Okami Aesthetics

Okami seems to be a great game to take a look at in terms of aesthetics especially since I'm wanting to go for a painted style.

Okami has a very beautiful and unique aesthetic inspired from sumi-e which is ink painting. An example of a great sumi-e artist would be Xia Gui whose artwork you can see above. He was a Chinese landscape painter in which not many people knew much about, but his works are considered to be some of the finest in China.










Coming back to Okami, the aesthetic for he game, is a combination of this ink painted/calligraphic look and cell shading. The texturing is very soft and full f colour with thick streaky black outlines and I think it works really well with the story and characters.

Prints in the Snow

This is a little irrelevant for my project but it's set in the woods during the winter months so I think that's a good enough excuse to put it up.

On a serious note though, I really wanted to share this because it's a beautiful piece of animation and it reminded me a lot of Okami and the movie Balto, both of which I love.

The animation has a really nice painted look to is as well and the twisted dull trees is something I could take from when doing my winter environment. The overall environment looks very cold harsh and lacking of colour but there is something very beautiful about it.


Des pas sur la neige from Nhils on Vimeo.

Fox Concept

As the character are seasonal Gods, I wanted to try dig up some interesting mythology to help fuel both aesthetic design as well as their back stories.

The Kitsune is the Japanese word for fox and there are a lot of folk stories revolving around them, not just in Japan but worldwide. The fox is depicted as an intelligent and magical creature able to take on human form. They are considered to be shape-shifters commonly assuming the form of a beautiful woman, young girl or old man. Some stories show them as tricksters and other faithful guardians which gives me a few options to explore in terms of personality.

Because they are able to take on human form, like other fantasy beings such as vampires, there are ways in which you can see their true form which is either through, shadows or reflections. I really like the idea of exploring shadows as I think it makes for a great concept and idea for the finished drawing of this character if it gets chosen.

Despite the Japanese & Chinese mythology that has been looked at for inspiration and concepts for this character's design, we have both agreed to steer away from the 'traditional' look especially in terms of clothing.

Based on the most common looks the Kitsune assumes, we have decided to pick the 'beautiful woman' as the associated facial features that are deemed to be beautiful make for an interesting and great starting point. I did initially like the idea of the 'old man' disguise so this is another design that will be looked at at a later time.

As a reference, Dee has used Angelina Jolie's facial features as a basis for the character design. The high cheek bones and angular shape to the face are considered to be beautiful features and are reminiscent of the fox.

These are the initial sketches of the 'beautiful woman' concept for the Kitsune. One of the defining features of the Kitsune, as it states on the mood board is that they can have anything up to nine tails. Between us, we decided to give our character four to reference the seasons. 

In the sketches, what appears to look like her ears is just an illusion created by the way in which her hair has been tied but it essentially creates the same effect but with a more subtle approach. With the Kitsune being a shapeshifter, I think it's important for her to appear ore human than animal as this is a form of disguise therefore her true nature should be concealed. 

Her costume is still to be experimented with but I've told my concept artist that I would like to stick to the fashion approach similar to that of my last module. So, expect to be seeing some fashion driven inspirations as well as some mood boards, all of which will be used to help create my characters wardrobes.

Victoria's Secret Catwalk 2013

This is quite an unexpected source of inspiration but inspiration non the less. The Victoria's Secret Catwalk of 2013 had some beautiful themes and concepts throughout both of which fall into the themes of my project. There are some lovely floral concepts as well as some seasonal references that I found very interesting and I really like the way in which they were incorporated into the overall costume designs and lingerie sets.

Obviously Victoria's Secret is promoting lingerie so there is a lack of clothing to the costumes used in the catwalk display which contrasts to how I want to dress my characters but there were some wonderful clothes and props that I really liked the the design of and i'd like to perhaps recycle some of these concepts and use them for my character designs.

Patterned Aesthetic?

I originally wanted to go for a painted aesthetic look and googled 'painted leaves' to find these images by accident. I actually wanted to see an artists interpretation of painting leaves not to paint ON them. However, I found it an interesting idea to explore patterned leaves and textures in general which was further boosted after I bought The Paper Stack magazine.

This mood is a collection of pictures I came across as mentioned and the more I looked at them the more I thought that it'd give a really nice and fresh look to my game environment. It also serves as a really good way to explore colour. 

There are of course games that have used a textiles approach such as Yoshi's Story, Kirby's Yarn and Ilomilo.

The only issue I would probably raise with going for this kind of aesthetic is the target audience. It's not something I have really considered as I wanted it to be for everyone but this textiles aesthetic is very soft, rounded and friendly looking which is obviously more aimed at a young audience which the games above are.

The Witness, Braid and Monet

During the presentation of my idea, the game The Witness was forwarded to me by one of my peers.

The Witness is a puzzle game where you have todo a lot of problem solving in order to progress the game. The puzzles obviously vary in difficulty but in terms of moving on and opening up new areas of the island, you need to pay attention to the rules you learn while solving each of the puzzles as the game revolves around your new found knowledge.

Here is the official trailer of the game so you can better look at the gameplay and aesthetics.

But, what I'm more interested in for my project are the aesthetics of the game. The Witness, created by the maker of Braid, again has a very unique look about it. There's a very vivid use of colour and the overall aesthetic is something that is definitely to my interest. It has a look that is neither  realistic or stylised which is where I want to be heading with my environment.












Braid is another puzzle based game that utilises the concept of reversing time. Braids, aesthetic is very beautiful and has this hand painted look about it that reminds me very much of Monet's artwork. Monet is a painter that was part of the the impressionist art movement. Side by side, you can see why I found a resemblance between the two, not only in the painted style but also in their use of colour.

Primary Research: Leaf References

These are some photos that I took of some leaves that I plucked from a bouquet of flowers. I should have really collected leaves from trees for a better reference but it's winter and it's difficult to find any leaves at this time of year. I still might go on the hunt for some if I find myself leaving the city for a while.

I took these picture on my phone so they're not great quality but they're good enough. The main reason for taking these picture was to observe the change in colour which I could then attempt to mimic and recreate when I make my own textures.

Conceptual Mood Boards

I have done a lot of character work throughout the years and although I won’t be taking credit for the final concept art, I will be working very closely and have a great influence on my characters designs.

At this moment in time I am providing a lot of visual material for my concept art. All the mood boards here are purely for the character design as I am currently brainstorming various ideas and different angles in which I would like to be considered as part of their design. 

The first mood board shows various fantasy based creatures which I want to use as a starting point for the character design. This idea came from the fact I would like to explore the use of anthropomorphism for the initial character design concept. 

For those of you who don't know,  Anthropomorphism is a term that means to ascribe human characteristics and behaviour to something that is non-human. This also includes the likes of animals.  

On the mood board there is a varied number of different fantasy creatures such as centaurs, treants, sirens and selkies, some of which have a mythological background which could help shape character back stories and personality. 

From this, other than taking inspiration from a blend of different animals, body shape and form, I now needed to narrow down the animals in which I would like my concept artist to try out. These animals obviously have to have some kind of relation to each of the seasons so I need to go away and research into it (this is still on going at the moment).

The second mood board shows the idea of exploring the use of props, namely masks and headdresses. This idea spawned from the Egyptian Gods as the animal heads are sometime depicted as masks, so I thought perhaps the anthropomorphic concept could help create some interesting props to perhaps reinforce the animal part of the characters or even serve as a replacement (instead of literally having animal features). 

Initial Thoughts on Texturing

My initial idea for the texturing for this project was a hand painted style. These are some textures I made a while ago but never got around to using but they will prove useful for this project.

The textures are a combination of coffee/tea staining as well as soy sauce, orange juice, cinnamon and cumin to create different textures and colouration.

Banjo-Kazooie: Click Clock Woods

This was an early game reference I thought of when starting this project. Click Clock Woods, my favourite level from the game Banjo-Kazooie.

This level as yo can see from the screen shot is a level in which you can play in the four different seasons. As the seasons change so does the environment, not just in terms of texturing and different weather patterns but also in plant and animal life. This is basically the same thing I would like to re-create with my environment so I thought this to be a great starting point for my research.

Things to consider for m environment that I can take from Click Clock Woods:

• Weather Patterns (Partical effects)
• Colouration of Environment (texturing)
• Animal Life (Sound effects)
• Plant Life

Autumn Pose Ideas

Even though it is early days, Autumn seems to be the season which I am most attracted to. Despite the fact it's my favourite season, I really feel that the rich colour scheme and the falling of the leaves is going to make for some good aesthetic elements.

I have briefly discussed with my concept artist that I would really like a sense of gravity to the Autumn character's design which brought me onto exploring a falling/sinking dynamic pose.

I really like the idea of having this pose for the finished concept art for this character as I feel it further reiterates that idea of fall. This however is sill subject to change as depending on the amount of animal influence in the design this could be difficult and even impossible to do. 

Seasonal Mood Boards

These are some mood boards I created to get a sense of colour and to gather some inspiration related to each of the seasons. These mood boards have been forwarded to the people I am collaborating with (sound designer and concept artist) as I feel it necessary to help visualise my thoughts and ideas. There will be a lot more mood boards to be created as I explore different avenues for the design of my characters in particular. 

Josh who is working on my sound design just happens to work very well with visuals to help shape his music accordingly to the kind of environment I am creating so these initial mood boards will be of use to him. I will be sending him snapshots of my environment as I begin to build it up so he can better picture what my world is to look like in terms of aesthetics and style. 

Deanna who is doing my concept art will be able to use these mood boards mainly for the colour palettes as the characters will also be based on the four seasons. 

Cathy Smale

While looking for woodland references I came across a very talented artist called Cathy Smale. As you can imagine, I found her through some woodland paintings she has created. She has done a variety of different landscapes, all beautifully painted but the woodland stuff is obviously in-keeping with my project and I feel that the style and colour palettes and terrain are of some inspiration to me.

This has to be my favourite woodland painting just because it brings back pleasant memories. This piece is called 'Bluebell Woods'(left) and it reminds me of a picture I took during the Summer last year (right). I really like the idea of adding bluebells in the Summer section of the 3D environment I am creating. I think for one, it's an accurate rendition of woodland plant life and it would add a contrasting splash of colour to the rich green and sunny landscape I hope to make.

 These two images I found really inspiring in terms of terrain and space. I really like the spiralling effects of the land, it almost looks like a symbol has been carved into the ground. This would be great idea for hidden signs or emblems representative of my character perhaps?

All in all, there's a real sense of mystery about the landscape forming such shapes. It kinda reminds me of crop circles and I think perhaps this could be an avenue worth exploring? I definitely need to consider different areas in which the player can explore as well as scaling and winding paths to make the landscape more interesting to travel.

Statement of Intent Presentation

After presenting my idea for my final project to my peers and tutor, I was surprised of how much good feedback I was given and the interest taken in my new found project. This was obviously a great start and I feel more confident to give it my all in a hope to impress as well as build a solid portfolio piece.

Some suggestions I was given were mainly about the visual narrative aspect to my environment. Although most of the visual narrative games I have looked at and have been forwarded to me have dialogue to guide the player, it was never something I really considered for my project until now. 

I feel like dialogue would be a good way to get a story going and to have the player feel like they have a purpose for being in this world. However, for time sake, it would be easier for me to do the voice acting myself but I don't feel like my voice is appropriate in terms of accent and listenability (if that's a word). There are some people I feel fit this category, easy to listen to and to understand, but they are too far away and to arrange days in the recording studio would be a hassle as well as a consumption of time I feel I need for modelling and such. 

I was also given the suggestion of splitting up each of the seasons into different levels. I think this is a great idea but at the same time, I really liked the idea of linked them all up with a slow transition into the next season.

After the Q & A with my peers and tutor I also walked away with a list of games that everyone seems to feel would be beneficial for me to look into. So, I will do a blog post in the near future about some of these sources given to me. 

Here is a short list of some recommended materials for me to research...

Games:

Dear Esther

Gone Home

The Witness

Proteus

Films:

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring (Korean Film)