the process

this is another bit of concept art from the project that I am kind of working on right now. I still don’t know anything about the story, but I think I am getting closer to a look that I like.

For once I will let the look of the project dictate the story, so maybe this is a zombie story, maybe it is a story of survival or maybe it is a story of exploration.

The great thing about this process is that I still don’t know.

All I know is that I am having allot of fun drawing these, even if they are less than impressive.

my pension for concept art

as some of you know, I absolutely adore video games. I have ever since I bought a PlayStation with the money I got from my first paper route.

to me video gaming is an extension of animation in every way and recently, video games have been outpacing cinema in innovative storytelling and awe inspiring visuals. Because there are no limitations on what can be done when everything has to be modeled in 3D and no body is expecting photo-realism, video games have taken chances that would never be considered possible in movies.

in fact, the only place that you find the same dedication to original thinking in entertainment today, is in TV, with shows like “game of thrones” leading the charge.

you might be wondering what this mini rant has to do with the art-deco pillar you see above, the answer is easy. I want to become part of that world. I want to create video games and since I suck at programming and don’t have money to fund, I am trying desperately to become part of the visual department on these games.

So what you see above is a concept for a pillar that would hold up the roof in a fancy office in Manhattan circa 1946.

gif-ing

it probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise that I am trying to work on the overall feeling of the game. I am trying to get a hold on what kind of atmosphere that the umber will hold. With that in mind I have created this gif.

I was trying to emulate the blinking light that is so prominent in so many horror flicks as well as the feeling of general unease I get every time I encounter such blinking light myself.

Beyond this I was trying to create a look at the interior of the hallways in the apartment building, as this is one of the things that you as a player will be spending most of your time in. Mind you, this isn’t quite as gross as I wanted it to be, but all of that will come, I am sure… as well as some color hopefully.

the environment

Every time I think of the world that Lee inhabits, I think of it as lifeless and colorless. She is more or less trapped in a world of perpetual death where anything she cares for is taken away from her.

I wanted to show this lifelessness in the game environment.

what you see above, is just what Lee sees when she looks out of the window at her current position. I tried to make this particular aria as bleak and uninviting as a possibly could. I did this by thinking back to the time that I lived in a similar aria myself, as well as looking at pictures of housing project in northern Europe, where the game takes place.

at the end of the day, I didn’t do this drawing to create a playable environment drawing, more to set the tone of the project and the kind of spaces that Lee will inhabit.