Artistic Choices (Practical experimentation - part four)

 Moving forward from some of my previous thumbnails with the use of the pixel brush I had previously created in ProCreate to see how some exploratory art could move the images forward whilst still maintaining the knowledge gained from previous research and reference points collated.

My first pass came out looking like this.

The more I coloured the piece the more I dived into a cell-shaded approach, with this canvas being much larger than the one used on a pixel version of earlier character art the lines aren't as jagged as a more zoomed in pixel image. Smoothness of the art was one thing I was concerned with when analysing my last piece, with wanting a simple and clean look to engage younger audiences more (something cell-shaded design certainly does) but by having an attempt to cross pixel art for its retro feel with cell-shaded it's almost mixing the two art styles of the ideal candidates to be playing the game - the older player teaching the younger one how to deal with grief for when the inevitable time comes when the older player passes away. However, despite enjoying the process and the freedom this style allowed for me to ambitiously draw how I saw fit, the cloud to the left is a big favourite of mine from this piece having distinct character, I still have some obstacles to overcome if this is to become the chosen medium.

The three videos below were big influences of the style I'm experimenting with here, the first video giving me some understanding of how Cell-shaded graphics were implemented into Windwaker and the GameCubes graphics capabilities. The second is a fan-made animation set in the Alien universe which harkens back to earlier research with the final video showing how a small cell-shaded cutscene was made in unreal engine.

https://youtu.be/mnxs6CR6Zrk?si=rVyt9AjL3sSon9E4

https://youtu.be/ShGElGusepA?si=M8AYumR9YCoMKsQV 

https://youtu.be/Vx5pmsVdrcY?si=DI3LY8WBik-s0TDk

In my head I know that the rock on the left is something the player character moves in front of as opposed to the other two larger rocks so I maintained the ground line along the bottom of the rock but that wasn't enough so I added a black line to the scenery that is traversable as can be seen below.

The next part I was very critical of was both the sky and the foreground, both have too much open negative space as well as technical inaccuracies when it comes to the planets being all one colour though they could be left as is if I wanted to continue with it as an art choice, it certainly matches the disappearing landscape with their own blocks of a singular colour. But I want to use the sky during the beginning of the game to show its beauty and tie back to my earlier requests when starting this project and looking at other games about having an attractive arty hand-drawn style to this project. Though being a novice to the ProCreate software it would require some trial and error processes when it came to using tools to develop these planets the way I wanted, getting used to the masking and Alpha layer options to make adjustments to individual shapes on layers etc.

Adding textured brush strokes certainly gave a better appearance of a planet but detracted from the already existing art style being developed during the piece, but clearly demonstrates that I was starting to think of these objects as 3D and having light come from the top left so they fit in with the rest of the scenery, I also had added a lighter tone to the background blend to further enhance it as more painterly and light dimming toward the direction the player was headed - the journey through grief gets darker before the end.

Fading out the sides of the planet facing away from the light source, similar to how the different stages of the moon cycle are created gives them a more authentic feel as well as adds a much-needed 3D appearance to them and can be recreated whilst maintaining a cell-shaded appearance, though I feel I can still add more delicate beauty to the sky other than the planets. I say delicate as I don't want the sky to contain so much harsh detail that it distracts the players from the obstacles and journey they are to undertake, more to craft a beautiful aesthetic to the game that is a visible loss when you finally enter the mines and have it taken away from you, another level of loss for the player to encounter. Looking at an astrophotographers' work to get a feel of the sort of beauty I'm looking for as well as permission to have semi-daylight, clouds, and stars all present in the same sky at the same time.

Finally rotating the background gradient 180 degrees and altering the opacity of the layers the planets were present on took me somewhat closer to. the feel I was looking for whilst offering me an avenue of exploration to create more clouds, rocks, and planets separately from scenes to fully develop this style.

When it comes to my issues with the amount of negative space in the ground section there are a couple of ideas that come to mind. The first is to lower the ground and open up more of the sky, this would allow for more of the beauty to show through but also give more room to the open emptiness of the game further pushing the theme of the cold vast loneliness of space to reiterate the represented feelings of grief. Or looking at how some of my favourite 2D side scroller games are adding some more foreground elements, in a similar vein to how the landscape fades off toward the horizon to add depth. Looking primarily at Gris and Hollowknight for reference to this idea.

Observing a consistent black foreground is used that can overlap the scene but due to its flat consistent colour, the player is aware that it is not interactable and just an aesthetic choice to add depth to the scene, it is even more effective in Hollow Knight as it is often used to enclose the scene giving a more claustrophobic feel to the environment, essential for a game in which you play a small insect in a huge underground world.

Just a quick addition of the black foreground to see how it would change the feel of the area, I envision the different layers moving at different speeds as the player moves through the level to also add depth to the scenery similar to how it does in HollowKnight. The layers closest to the player move faster and the further back the layers are the slower they move.