Theme Research

My theme for this assignment was decided by the random generator rolling die, and then circling styles corresponding to the number. What I received was a 2d sidescroller game, with a pixel style set in the open skies with floating obstacles, which encases the high fantasy/ sword and sorcery genre but with dinosaurs. I personally like this theme, as it’s very interesting and creative, but also loose enough for me to add a lot of creative flair to it and my own touches. Plus it will be pixel-art based and that’s an art format I’ve always wanted to learn and experiment with.

I will research related materiel to see what’s already out there and gage what’s popular, common and what styles work with the theme. With my first piece of source material, I’m using a piece of physical reference in the form of a concept art book with a similar theme (dinosaurs in the sky) titled ‘The Art Of DreamWorks How To Train Your Dragon’ (Miller-Zarneke, 2010). The book contains a variety of imagery that is useful for me to analyse, some examples are below all contents of the book:

The first set of images are created in a more traditional, hand-drawn style, whereas this final cinematic image is a digital creation for the movie. There are numerous pros and cons for each style and way of working, and it falls down to both personal preference and also what you want to create. (For example, creating pixel- art and sprite- based work would be better off on a digital format, due to the creation if individual pixels and copy/pasting a character over for a sprite sheet.)

Pros and cons to both:

Those drawing traditionally on paper may be very close to the format since it’s much more hands-on and a much older way of working. Many people will have already practised drawing by hand to a massive extent, and just be far too intimidated or happy where they are to want to learn how to develop their art in a digital format. Plus, you can get giant A1 and A2 pieces of paper which are much more spacious to work on, and can’t compare to the relatively tiny scope of a graphics tablet. However making a mistake on a physical piece of paper can be serious, having to fix it by erasing or drawing around it (unlike pressing undo on a computer).  Likewise you have to physically buy all your tools, such as pens and pencils, a variety of paint colours to use and mix, and also paper itself. Whereas with a PC once you’ve bought it there aren’t really any other extra resources for you to use and continually purchase once they run out.

Digital artwork also has a much more advanced approach than physical with a very steep learning curve and high skill ceiling, but has a lot more potential and possibilities. There are a huge variety of tools available that simply can’t be done physically, such as duplication, special effects and colourisation, scanning and printing copies, editing pinpoint details with a great degree of accuracy over and over until they’re perfect, etc. Digital art can also be very expensive though, much more expensive than drawing on paper. Having to purchase professional equipment like a PC, scanner, printer, graphics tablet, a license to use software like Photoshop, etc. can be very, very costly. And that can be a huge problem for traditional artists wanting to transfer over to digital work but without the funds to be financially stable.

As an example, a famous concept artist in the games industry is Andrew Jones, who is very prominent in the games industry. He worked on many game series like Metroid Prime and Crispy Frontiers, and he planned out a monumental amount of detail that the final games will have from those early concept images. The style he uses are colourful and flashy with a detailed and digital design, but his work is also mysterious for many fantasy pieces that use flashy particle effects and can be eerie at the same time. I love how he mixes a blend of colour and the unknown with great quality and attention to detail, and shows the power and tone of digital artwork. Here are some examples of his work:

(Jones, 2015)                     (IGN, 2015)

Another good digital artist for reference is Rod Hunt, who is a famous pixel illustrator where he has created a multitude of content for the likes of Top Gear and Goosebumps, and he works primarily in a cartoony and pixel art format. His work closely follows the style that I aim to achieve for my own art project, since he uses quite a lot of bright colours in an attractive, yet minimalist style for each individual thing in the scene. It’s of an incredibly high-quality and professional standard, with many pieces being in an isometric view. Here are some examples of his work that I can reference when I make my own pixel artwork:

(Rod Hunt, 2015), (Rod Hunt b, 2015) and (Rod Hunt c, 2015)

 Now I will research various other games and art pieces, as there are many, especially in a pixlated style, which have used many aspects of my game concept (such as the sky and dinosaurs in a fantasy setting) and I will list some good examples for me to work towards below. My first example is the SNES game Super Mario World, featuring retro 16-bit graphics and Super Mario 3d World (a newer and more modern version of the game series), with various dinosaur enemies and allies with cloud environments and random objects floating in the air (things my concept includes, with both games shown below):

(EBOG, 2013)

(Chris Jecks, 2015)

(Kyle Hilliard, 2014)

(NintendoLife, 2013)

The main character of the game will be cute bird to fit with the sky theme of the game, and the enemies will be dinosaurs across the floating islands in the games to fit with the fantasy genre. For this I researched existing ‘cutesy’ character designs of those two species (bird and dinosaur), and saw how they were adapted into pixelated designs from other forms of expression, in order to see how I could create my own characters.

(123 Free Vectors, 2015)

(Free-Vectors, 2015)

(Icons101, 2015)

(Steven C Bear,2015)

(Daily Mail Reporter , 2011)

(Paul Perro, 2008)

(Print Stationary, 2015)

(Clipart Panda, 2015)

(wolfgirl456, 2011)

Also due to my game being based in the sky in a fantasy setting, I will have various fantasy elements included into it, such as tall glowing beanstalks that pierce through the clouds, floating islands suspended in the air and airships that are flying in the skies. These are concepts I enjoy and they also help emphasise the game’s theme on creativity and majesty. Here are various art pieces of these objects and environments taken from different games and media:

   

(Yuchenghong.deviantart.com, 2015)

(Travon, 2015)

(Mariowiki.com, 2015)

(MarioWiki, 2015)

(Barnhart, 2011)

(Thompson, 2015)

(Gamewise, 2015)

(FarmVille Wiki a, 2015)

(FarmVille Wiki b, 2015)

(LLC, 2015)

(Pre03.deviantart.net, 2015)

(Digitalmgi.net, 2015)

(Pre03.deviantart.net, 2015)

(Wallpaperswide.com, 2015)

(Pinterest.com, 2015)

I like how all these object and environmental images have a variety of styles, and the pixel-art floating islands are especially helpful as they follow the same blocky style my game will have. However the more stylised and realistic drawings are also useful as they help me view the various properties of an object and the ways they can be designed and drafted out, such as when I draft the front and back view of my main character. The last two islands are great for me specifically, however all of my other objects will be viewed from the side and as such depth from the front and maybe the back isn’t as important, but I’ll need to include as much detail as possible in just one viewing angle so any player can instantly identify what that object is!