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"
