Reworking old game art ideas 2

Next week is a Crit week and here are updates on my practical work so far:

Fianna

Sketches of some of the objects and characters that had been inspired by The Book of Kells.

I was trying to create something  new and perhaps a bit more simple as well as something that looks somewhat similar to original. I found out that Celtic looking designs are much more time consuming then I have assumed at first.

Quick mock up and colour as well as texture test.

As mentioned in my previous post I have tried changing colour scheme to something less bright and multi coloured but I came to realise quickly this wasn't the best idea. I think by muting colours design/idea  lost connection with the original ( The Book of Kells). I have also tried to fiddle with paper texture and it ended up looking 'too much' and 'too fake'.

I think I should go back to the original bright colours without worrying about them making sense (e.g.  dog being red colour) as well as working on background texture looking more realistic and not over the top.

 Dragonfly Dash

Mock up screenshot of the game

I have decided to change the game from a 'top-down' to a side view as this way I was hoping  I could show more of the flowers and background vegetation without compromising the actual game play too much. Also, as mentioned in my previous post I have attempted to recreate ink and watercolour look.

I think it is a better attempted then the Fianna one because the watercolour paper texture looks quite realistic. Ink marks also look reasonably satisfactory. Things I should fix in my opinion are:

• Colours - need to go back and refresh my knowledge on use of colour because it has been a while since I used colour in paintings.
• Recreation of watercolour painting effect. Although current result is not a very bad attempted I think looking in to digital watercolour techniques and possibly relevant Photoshop brushes would improve results.
• Background - need to come up how I could paint background plants so they would complement the foreground flowers

NoBoy

2 variations of  apple trees

Quick mock up of above apple trees within an environment  and  with  apples as interactive elements.

I was trying to replicate 'painterly' look on the left tree and tried to experiment a little with Photoshop brushes on the right tree design. I think both tree designs look reasonably successful and the apple seem to stand out by colour contrast, however by looking at the image so far I have realised that it might be difficult to differentiate between a background element and an interactive object in front of it. This problems stems from paintings being flat and static 2D objects with no interaction. I should look in how this problem is solved in other 2D games. Also, I should familiarise myself more with digital brush creation process in Adobe Photoshop as it in my opinion would help with achieving more of a 'painterly' texture.

 'Gravity Men' team  main character- robot.

Robot (main character) sketches.

Main character design mock ups. Combined a couple of robot designs from a previous sketch (see earlier post) and chose to combine 6, 7 and 8 texture tests in to final character design.

Final design for robot character.

As mentioned in my previous post I was attempting to give robot more aesthetic/artistic look; preferably somehow remind of sketch done using traditional art media. I have used a layer with watercolour texture effect and then tried to imitate a pencil drawing. I think it came out well and my team was happy with design.

Rat game character sketches where I have tried to recreate ink media look.

My favourite design and texture look is the one on the bottom right hand side, however the top right hand side one probably looks much more ink like.