melonmint1

[melonmint1]

Assignment Name: In-Game Scene

Tools: Sketchbook

Description: Here is a sidescroller example of what my game may look like. This composition shows a candle mage fighting Mammon, with Mammon's castle in the background and some Lightsoul arms in the foreground. The player plays as the candle mage, who in this scene fights Mammon on a bridge in Hell. For the art style, I decided to pivot slightly and go more comical/playful, using the techniques I learnt when sketching my cuphead clock and applying them here. Overall, the piece is interesting but does have a dissociation in art style between the candle mage and Mammon, the latter drawn realistic with shading and the former more comical and flat. Discounting this difference in style, I do like the setting/composition of the piece. I feel like the different parts of the game are very distinct -- the castle is clearly in the background, and the player, bridge, and platforms clearly denote the plane upon which the player stands.

Self Reflection: Happy days! The last assignment is over. Although I am admittedly burnt out from drawing, my whole experience in this class has aptly trained me for drawing in the digital space and I am super grateful. Regarding this piece, the only thing I would probably change is the positions of Mammon and the candle mage to show a greater variety of movements. Otherwise, totally satisfied with the result, especially since I got it in on time. Thanks for everything! Hopefully new posts will continue to come through... :)

Itch.io build link:

[melonmint1]

Assignment Name: Environment Prop Sketch

Tools: Sketchbook

Description: Here is the rotating weapon locker prop that I designed for my environment assignment. I included this image in the assignment submission, just posting it here again as its own sketch. This weapon locker is used by candle mages to store their belongings before entering the main church area for prayer. I drew this locker in a gothic style, fitting with the gothic architectural theme of the candle mages' main base. Part of what makes this prop special is the combination between the advanced machinery used for its function, and its dated gothic appearance. This high-tech but traditional style is expressive of the candle mages, who utilize high-tech weaponry and gadgets but wear old robed clothing and prefer to avoid technology unless necessary.

[melonmint1]

Assignment Name: Character Design Key Art

Tools: Sketchbook

Description: This is the adapted key art from my sketches. It depicts Mammon with his legendary fishing rod, capturing a lost soul and dragging it into Hell. The foreground contains the lost soul's foot, which is currently still human-esque given that Mammon has not yet turned it into a Lightsoul. Below are the mountain ranges of Hell, treacherous and steep cliffs that are almost impossible to scale. Mammon has built a system of towers and bridges across the mountain range in order to easily traverse the terrain. Topping the towers are spires made of gold, Mammon's signature architectural liking. (Any and all structures related to Mammon will have these spires) Above the mountains and to the right of Mammon is a larger watch tower, inhabited by Mammon's imp underlings who keep watch over his castle in the background. His castle is grandiose, allowing Mammon plenty of space to store all his greedy trinkets. On the left and right of the castle are two huge towers, with several smaller watch towers jutting out. These towers also possess golden spires. Bridges connect the towers and various other parts of the castle and its wall.

Self Reflection: Overall I am decently happy with the end result. Probably the biggest change I made that I liked was making Mammon's eyes black instead of white, which lends a greater menacing/dangerous feel. I'm also quite happy with the pose that I ended up placing Mammon in, because the pose is striking and directly communicates Mammon's incentives and actions in the game world. However, I definitely think I could have done a better job in the world-building sense if I added more environmental elements. Putting a few underling imps along the tower bridges or on the castle wall would probably do the trick. I also originally planned to have candle mages flying towards Mammon with weapons drawn, but due to time limitations I was unable to add them. Nevertheless, I think that this key art does effectively communicate Mammon as a character, showcasing his actions and intentions as well as his connection to the Hell settting.

[melonmint1]

Assignment Name: Key Art block-out sketch

Tools: Sketchbook

Description: Here are 2 different compositional block-outs for my character's key art. The first composition depicts Mammon lurking in the shadows within a church, as a candle mage approaches for battle. I like this composition because the surrounding church environment and the characters highlight the crux of the game, and the huge Mammon in the background alludes to his power. However, I do feel like this first composition places the candle mage as the focus when this assignment should be about key art for Mammon. Thus I drew the second composition, which depicts Mammon fishing a lost soul on its way to heaven and capturing it. The background showcases Hell, and Mammon's castle where he lives. This composition is more successful as a key art for Mammon because it places him as the focus, and additionally showcases something he would normally be doing within my game world.

[melonmint1]

Assignment Name: 4 profile views of my character sketch

Tools: Sketchbook

Description: Here are 4 profile views of my demon character Mammon. I tried to make the expressions more animated and exaggerated, drawing in an almost cartoon-like style.

[melonmint1]

Assignment Name: 2 different perspectives for an asset in Cuphead Sketch

Tools: Sketchbook

Description: Tried my hand at the 1930s cartoon style that's used in Cuphead. Pretty successful in my opinion! And lots of fun. This is just a simple stopwatch/clock enemy that could be used as an asset in Cuphead.

[melonmint1]

Assignment Name: Character Design 2

Tools: Sketchbook

Description: 3 full body visuals of Mammon, the devil in my game world. The demon of greed and wealth, Mammon grew jealous of many humans' greed and sought to re-establish himself as the "king of greed". To punish humans for their greediness, Mammon captures the souls of humans attempting to reach heaven using his fishing rod. Mammon takes the souls and infects them, turning them into his personal Lightsouls. In an attempt to stop Mammon's malicious acts, the Candle Mages leave their home and launch an all-out offense on Hell. The plan backfires - upon arriving at Hell, Mammon is nowhere to be found. It is soon discovered that Mammon was a step ahead, and had already launched his own invasion of the Candle Mages' home base and captured it (as depicted in my previous drawing). Side note: it seems like Mammon takes a liking towards the souls of politicians, and bankers on Wall Street. I wonder why.

Image breakdown:

Image 1: Mammon sits on one of his many thrones in Hell, bored out of his mind. Surrounding him are bars of gold. Mammon's greed has resulted in him owning everything (literally everything), and now he plans his next move that will bring him satisfaction.

Image 2: Mammon fishing the souls of Humans on the way to heaven. As a demon, Mammon has the ability to grow limbs and change form. Here, he has grown a third stump leg to act as a counterweight while he fishes.

Image 3: A demonstration of Mammon's greed, and playful/twisted personality. Here he is stealing pots of gold from donors, because he felt like it.

More character details:

no matter what Mammon transforms into, he will always retain his sizable belly. This is a crucial feature that hints towards his insatiable hunger/greed for all things.

red and gold are Mammon's main colors. Red for his devilish apperance, and gold as he just loves trinkets and anything shiny. The purple accent represents his jealousy and power. Mammon also wears jewelrey (which can be of any color), frequently switching between various jeweled items.

as for drawing style, Mammon should be sketched first, highlighting shadows and dark areas with cross-hatching. Color can then be applied afterwards to create the desired look.

Self reflection:

Rather proud of this one. Throughout this semester I have been trying a bunch of different techniques to create value from color, and I think I've finally found the solution that works best for me. Like I mentioned above, I sketched Mammon's figure and form first in black and white, using cross-hatching and quick strokes to highlight dark areas. I then used an airbrush tool in Sketchbook to apply one solid layer of color, then switched to darker tones of the same color to paint areas where I cross-hatched. Rinse and repeat through each color, and voila! This drawing did not take me as long as I thought it would, which is a great change of pace from other recent assignments. I'm also quite happy with the way I showcased Mammon's emotions through his facial expression, especially in image 3. I think the main areas that I could improve on is the mouth in image 1, and the tongue in image 2. Mammon's emotion in image 1 could be understandably confused as being scared/shocked. I think if I raised the dark areas above his eyes and changed the mouth shape to be bigger (more like a yawn), the drawing would be more successful. As for image 2, Mammon's tongue looks a little bit flat compared to the rest of his body due to incorrect perspective. I'll definitely have to pay more attention to perspective as it is a recurring issue of mine, but overall I'm satisfied. On to the next one.

[melonmint1]

Assignment Name: Character Design

Tools: Sketchbook

Description: Front and back rendition of my new wacky character Guu. I added the detail that he is a morphling who is able to create any shape from his gooey body. Despite looking like a harmless alien goop, Guu actually has a taste for killing, especially in a cute/comical way. Whether it be creating flowers that release poisonous spores, impaling enemies on spikes, or going BAP BAP BAP with its trusty Glock, Guu has an apetite for all things killing. With its cute body shape and innocent/buggy looking eyes, Guu lures its prey through providing a false sense of security to onlookers. An example interaction with Guu would be as follows:

Passerby: "Aw, what is that weird little green dude?"

Guu: unmenacingly scooches its way to the passerby

Passerby: "You're so c-"

Passerby: *Instantaneous death*

Guu: begins to nibble and eat the passerby's corpse

Reference: Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc. and the aliens from Toy Story

*New bipedal character will be drawn for following assignments

[melonmint1]

Assignment Name: Character Design Silhouette Sketch

Tools: Sketchbook

Description: Meet GUU, a parasitic space slime "thing". Here are 3 potential silhouettes for my gooey alien character. GUU should be able to stretch and sink into the floor at will, morphing its arms to drag enemies underground. I think the middle design is most successful, just because I like the circular body shape that reminds me of a "blob". I also intended for the appearance of GUU to be more cute and friendly than disgusting and terrifying, which fits the middle design.

Didn't have any references for this one, just drew what came to mind.

[melonmint1]

Assignment Name: Environment Design Part 3

Tools: Sketchbook

Description: The home base of the candle warriors following the event of the Breach, in which an evolved alpha Lightsoul discovered and laid waste to the base. This Lightsoul has mutated, gaining the ability to form out of pockets of darkness and breathe toxic light. It is also able to spawn and call on its underlings from darkness.

Notes:

The environment should now be bursting with light, in sharp contrast to the atmosphere prior to the Breach. This light is so bright it burns the eyes of any human who looks upon it without some form of mask protection. To accentuate this brightness and destruction, the domed roof of the church should now be torn open, allowing more and more Lightsoul to pour into the church through the darkness.

Lightsouls are the reanimation of the souls of humans, who upon traveling up to heaven were snatched by the devil and brought to hell instead, where they were forcibly turned into monsters. It is the warrior's job to free these souls. As a result though all Lightsouls differ in apperance, they all possess elements of human form. This one for example has mutated human arms and fingers.

This event could be used as a bossfight. In this case, rubble scattered around the ground should be plentiful, however larger pieces of debris should either be smartly placed (so players can dodge the Lightsoul's toxic breath) or avoided entirely to aid in the player's movement.

Assets that have been affected by the Lightsoul's toxic breath should showcase a corrosion effect, as if an acid ate away at the material.

Self Feedback: Not my best work as some elements of light appear flat, but I am ecstatic nonetheless. I had this idea that I wanted a creature to be bursting through the church, and I successfully fulfilled that vision. I'm also quite proud of the small environmental damage details that I drew like the rotating storage system being broken with storage boxes crashing to the floor. I also liked the detail of Owl's head being broken off and lying in two pieces close to the Lightsoul's arm. I do think more rubble/debris detail could be present overall to show greater destruction, especially around the right side of the drawing. If I had more time, I would definitely tear apart the spiral staircase to make the whole scene more realistic.

Reference Board:

[melonmint1]

Assignment Name: Environment Design Part 2

Tools: Sketchbook

Description: The home base for all candle warriors/mages. This is a zoom in depiction of the end section of the church I drew in the previous assignment. The church is decorated in a light victorian style with candles dotted around. These candles provide the minimal light within the church. On the left is a storage system that I designed, seen in my sketches.

Notes:

The main color scheme of the church is brown, black, white/beige and yellow. Objects created for use in this setting should use these colors. Green and purple are rarer colors that exist in this universe, but are seldom used by warriors as their chosen color given that those distinct colors were used by the founding fathers Vert and Faceless (depicted in statues). Owl, the statue with the sword, was not a founding father. Rather he was the first recruit warrior to have slain an alpha Lightsoul. He was killed in battle, and is commemorated through this statue.

The overall feeling of this location should ooze elegance. Not one aspect of the church should be dirty as all objects are regularly cleaned and polished. The atmosphere is quiet, and even the rotating storage system on the left has lubricated rails to make minimal moise. Warriors deposit their weapons, cloaks and other items into the boxes before entering the main foyer for prayer.

This specific prayer area within the homebase is not used for gathering. Thus, foot traffic within this area is typically little, with only a handful of warriors entering this area at a time to pay their respects.

Though it may not be depicted vastly here, candle warriors utilize machinery for living, and battle. New objects created in this setting can have mechanical components, but the main materials of wood, stone, steel, cloth and marble should dominate.

Self Feedback: This honestly took far too long. I'm rather inexperienced with working with color especially paired with depth, and this showed. I think I made vast improvements from my design last week, which felt quite flat due to poor perspective. This time around I decided to model my environment in Maya first to ensure I could draw from a correct perspective, and it helped for the most part. I still found it rather difficult to draw my own objects in perspective atop the Maya model, but overall I'm proud of the effort I put into this assignment. I added a decent amount of detail into it, and I believe it shows. I do wish I put more elements to make the environment feel more "lived-in", but it made sense to me that a place for prayer and paying respects wouldn't be littered with cloaks and other various life-related objects. This place is treated with upmost care and appreciation by the warriors, so much so that leaving a cloak lying around would be seen as an insult to the founding fathers.

Reference Board:

[melonmint1]

Assignment Name: Environment Design

Tools: Sketchbook

Description: The home-base for all candle mages. This area serves as a meeting place for all mages, a hub of sorts. Here, players should be able to interact with other mages, start missions, eat, rest, e.t.c.

Self Evaluation: I was highly influenced by gothic architecture, especially those present within cathedrals. I thus decided to employ this open floor style common in many churches. I also used a lot of repeated arrow shapes, all pointing upwards extending the ceiling high above the floor to create a sense of height. To the left and right of the main floor are tunnels and staircases leading to various other caves and locations in my world. In my first layout, these stairs are a spiral staircase that also lead to a secondary level that overlooks the main floor. This was also largely inspired by the multiple levels of glass/decor that some gothic churches have. I also employed the floor to ceiling windows and the statue that I originally planned for layout 2, as I felt like the statue/lighting would heighten the aesthetic. To fit thematically into my world underground setting, the lighting coming in to the church through the large glass windows are provided solely by massive candles. Compositionally, I think my art definitely needs some work. Exploring value and light has often been my weak point, and I do think that depth in my artwork could be more precise. I think that if I made the dark areas of my work darker and the light areas lighter, I could create a stronger contrast to help with properly defining the foreground/background. As for forms, I think that my drawing has all the necessary shapes though I could play more with size. Currently, my first layout lends to the idea that the church would not be that large (given the large entranceways, e.t.c). However the benches and stairs are rather small, creating a confusing perspective. Overall, much to work on for both layouts, but I'm proud that I managed to complete the task at the end of the day.

Reference Board:

[melonmint1]

Assignment Name: Logo Sketch

Tools: Sketchbook

Description: A sketch for the logo of the cult of hooded candle-mages, who I sketched last week.

Reference Board:

[melonmint1]

Assignment Name: Procedural Art to Audio

Tools: Adobe Illustrator, Premiere Pro, Unity

Description: I knew I wanted to try creating art for some form of electronic music, thus I chose Daft Punk's Derezzed from Tron Legacy as a launch point. Given that Derezzed is played during a club/bar/party scene, I wanted to recreate the crazy lightshow appearance that many EDM festivals produce. I feel like I achieved this effect quite well using particle trails and playing with the particles velocity over time to make the flashing blue and orange lightshow lines. As for the bass, I wanted my art to pulse in reaction, but I wasn't able to figure out how to emit the particle and quickly drag it back in. Thus I decided to just have my particle shoot outwards quickly, with a very short lifetime to mimic a bass hit. Though I didn't really achieve the full bass effect I desired, I'm still happy with the result, especially considering how difficult it was to properly match the audio to the art as the music has a high BPM. Lastly to accompany the weird wavy electronic sound, I created a hortizontal emitter that fires particles with extreme noise, causing them to vibrate and shake around as they travel from left to right. Although this part may not match the music completely, I do think the overall "feel" of the noisy particles emulates the jumping electronic sounds of the music.

[melonmint1]

Assignment Name: Original Character in World Sketch

Tools: Sketchbook

Description: This is a character that I initially planned as a potential champion in League of Legends, however the design fits much stronger into my original world: a futuristic/victorian world in which the Earth has been tarnished by incessant earthquakes, sending all structures beneath the ground. Chosen warriors like Luer are sent deeper underground into abandoned churches, caverns, and buildings to defeat and free the lost souls within. This game would likely be a roguelike.

Reference: https://www.pinterest.com/rwy962/2d-art-reference-5/

[melonmint1]

Assignment Name: Patterns From Particles

Tools: Adobe Illustrator, Unity

Description: I did my upmost best to create particles for a comical "slap on the face". I tried to accentuate this idea of a sharp pain, that quickly fades. I made all the shapes shoot out in specific directions to try create a movement of sorts, but i'm not sure how effective it is. The direction of the slap is coming from the right to the left. I also added the common POW! word used in comics. The first sprite signifies the initial blunt force of the slap, hence its fuller shape. The color is also majorly red and orange, which accentuates the idea of physical contact in the slap. The second sprite acts as the lingering stinging feeling after the initial contact of the slap, and I made this sprite sharp and spiky to create the stinging effect. This sprite is in yellow, as the stinging feeling doesn't hurt as much as the initial red/orange blunt impact sprite but is its own distinct feeling. Lastly, the third sprite was my attempt in creating air waves in the direction of the slap to represent the force of the slap. I set the colors of these sprites to be gradient blue and gray to make them seem like air.

Evaluation: Overall, given in class feedback as well, I definitely could have created a more cohesive particle effect if I played more with size. I orginially intended for the POW! text to be much larger, and I think sizing it up would create a more impactful appearance. The stinging sprites could also be much smaller and in greater abundance to better communicate the "pins and needles" feel of the slap.

[melonmint1]

Assignment Name: A Fantastical Packaging For Water Sketch

Tools: Sketchbook

Description: The water bottle equivalent for the people living on the planet Bolak-9. Deserts are freezing cold here. They look hot because the planet has reverse-hotness-coldness-looking effects. Loosely based on that pill thing in Men in Black. So cool.

Reference: