This post will be a round-up of some of the creative work I've recently being doing to continue my cognitive disorder creature project as it nears completion touching upon finalising some of the points made in previous posts.
Firstly to add character to the actual concept art book as a final deliverable alongside using an aged parchment texture for the pages I used a variety of ink spills, blots and patterns to add to the pages once edited with photoshop to show a sense of the book being a real artifact that the author carried round with them on their journey, sometimes in a rush to craft their imagery whilst also implementing the idea to the reader that the author made mistakes and wasn't perfect as spilling ink represents these errors or mishaps. Since we are all human in our perceptions in things we don't understand such as cognitive disorders but also just like the author Elias, we have the choice to seek more information to gain a higher understanding or reject it for our own false beliefs.
These ink blots can now be manipulated through movement, size change and transparency to get the desired effect within the document.
Another asset of the project I was developing was the introduction of groups of people and communities that cohabitate the same environments as the cognitive disorder creatures. Initially as a way of showing how the materials from the creatures could be gathered after a hunt to produce apparel, tools, weapon and armour upgrades as a game mechanic to represent that understanding the creatures (disorders) provided a defence against the symptoms or minimising the negative perceptions of them. Though the inclusion of these groups provided an opportunity for more discourse through visuals about the variety of ways that different groups have stigmatic perceptions or actions when it comes to mental health and the pros and cons of these as well as allowing the interesting and unique styles of fashion from different cultures to; highlight how much of a global issue misunderstandings of mental health is, provide an differentiation between apparel and tools for multiple playthroughs and gaming styles, and give me opportunities to develop understandings and a furthering my visual libraries of a wider range of cultures, patterns, and items.
The culture I had developed this idea with first and most in-depth was a with the Dermatillomania creature, finding an interesting juxtaposition between the symptoms of the sufferers (a compulsive act of picking skin to 'smooth' it) and ritualistic scarification in some african tribes. I looked into the clothing of these tribes and African tribes in general to give some basis for my own designs as well as more information that could further develop ideas for the habitat of the creature.
After producing black and white imagery with a little greyscale from markers for depth it led to thinking about colouration. Colour is a an important aspect within this project as it can often be when used correctly as a tool within game design. Signifying a variety of details to the viewer within the experience sometimes successfully through relying on our societal conventions when it comes to colour and design. In character design it is often utilised in armour or apparel of a character to represent character traits such as the examples below.
However it can be used in all aspects of game development from environmental choices in games such as Gris where the colours are there to show the player what level of grief they are within, or to highlight the direction the player needs to go in such as the Stanley Parable. It can also be used in UI and UX for different gauges especially in fantasy games where multiple gauges are needing to be observed by a player such as elder scrolls games (health - red, mana - blue, stamina - green) or Dark Souls where stamina management is a key component to success.
In this project colour was equally important and problematic in the development of the concept art. Being a color blind individual I rely heavily on informed understandings of these conventions when deciding on designs since I see the world differently to the majority of players yet with my desire to retain a sense of realism with the creatures to represent how 'real' these monstrous symptoms can be to the individual there needs to be believable understandings as to how the creatures contain certain colourations and patterns to give off the conventions and symbolise traits and characteristics in keeping with their attributes and position within the game, even more so with some of these groups of NPC's within the game. For example if I want the 'good' individuals to be blue and the 'bad' ones to be red how would I produce a reasonable justification for all the creatures being red, not many real world creatures are red since colouration of animals in our world are often an evolutionary trait that relies on both environmental factors and where they sit in the food chain. In contrast to this going for more natural colouration of the creatures and habitats could wrongly influence the player as to the nature of the creatures or NPC groups, If i was constructing an event where the narrative mechanic of subverting expectations was viable or necessary for an effect in the player then this would be okay but otherwise a design choice that should be carefully avoided. However, pure colour versus colour is not the only dichotomy available in the pursuit of this design form, others include primary colours versus secondary colours (this can be RGB versus CMYK in some case), light colours versus dark colours (hue or saturation) the main point being that there is a consistent trend within the design of all aspects within the project so it remains cohesive as a purposeful choice during the creative process. What has initially drawn me toward the red versus blue trope is the idea of Elias (the protagonist) being clad in purple, a mixture of the two colours to display how he begins the journey in the middle of the extreme opposites on this two colour gradient whilst also using our conventions of the colour to fit within the traits of mystery and wisdom since his garbs will be the uniform worn by scholarium members - purple is often related to magic and sorcery in some games as well. By choosing to utilising materials from the creatures to make apparel, tools and armour this would change the colour of Elias and the player to display the alignment they were making which can be changed by choosing to instead utilise materials from other sources such as flora and environmental minerals to either construct the same items or dye ones made from the creatures.
The final part of the project I have been working on is the final form of the transitional cognitive disorder creature of Cyclothymia/Bipolar disorder type 2/Bipolar disorder type 1. In previous blog posts I have discussed how the known causes of the transitions for individuals suffering from these cognitive disorders are represented in the game with opposing factions with separate motives for causing or preventing the bipolar type 2 creature from transitioning into type 1. I had already begun developing insect like imagery during the initial ideation of the creatures but now pushed the design further having finalised the type 2 creature.
Looking at wasps and hornets due to there being a particular wasp that lays its eggs within host bodies that burst from the creature after the larvae stage of its maturing. Whilst also relying on factors related to the extreme symptoms of the disorder and how they are amplified compared to type 2. Relying on a variety of reference sources to assist in the process in answering questions during the design process.
Some early developmental sketches of the bipolar type 1 creature when looking at cicadas and a broken circle pose that I also used on cyclothymia to show how the transition is representative of a broken version of the life cycle imagery used in displaying that of frogs and other creatures.
Concept art for the two opposing factions related to the bipolar creature as well as blue fauna utilised by the reverent worshippers who are trying to prevent the creatures transition to illuminate i.e inform player behaviour to assist in this method of understanding environmental factors to disorders rather than attacking sufferers.
I also needed to morph the insect like imagery so it retained some similarities to the Bipolar type 2 creature with the splitting skull and large primary eyes but extending spikes upwards and having more drool and the drooping tongue to continue and exaggeration of the opposing moods that are a primary symptom of the bipolar disorders.
Below is a collection of images produced in my sketchbook looking at a variety of figures that Elias encounters in taverns when attempting to get initial information to follow up on for targeting a cognitive disorder creature as well as members of the Silent vigil who live in the same habitat as the Insomnia creature and further studies of the wild variant of generalised anxiety disorder.
