen to appear on the planet in the back ground, only to run around it and reappear in a new section.

With these ideas in mind we created numerous level mock ups, here are a few







After further analysis of our work we decided that the illusion of depth and the characterised negative space brought left to the images and also a contrast to the the flat palette used in the landscape, the depth need to compliment the landscape The idea's need to be further progressed but I feel that were starting to finalised our design plans... it's crazy to think how far our ideas have developed... we've come along way and have twice as far to go, its all good!

Now to just nail the character design. During the level design process we have been briefly working on the avatar..... but to no real success, our ideas seem constrained by the original quadraped shape, I think its time we go back to the drawing boards.....

Over and out

Codey