I gathered some pictures of trees from the Howff Cemetery in Dundee. The contorting shapes of the trees with the twists and odd trimmings would be useful for design in Photoshop/Illustrator.
less leaves show more twisting branches, which is good for a gothic theme
Odd tree trimmings can make a great underpass within the game
I decided to test one of the trees to see how to design with my graphics. First of I wanted to try with my brushes for the leaves and the pen tool for the branches and trunk. I downloaded the grunge brushes from Brusheezy site to get that texture and dirty look. I overlapped each brush with the layers and then merged them together. The final result produced a paint splatter design, with a lot of detail. I want to leave the trunks just plain black and focus on the leaves with the shape of the tree in whole. I enjoy this design as it was something I was aiming for.
Splatter-look vs. Graphics
I then decided to try my own approach which is using simple graphics, creating a minimalist tree. The end result is a nice and neat design, and would look good in a DS game. However, for the style and type of game I am aiming for it does not match the criteria. I wanted the trees to be more defined and detailed. Even though I do enjoy the graphics it does not match with the style of my game, which is a gothic adventure mix.
I think I will produce more trees using the grunge paint splatter look than the neat graphic look. I will need to produce about 5 more trees to get some concept on the images.
Bruce Nauman, "Human Needs" 1983
http://m5.i.pbase.com/o4/25/862925/1/118793985.BRpfDKJf.IMG_5866A1.jpg
Bruce Nauman, born in America 1941, is an artists who explores different types of media and expresses his views and thoughts through words and sculptures. One of his pieces is called “Human, Need, Desire” a neon light with the words Human, Need, Desire, Hope, Dream. The idea of having the words as neon lights comes from the advertisements that was seen in Cities. The neon advertisements catches everyone’s eye and promotes heavily of their products. This is what Bruce Nauman has done except he’s promoting human emotion in an ironic advertising way.
I like the ironic idea of promoting human emotion through neon signs. I think It would be an improvement if there was more words added and if the lights pulsed in a circular motion and then flashed all words. With just the 4 emotion signs I don’t think it brings out the message clear enough and should be together in an equal circle, rather than just in a shape of a star.
The Lights are very bright and colourful, so the neon does stand out very well when it fades in and out. It puts the message across that all humans just need these emotions, not some products that companies advertise through these signs. But it can be a confusion as well since its in these promoting signs. The artist might be putting across subliminal messages that humans can buy these emotions in a way, for example Desire & Need can be through paying for sex, Hope & Dream can be selling fake hopes and dreams that no one can achieve. And once it is all flashed together it can be an end fall of a human who has bought all these emotions and still not happy in my opinion. I think the artist has missed out happiness deliberately for others to read into these messages and art form.
Overall, it is a good piece of art and can give viewers different opinions on his messages. It is very abstract in how he produces the message through lights, the colours blend in a bit too well, there should have been a bit more of a contrast there so that the signs can be read clearer but again that can be the video camera's fault. Another way he can improve this sign is promoting more than four emotions so that his original message that he has thought of can come along clearer. But again this would limit the viewers minds and opinions of this art. http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/bruce-nauman-1691 http://www.moma.org/collection/works/81175 http://m5.i.pbase.com/o4/25/862925/1/118793985.BRpfDKJf.IMG_5866A1.jpg
Colours: black, grey, white. Clothes will have bright colours.
Boy: Normal clothes, no suits, dungarees, baker boy cap, shirt, jacket, scarf round neck
Girl: Dress, jacket, boots, dress colours will be a dark green and blue
Both characters will have shoes
Boy and girl from poor families. No relation
Characters will be paper like. Somewhat similar to American McGee Alice Madness Returns cutscenes. It can relate to the book more and it's playable so its a different style for games.
I can use the Victorian illustations for other characters such as secondary characters but I will work on that later.
American McGee Alice cutscene "Carpenter sets a groaning Table"
From previous post I gathered some photos of the stuffed animals that's on display in McManus galleries. I definitely want to work on the bear, Wolf and for. I'll add the small creatures for the environment. I'll also work on putting the creatures together to create a monster that ties in with the woodland.
Visited McManus for some pictures of the old clothes style in paintings. Some gave me an inspiration of what my character will wear for the game. Also took some photos of the stuffed animals for the creatures that will appear in the game. Some I'll match together to create monsters for players to fight in the game. I've also got my American McGee Alice concept book which looks into gritty and gothic games so that should help me with the style of my concepts. Just now I'm going to focus on the main character and hopefully by Christmas time I'll have ideas for the environment.
I have looked at the style of clothing during the Victorian times. I have decided to add two main characters, a boy and a girl so that the player can pick which one to play as. After reading into the victorian childrens daily lives, i noticed that most were child laborers. Either as punishment for crimes or if they were from a poor family. I may add this to the game.
Girls always wear frilly dress but if they come from a poor family then they would wear plain dresses with either an apron or a shawl. I also recently read that some children would go without footwear, even in the winter so the highest crime was actually stealing shoes which some were sent down for hard labour.
Boys who weren't hard laborers wore some sort of suits, padded front jackets and sometimes tights. There were also dresses and sailor suits for boys but thats not what I am aiming for my character.
I will look for a book on Victorian clothing and gain some more general ideas. I also have a book at home on American McGee Alice Madness Returns concept art. The game is set during the Victorian times so that would be helpful too.
I want the style to have a gritty look, more gothic horror than most.
I have presented my project presentation and have received the following feedback. I have to keep the game more focused on a normal side scrolling screen rather than a narrative game. If i created a narrative game there would be more concept art to tie it all in and I would run out of time producing each story on each level. I would rather focus on the environment and character designs, using minimalist characters for the players and detailed characters for the villains. The villains are mostly made up of wolves, witches, trolls, etc and I want to create something that every player will remember and enjoy fighting against.
For the environment I decided to use pictures of Dundee Balagy and Law hill and my geometric styles. I want to add layer onto layer to give that 3D feel, which was shown in Rayman games. It gives time for the player to look around the screen while playing in a side scroll game.
I haven't mentioned the animation that i want to add to this, but i can present it in my final presentation of a trailer for the game. It also helps me focus on my animation module, so completing the task more easier.
For now I am going to collect the photos of the parks, look at animal structures and look at tutorials for certain software. I want to create a 2D characters and a 3D one using ZBrush, but only if I can manage the software as this is out of my comfort zone and was not taught this in college.
Finished the presentation that's similar to pecha kucha. Used mostly images and less writing to view my point. I decided to leave out the plot as it can change throughout the course depending if it can work or not. I also spoke with Lynn about animation for the project and to join the two courses. After discussion we think that cinematic motion would be ideal with the trailer. It won't show much but mostly visual and little animation using after effects. I'm not so confident with animation as i don't have much experience. The only experience I had was a bit of after effects at college so hopefully this will work out in the end and will look professional.
After a discussion with Ryan I have decided on what I would like to research and produce. I want to create concept art for my own mock up game, using my own styles and narrations. I will also join it with my animation class for either a trailer or part of a game play.
I have studied some of the Brother Grimm's original fairy tales and have thought up a normal platform game that I would like to design. I was inspired by the film "Brothers Grimm" as well as a game with its stunning visuals "Brothers" and "Rayman Legends".
I want to keep the characters design simple but noticeable and the background like a painting. The stories were made in the 19th century so it must be old looking landscapes of the forest. I will also need to think of at least a dozen characters, half at least villains with their unusual horror designs.
I have thought up a plot for the game, but I will need to go over it and map out how it will turn out and what the players can do. Once I have the plot finalised I can then research character designs, environment artists and Indie games to help with this project .
"Alice" Nintendo DS Game" Characters have simple designs but each have their own unique features.
After a lecture on what to provide for a presentation as well as the course in whole, I already had a few ideas that I want to work on.
I enjoy creating characters stories and playing Indie games as i like the visual content or how different it is compared to other games. I want to research how they comes to their design and create characters and stories.
I will look at different medias used for concept and start looking at games from the 90's to present. I want to explore the environment used in games as well as the stories.
I am interested in myths, legends and fairy tales so i may look further into them and decide on stories and how they play out. Around Dundee there is the Law Hill, Balgay Park, Baxters Park, etc that can be helpful for creating a fantasy environment as well as old legends (White ladies bridge) that can play a huge part.
I will also look at different stories from centuries ago such as The Brothers Grimm, Rudyard Kipling, Greek and Viking legends.
Researching concept art on different games will play a huge part to my design and from that I can create my unique style. It will be 2D and more developed with the use of Ilustrator and PhotoShop.
