#slightly janky moodboard but I wasn't originally going to make one

[bambino1294]

i hope this hurts

Inspired by Mouthwashing

11.5k Words | Rated M

“Is it all the same?” Her words bounce around the vast space of the cargo hold, filled to the brim with thousands upon thousands of wooden crates— “Yeah.” ���All filled with the same goddamn thing. (Mouthwash. A warehouse worth of fucking mouthwash.) Sophia exhales heavily, sinking down amongst her swath of open crates and gripping the edge of the one she’d just searched; the wood bites into the palm she can still feel, and the uneven chipboard snags on her coveralls as her knees press into the side. Daryl, somewhere to her left looking through another palette for something—anything—different, tosses one of the bottles haphazardly back into its pile, the plastic making a dull orchestra as it bounces in its crate. “Least our breath won’t stink anymore.” OR The Thanatos declares a state of emergency.

[efh2207630]

Cyberpunk shooter

The team was slightly larger, so I covered the entirety of the art with no expectation of working on coding. The group decided on a cyberpunk theme, which I've never drawn or really focused on before, and it was also my first experience with pixel art.

We created a mood board before starting with any concept art:

One thing I personally wanted to do was to try not to lean too far into the more orientalist elements that are present in a majority of cyberpunk media, as I think it's something that is very overdone and can be very uncomfortable. It wasn't a deep look, but I did want to somewhat consider the ethical elements in my designs, which I know will be an important element of the game art pipeline and a future career. I drew up some concept sketches, inspired by the moodboard and my own ideas of cyberpunk, which was mainly Bladerunner. I wanted to lean into the 80s American corporate look for characters, and have the protagonist wear a suit of some kind. The female player's hair was inspired by Janice from Mean Girls.

After this, I started experimenting with pixel art for sprites, which was easier than expected. I decided on the Janice design because she looked cooler and more punk.

I made a rudimentary run cycle, it looks a bit janky but I have no animation experience so it was acceptable.

I made some backgrounds next, as the original plan was for 3 levels. We had decided on the levels going downwards, starting with a rooftop, then entering the building, and finishing in the basement with a boss fight. I spent the longest time on the rooftop but had to rush the other two a bit as we were close to the deadline. The result is still fine, but it has much less detail than the first, due to less time as well as burnout.

After the backgrounds, I wasnt able to make anything else aside from some incredibly boring and rushed tiles, which were mostly flat coloured boxes.

Our group wasn't particularly coordinated with communications, so the hallway and basement levels weren't actually made, which I wasn't aware of until the deadline. There also wasn't enough time for enemy sprites so we had to rely on free assets.

At the end of the project, I was pleased with the work I did create, especially the skyline backdrop, as it was my first attempt at anything like this and I think the outcome is pretty cool. I do wish we'd been able to actually finish the game, or at least been more organised and realistic about what we could get done by the deadline. I had ideas for a huge mass of robot parts and cables as the final boss which, while admittedly overambitious, would have been fun to draw if I had allocated enough time in the planning stage. I also spent far too long on the concepts and not enough on the actual sprites.

Overall pleased with the quality of my own work, and the coder produced something cool with the limited time and my late submissions of assets, I just wish it could have come together properly into something closer to our ideas.