Concept Art
Using my research and outlines for my game ideas, I have created several pieces of concept art for each idea. These include character designs, artstyle tests, and gameplay mockups.
Idea #1 - Sea Monster Exploration
For this game idea I have focused more on designing the main character. As I've shown on my additional research and inspiration page, I've drawn inspiration from sea creatures in media. I want the creature to be humanoid-shaped, but it also needs to have fins and a long tail to re-enforce the fact that it is a sea monster, and not a human.
I made the above sketch of the character in Photoshop. I did this using the Marine Iguana's I researched for reference but made the tail more fish-like. This version of the character will be what the player starts the game as. I wanted it to look soft and friendly to highlight the change the character goes through over the course of the game.
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I then created the above colour sheet. I wanted the character to be vibrant and experiment with different colours. I selected some of the colours and then used a colour palette generator for the others. The website is called coolors.co and one of the colour palettes I generated is above on the right.
The final step in designing the character was designing the different stages of the design. For the second stage I wanted the characters fin's to be longer and looser, like those of a Betta fish. This is to replicare the environment becoming more colourful and mystical in the second stage. The third stage has the character become bioluminescent to blend into the bioluminescent environment, with the fins retracting ever so slightly. The fourth stage has the character then become blind, and covered with pores so they can use the pallesthesia ability I described in the outline. The creature also becomes more scary, with sharper fins and visible teeth. Then in the fifth and final stage the character becomes truly terrifying, which long, sharp, protruding teeth, long fins with exposed bone, and translucent skin showing its skeleton. I couldn't convey it too well in the drawing but the character would also be a lot flatter than in the previous stages. The fourth and fifth stages draw on both the Snailfish and the Anglerfish as primary inspirations.
Idea #2 - Submarine Builder
For the submarine builder, I made a quick mockup of the game screen as you play through it. I aim for the game to be viewed through the oval screen as if the player is looking through the window of a submarine. The green meter on the left-hand side is the depth indicator, with the pressure meter and SONAR below it. In the middle is the current and side objectives to keep the player on track, with the oxygen meter on the lower right side. I also attempted to show how the submarine can interact with parts of the environment by highlighting the movable rock in bold. This mock-up is quite simply drawn as I have not yet decided on an artstyle for this concept.
Idea #3 - Pirate Scientists
My concept sketches for pirate scientists mainly explored the artstyle I want to use, which is based in cartography.
I practised the art style using ink pens. I tried my best to replicate the bold outlines and pronounced features and even had a go at making my own sea creature. I also experimented with adding crosshatching to the illustrations for shading and I feel it works well to further the overall art style.
I then proceeded to attempt to design the pirate ship for the game. I wanted it to be like an old naval frigate, and used a picture of one as reference. Initially I was going to take the original ship, on the left, and paint it with watercolours to make it look like it had been taken from an old map, but I instead decided to experiment with using the crosshatching to get the ship on the right. I much prefer this design as I feel like it looks like it is a paper cut out. With this comparison in mind, I made the below stop-motion animation.
I really like the outcome of this experiment. I feel like the animation looks like it is from a pop-up book, which is an approach I had not considered when choosing cartography to influence the art style. This style is definitely something I want to experiment with if I were to take this idea further, but I wonder how viable how it would be if I were to make every asset for the game in a similar way as this was surprisingly time-consuming for the simplicity of the final animation.