Just something about me personally: I don't like to get stuck on one thing for too long. That's not to say I don't finish long projects or anything of the sort. Rather -- especially for these projects -- I feel the characters and environments work together harmoniously. It's better for me to work on both at the same time so they are fluid, rather than nail one down completely before moving on.
My last post included what I have done so far for the wingsuit game. This is what I've got for Mageball:
This is the basic idea. At the least, we would like to have two maps -- a Team Fire stadium, and a Team Ice stadium.
Although, there is some debate on whether or not the maps should actually be stadiums or not. While the rest of us were envisioning a professional sport, EA Games type feel, Chris was envisioning something different. I suggested, though, that I would concept the fields inside a stadium, and if we decided otherwise, we would just move the field to another environment.
Anyway, the thought behind the ice field is as if it's an actual arctic environment. So there are little ledges, or high points. There are cracks in the ice, and snow. The environment may not necessarily affect players. I really feel that we need to sell that this is Team Ice's home field, though. I also want the art to radiate the feeling of coldness. That's when I know that I have done a good job. The colour palette has a lot to do with this.
This sketch I am not even counting as actual work. It was done pretty quick while I had some down-time. I posted it here to point out that the hoods are up on the characters in the picture above it.
Chris and I have talked about character customization way down the road, although he prefers the hood-down version of the characters. I'm not sure what I prefer, but it comes down to what I can get done and how efficient I can be as an artist.
Faces are extremely difficult to model. And that's on top of the difficulty of modeling a character in general. The hood-up version of the character allows me to at least skip the face, so it may be a large load off of me.
We'll see how that plays out in the end though.
Lastly, here's the short concept I did for a Team Fire stadium. I imagined more rock structure, some lava pits, and dark red-brown colours. I feel like this says, "Fire Stadium" of some persuasion. Then again, I feel like it's way too evil. I don't want Team Fire to be the "villain" of our game, simply by colour association.
Then I had the idea to add a touch more professional sport feel. It would probably include brightening up the colour palette for the stadium, and keeping the field as is.
This is a good example of colour association being a real bitch, though. I mean, when you look at Warcraft races, don't you see Alliance - Good, Horde - Evil? That's what I saw, but that's not really the case. Neither are good or evil, they're just different.
It's quite a challenge. I'll let you know how I try to overcome it!
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