Influences – Moby Francke

For Stage 2 I looked at two video game designers that personally inspire me when creating pieces of character design.

As well as Shimazaki I also took inspiration from a Lead artist from Valve named Moby Francke who worked on Half Life 2 and the game I look at the most in terms of style and design Team Fortress 2.

Francke was the lead artist for Team Fortress 2’s design and created artwork for the characters and other assets of the game. The Style of Team Fortress 2 is inspired by 20th Century commercial advertisements and art by advertisement artist like J.C. Leyendecker, Dean Cornwell and  Normal Rockwell who were all artists who created advertisements for magazines and the war effort.

This fitted Team Fortress 2’s style not only based on the period but also thematically as the game based around a never ending turf war between 2 factions of mercenaries so the style and assets of the game as well as viral assets like the comics created for updates were tied in with the game excellently.

Despite this Team Fortress 2 had stepped away from the realistic style that most first person shooters take and opted for a more cartoon like cel shaded style. This was to separate it not only from other first person shooters but also it was a gate way to use unrealistic mechanics and physics such as turrets being built from toolboxes and watches that could turn a player invisible.

Francke’s work inspires me as he used styles and assets from the period the game is set in from the art right down to the voices the characters have based on how that characters race or region would sound around the 60’s. This helps me think about using assets such as the popular styles and designs of the era when creating my character designs.

This leads me to my next inspiration.

Until we converse again stranger.

Influences – Mari Shimazaki

For Stage 2 I looked at two video game designers that personally inspire me when creating pieces of character design.

The First is Mari Shimazaki lead character artist at Platinum+ Games for the Bayonetta Franchise.

Mari worked on the character designs and assets for both Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2. When coming up with the concept of the character the director of Bayonetta, Hideki Kamiya gave Shimazaki three key points about the character:

• A female lead.
• She’s a modern day witch.
• She uses four guns.

Using keywords and her imagination she created a design that not only stands out a female lead, but also as an action character. She wanted to create a character that was not only capable of handling herself and protecting others, but also wasn’t afraid of being herself as well as being stylish and outrageous. The design is split amongst the gaming community based on design ideas and choices vs social views, but personally I think she did a fantastic job of creating a strong and popular female lead character.

Taking influence from the ‘classic’ look of a witch Shimazaki gave Bayonetta Features such as the iconic beehive style hair seen in the first Bayonetta game, which was inspired by the witches pointy hat but in a modern style.

She also made Bayonetta’s signature colour black as that it’s an iconic colour associated with witches. Her suit is also inspired by the ‘ragged’ clothing witches wear in classic imagery of them. To create this look she gave Bayonetta’s outfit flowing rough edged trails made of hair to add the ragged look in a stylish way.

Shimazaki also decided to make Bayonetta’s limbs thicker and longer than normal as she found most female leads in action games tended to have thinner shorter limbs making them look frailer than normal. This way Bayonetta had a solid recognisable silhouette and looked more believable as an action character as well as standing out as a female lead.

Shimazaki’s work on Bayonetta is inspiring to me as an aspiring character designer. Seeing her processes and how she used the keywords she was given to create a character that stands out agains the typical run of the mill protagonists helps me when creating my own ideas to explore areas I might not usually think of or to push ideas into the surreal. It also reminds me to keep away from tropes when creating characters as it can lead to some interesting an long remembered ideas that gamers will talk about for a long time.

Until we converse again stranger.

 

Stage 2 Progress

Whats changed?

I have narrowed my focus down from my original idea from 24 different pieces to design and just using 24 as a design quota in creating the two main characters for my project. I will be using 24 to create a range of designs for the characters:

• Poses
• Outfits
• Faces
• Hair

As well as anything else that will help in the character creation process until I accumulate and refine the designs until I get my fins designs.

What progress have I made?

I have been creating the pose and outfit of the characters so far by sketching the designs into my book in a concept style.

With the poses I tried to capture the exploring, action and “heroic” aspects of these characters.

  

The style of the game is set around the 1930’s and I looking into the Dieselpunk style and fashion in the 1930’s and 20’s to get inspiration on creating my outfits for my characters.

 

Over the Christmas holidays I started practicing digital painting as I want to create my final pieces as digitally painted final concepts. My first few attempts weren’t very good but I have started getting the hang of using my tablet and using layers appropriately.

I have also been doing work on creating a portfolio for my upcoming university interview for Gaming Art and Computer Game design. I still have a little way to go but I am making progress.

Until we converse again stranger.

Stage 2 – “24” and Game asset design.

For stage 2 I decided to use the title “24” for my brief. I’m taking this and applying it to creating assets for a strategy style board game similar in the style of Warhammer and Dungeons and Dragons.

This game will be based around hunting down Myths and legends based around certain regions of the world. I think I will be taking the first “volume” of the game to East Asia as I really like the culture, folklore and myths that surround it and the style they are depicted in. I will take inspiration from the old depictions of these legends but put my own style and interpretation on them.

I will incorporate “24” by doing 24 different designs for characters with varying design choices, techniques and media. This can be streched multiple ways for example;

• 24 Poses
• 24 Creatures/myths/legends
• 24 Styles
• 24 Cards or other assets

My aim is to explore the creative process of making game assets, and hopefully get some experience in creating digital assets such as digital paintings and 3D renders of the models I want create. This is because one day I want to become a video game Character Artist or Concept Artist.

Until we converse again stranger.

Abstract Photography – ‘Sky scraper’

For part of my abstract photography work we had to do constructed, found and manipulated pieces to the unit. My favourite portion was the found abstract photography as I think I took my best pieces for it and it was actually fun to walk around and find compositions in my surroundings to make pieces. My personal favorite and a well received piece is my “Sky scraper” piece.

This is the unfinished raw image of the piece. I noticed the colours of the building and the current state of the sky matched up well and made an abstract piece as the building almost looks camouflaged or part of the sky, paired with the building ‘ascending’ toward the sky it fives it a sense of scale as well. To get to the final out come I slightly edited the pieces in photoshop by;

Editing the brightness/contrast settings to increase detail and lighting to the piece.

Editing the hue/saturation settings to correct the colour and brighten the piece up a little.

Below is the final outcome of my found abstract piece. I think it turned out quite well and it is my favourite piece out of the selection of pieces I created for the found abstract section of my abstract photography. The natural and manmade elements that we are exploring in our theme are present with the sky and the building but both are joined together by colour and shape (in the building mimicking that of the clouds).

Until we converse again stranger.