Promotional Work & Exhibition Organisation

Planning for the end of year exhibition is now well under way, and we've had several meetings to discuss what the theme of ours will be. We decided on the word 'burst' as in a burst of inspiration, and created several ideas based on what the invitation would look like. Final decision was that we would utilize both photography and illustration together; photos of all of our faces, with bright, colourful patterns bursting forth out of our heads, and with some sort of typography worked into it. I think this session of working closely with all members of our group worked really well, as we've all been focusing on our own projects and it was nice to come together to pool all of our ideas together into one end result.
For our exhibition we were all assigned individual tasks (though mine was not chosen by me, due to me being ill)

• Boards ~ Katy
• Intro/ Feedback ~ Matt
• Interactive Site ~Me
• Budget/ Catering ~Ami Lea
• Slide Show ~Alex
• Boxes/ Screens ~Ali

During this stage of my project I have also started to create promotional items to advertise my game, i chose; a series of posters, sleeve design and a magazine cover. I've decided to create some original artwork for the game cover, but to keep it as minimal as possible, maybe utilising a silhouette style to depict the main characters. This is because the logo will most likely play a dominant part on the front, so I don't want to create cover art that will clash or detract away from this. 

Music that would fit SAVIOR.....Perfectly!

Random Inspiration II ~The Sequel

Afro Samurai...a unique take on the Samurai Revenge story, that is so popular in the Samurai genre. Its what i was hoping to achieve with my own game concept, to create my own take on something already established and make something interesting out of it that reflects my own interests.

Finalising Environments and looking at In-Game Visuals

http://dangomango.deviantart.com/gallery/29616940

(Above is a link to my DeviantArt page, where ive shown a selection of my SAVIOR Project so far, feedback from the community was received)

After having scanned in all five Environment line art, I took each one into Photoshop and coloured them using the same technique demonstrated in my Benkei colouring tutorial. Certain other methods were used in the case of the 'Salamander Path', as I incorporated an entire layer of stylised orange tone, then changed the blending mode to colour burn to give a harsh effect of flames. I think the end result to all my environments were pleasing, but the visual impact I achieved with the 'Salamander Path' especially i think is the most impressive piece of concept art i have done over the course of this project; it not only looks cool, but the scene it depicts sums up exactly what my game is about.
I think overall, with my Environment concepts, I have visualised successfully what my game world looks like, as well as how it works and interacts with the characters. As is always the case, i would have loved to work on more, but time didn't allow (each piece took at least one day to colour, not including drawing the original line art).

The thing I need to begin developing now, is creating in-game visuals for how the game would look on a handheld device such as a mobile phone or iPhone, etc. I've looked into this, and I need to develop 'sprites' of my characters and some environments, taking these and making them more 2 dimensional to fit into the low resolution style so that they look authentic as working on these platforms.
I don't know how well ill be able to create these sprite artworks, as ive never don it before, but im hoping to at least be able to create two characters and a level.

(an example of in-game sprite artwork)

Finalising Character Artwork

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.205132099496850.55887.100000001852159

(Above is a link to my Facebook album, showing all of my SAVIOR Project work so far)

Finally completed all of my character artworks! Originally wanted to do a lot more than seven, but considering the time-scale i don't think I did too bad at all. I also think that the idea of basing each characters face (except the main character, Benkei's for some reason....lets say its supposed to me) on one of my friends profiles was a great idea, as it not only helped in providing a good reference but also gives each character a very distinguished look. i think overall the characters look good, though one thing that might be a negative thing is how they don't utilise traditional artwork as much as I had originally planned and experimented with. With the main character I experimented with various inks and paints to see what style looked best for him, but as the project progressed I started to run out of time so I had to go for a less stylised look to each character. Its a shame, but i think the appearance of the characters still looks quite unique due to their Japanese style attire combined with my own illustration style, and faces that resemble real-world people.

More Research...Ill tell you when ive had enough!

I looked into the differences and similarities between the Western and Japanese game markets, based off the suggestions I received from my Prototype feedback, and I chose the Role-playing game genre as an example to analyse in depth. I chose this specific genre, because those created in Japan are completely different to those made for Western audiences. I think this was a good area to look into, as my game kind of addresses both sort of regions; its has heavily inspired Japanese themes throughout, but it is created by myself as a westerner for a Western market, so how to make it appeal to everyone is something that needs considering in-depth.
I also took all of my information id gathered so far from book sources on Game Concept Art, and annotated it all, analysing all the different areas of the process, from character design to level design. Whether it was relevant to my own artwork in terms of what I get to design in my own work or not, I still think its important to look at as much development styles as possible to get an overall idea of the process im undertaking in my project. Also, as my project is addressing games budget issues by creating a games concept that could be adapted to any budget, ive looked at a game that has done the same or at least attempted it, in the form of the first Assassins Creed game.
Things learnt from in-depth research:

• Greater understanding of Game Development process
• What differentiates Western style games from Japanese ones, and how games developers adapt to each market
• Games which already attempt to address the same problem that im addressing in my project

How I Coloured Benkei In Photoshop

This is basically a step-by-step of how I coloured Benkei in Photoshop. I used a Drawing Tablet to do it, as its easier and feels more natural to use. This technique demonstrated here, is the same I used throughout the project, in depicting all of my characters and my environments too.