Random bit of Relevant Inspiration

This is a video clip from a movie in production by my favourite artist Yoshitaka Amano. It really caught my attention, because the entire style of it is exactly what i pictured my own game concept to look like......it kinda annoyed me actually, that somebody had the same idea as me and actually got to create it...grrrrr, I hate it when that happens ><
As its my fave artist though, ill let him off.......this time

Environments and level ideas

After mainly focusing on the character development, ive now decided to move on to creating sketches and ideas for the games environments to give an idea of what the world its set in looks like. I did lots of visual research into Japanese landscapes, architecture, etc. to get a good idea of how i  would draw each thing i wanted to include, then just started sketching. I knew that the opening of the game would be set in the Capitol city of Heian (based off the real capitol city of that era of Japan that im loosely setting my game around). I wanted to get a really good sense of the imperial castle looming over the entire city so decided to set the perspective from street level with the castle in the central distance, stretching into the clouds. It took longer than id liked to create the polished line art for this artwork (as im planning on doing four more of these), and ive still got to scan this in to colour digitally.
Moving on from this concept, I also started sketching the first 'proper' stage in the game that is classed as a level so to speak (as in this is what demonstrates the games platforming and combat elements whilst keeping the princess safe), though this is still in the sketch stages. as well as the concept for this level, i need to create visuals that demonstrate the level being interacted by the characters (like in-game).
As well as the creative side to this project, i have also been on a day trip to Manchester to visit galleries and exhibitions that might help me in conducting primary research. there was a good exhibit on China at The Manchester Museum, that helped in gaining insight into the visual style of eastern design (this would have an impact on hoe characters attire, buildings, items would look). I also looked at the weaponry section of the museum, as they had quite a lot on samurai Armour as well as weapons, which are relevant to my characters.

I thought the day spent in Manchester was really constructive, everyone got some really good primary research out of it, and it was a really fun day out of the college environment spent with the group. I wish we could have had the opportunity to do more things like this before, but because of clashing schedules its really hard thing to organise so everyone can come. Overall a very good day, muchly helped by the lovely weather, nearly losing Ami Lea and Wakeel in the magazine shop (they pretty much nearly bought everything ....well Wakeel did), ice cream complimentary of Wakeel and just being around amazing people.....~sniff, i love you guys! :)

Progression of ideas and finalizing of characters

Recently i have neglected to keep this blog updated, so this is going to be quite long im afraid.

Continuing on from my last journal, i continued sketching in my sketchbook, working mainly on the main character, developing his appearance by looking at his attire, weaponry, turnaround illustrations, his appearance in different media (such as traditional inks and digital brushes), as well as color experimentations using inks on print outs of his final line art. 

I decided on developing the final design of this character, and the rest, digitally so that the process could be completed quicker and give me more room to improvise if i make any mistakes (which would be near impossible to correct if i did the final thing using inks or paints). So i basically inked over the original pencil line-art, then scanned this into Photoshop where i colored it using a combination of layer effects and brushes, using a drawing tablet to give it a more natural looking style.
Also, after talking to my class mates they agreed to let me base my characters off them. This will make it easier to come up with each character faster with a facial reference, I just have to worry about designing unique attire to match. To get a good idea of face characteristics and also to simplify each persons features down to their simplest form (which will greatly help when I re-draw each one), i created a rough trace in photoshop using a reference pic for the base layer. Here are the ones I did below:

The characters are based off the following people (listed from top to bottom):

Andrew Cheetham ~Yoshitsune

Julie Kimmel ~ Princess Onin

Ami-Lea Doran ~ Lady Tomoe

Katy Underwood ~ Gio

Matthew Cook ~ Yoichi

Wakeel Khan ~ Emperor Kiyomori