What you see here is basically what my day has been like. I have pretty much just been staring at a screen all day, with either blender, unity or Photoshop occupying all the space.
This somewhat dull way of spending a Sunday is in preparation for an exam that I have in a couple of days, that I am hoping to do well on… though I will accept anything above a passing grade.
for the Last couple of says I have been spending allot of my time at the Design school.
I do this because I have a project I need to finish for my exam. In fact, I won’t be able to go to the exam if this project is not finished, so I have allot riding on this project.
This combined with the fact that the exam is on the 17th, is adequate to make me freak out just a little bit freaked out. Never the less, I promised myself that I would finish this project by the end of september I will be damned if I don’t reach that deadline.
Until then, I will just have to get used to working night at the school and look forward to october when everything will hopefully settle down a bit.
I have never really done much concept art. Don’t get me wrong, I have designed characters and I have drawn quite a bit, but I have only done very little concept art.
However, since I have taken my bachelor project back up, I have found myself forced to create some concept of the house that my main character lives in.., and it’s turning out to be quite difficult.
I guess I have never had an actual appreciation of the thought process that goes into concept art, because you really have to think things through. For the drawing you see above, I had to think about who lived there, what kind of income the household had, where they lived, who the characters who lived there were, what impact they would have on their environment, how cleanly they were and really just a plethora of other things that don’t even bare mentioning.
needless to say, that I may have bitten off more than I could chew with this new project, but I refuse to give up.
I am going to gamescom in Cologne at the end of august and I hope to have a test scene for the game ready to show random strangers, so I still have allot of work to do.
if you go back about a year (or look in my portfolio) you will find a project called “the scourge” or “a game of grief”.
this was my bachelor project that i turned in in the summer of 2012 and got some pretty awesome marks on. What I created was a game that would help teenage boys cope with the loss of a loved one. The game was idea was awesome and the pitch that I made was pretty good, if I do say so myself. The only thing that I didn’t really get around to making was the game.
this is why, One year later, I am revisiting the concept.
The great thing about taking a project back up, is that most of the work is already done, so all I need to do is just to make the game. Not that making a game is not hard enough in itself, but these are skills that I would have to learn at any rate, so finishing a project up, that never felt complete is just the icing on the cake.
this game is very heavily centered around the main character emily (who was previously named Lee, for those of you who might be confused about that), which is why I spend allot of time crafting this first character sheet.
There will probably be more character sheets for her, but this is the first, just to nail the character down.
what you see before you is a development sketch. this is a sketch of what a character of a game might look like in the early stages.
The great thing about this drawing is that it so so far from what the finished result is going to be.
I have a very clear picture in my mind of what this character (emily) and what you see here is pretty far from what I had imagined. Still this kind of work is what will eventually lead you to the holy grail awesomeness.
So tomorrow I hope to show you something more and hopefully something better that gives you an idea of what kind of game I am creating.
Trying to make a design for a character for a project I am working on. This one turned out a little too “Ellen Page”
I have a fondness for pixel-art. One could say that it is an affinity as a matter of fact.
a couple of months back I created a pixel art game, that I am still kind of proud of. the problem with that project, is that I chose to create pixelart in a program that is certainly not meant for it; namely Illustrator.
so today, as I fiddled with the idea of creating an updated version of said pixel art game, I created this quick sketch to see if I would be able to see if I could make this kind of stuff again.
as it turned out I could.
When you draw incessantly, as I do, progress can be hard to measure.
you want to be able to point to a piece and say that this was the turning point, but more often than not, you just can’t. Every piece you make looks in some way like the next and you end up kind of disappointed with your work.
That is why I think these “draw it again” meme’s (that I have made a few of myself) are so popular.
Only by recreating something that you were previously proud of, can you really showcase your progress. It is very satisfying to look at a piece and realize just how much better you have gotten.
This piece, was not quite that, but in a way it was.
Ever since I attended the Nordic game conference, I have been made aware of just how important it is to have a working prototype of your game.
Creating a concept for a game is great and all, but nothing beats play-ability.
a little over a year ago, I created a concept for a game centered around the grieving process of teenagers as my bachelor project ( follow this link to see it: https://sylvesterhansen.wordpress.com/portflio/a-game-of-grief/ ) and as I stare the prospect of creating my own original game,re-hatching this long forgotten concept would be a great place to start.
For one, I already have the art.
Now, this is not an announcement, that I will release a game, it’s more just a small progress report on a project that will likely never see the light of day.
What I realized, and what is gratifying, as I reopened this project, is just how much more skill I have required since I did this project. Things that were a struggle then, now come to me easily, such as the city scape you see above.
it is good to know, as I embark on this project, that I am in a better place than I was last. Even if the game never sees the light of day
I have created a small presentation that explains the idea behind the game. Please check it out:
I have created a small flash game that introduces the entire story, please follow this link:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/597547
Sylvester Hansen