Designing a game world 100 Initial Artworks
Designing a game world: Initial Art
By Kyle Smith
I wanted to start with the dungeon entrance. I feel like a dungeon underwater shouldn't be a massive entrance. The idea of making it hidden so it could feel like you could also find a dungeon underwater. I believe it makes it more immersive as a undiscovered dungeon that's not obvious to spot compared to a massive undiscovered building which anyone with eyes could point out it's there.
Because in African culture a lot of things are rounded like I stated. So making a boss arena, I wanted to make a rounded arena. It's harder than I thought to be honest to draw this. When sketching I released it reminded me of a gladiator battle arena. I thought for a second that gladiators arenas are based in Rome in Europe then found The Amphitheatre of El Jem in Tunisia. It was built by romans after conquering it's land in the Third Punic War. So linking my Idea to a already existing thing within my prompts is really good for my world building. In my opinion good worldbuilding comes from having these strange idea and linking them to real life and slowly developing place that at first seems completely strange and putting that real life element in makes you're audience investing in your world like in games, manga/comics and more.
Next I wanted to start thinking about the interior of this arena. I wanted to do the throne. So I quickly sketched an Idea of the throne. I really liked the idea of the sword placed within a mouth of a dragon. My dragon heads needs changing to a more crocodile like head rather than the typical British dragon.
I wanted to do quick sketches on the layout of my dungeon so I made around 5 rooms and maybe a sixth. These rooms are the Entrance, Cell Block 1, Gladiator room, Cell block 2. I made around extra 2 rooms but those are a lever room to open the gate to the Gladiator room from the Cell Block 1 and Stairs room but I wouldn't count that as a room as it's just stairs. I would love to add a 6th room. This room will be under the Gladiator room and that would be called the boss room. There's a lot of water within the Gladiator room as it's underwater themed dungeon and uses water as decoration like water fountains that comes from the dragon heads. You can see that sketch on my previous sketch, that would be sketch 8. in the middle of the gladiator arena is a massive drain cover to keep the water in the in the room at a minimum. My idea is you encounter a fake boss when going into the gladiator room like a version of the crocodile dragon and through the hypothetical battle you can see the someone watching above the arena and that would be the place where the person who has the most power decides on your fate. Like royalty or someone not as powerful like fight organiser. And when defeating the dragon the boss whose watching will jump down and breaking the drain cover which the player should be standing on and you fall to a massive empty space where all this water comes from.
(A more developed sketch of the room.)
Here's more initial sketches of my props in the arena like the little step you need to walk down or the gates for the gladiator room. And the pillars in the corners of the room with the heads of the dragon you are battling. I really liked how I have developed my Ideas so far.
I tried drawing the crocodile like dragon. I really liked how 27/26 turned out. I never drew a crocodile so my first few attempts was me learning about drawing a crocodile. The first two was drawing for the sake of drawing. I didn't really think about drawing anything design wise. My thought just was draw crocodile. And then my third one looked like a wolf. I was doing the 5 minutes method so sketching anything that came to mind was my first attempt but that's when after looking at it I made the mistake and knew not to draw that and so I drew 25 and it looked more like a crocodile. The crocodile looked awkward though and It frustrated me so like with 24 I changed that in my next sketch. I started getting the crocodile dragon down a lot more with my next two. I started to add my wings for my dragon and liked this open wings. My final page, I wanted to show an idea I had for this dragon. Dragons are known for there elemental powers through out media and So with it being a water temple, I wanted to show it's elemental powers maybe after getting it to low enough health. It's wings become powered and you see this dragon stop glowing blue.
Here's two mood boards I created for Two separate objects. One is for the Crocodile dragon and the other is a throne. Within this assignment I wanted to use the head of the dragon to decorate the room. And the throne as the person in charge of battle arenas usually have thrones
While sketching some ideas for the throne, I wanted to take inspirations from my crocodile dragon. In Egypt they believed in a god called Sebek which was a crocodile. He was associated with death or fertility. I wanted to give the throne more a sturdy feelings while having a rounded feeling like they do in Egypt.
While in the middle of drawing the throne I thought "How could I make this look more interesting?" or "What could Link this throne to the idea of my dungeon." and then I started thinking. My idea for the story that I kind off want to tell with this is a women coming in contract with a winged crocodile for a somewhat unknown reason. I would like to make more art within the room like the pillars
Here are some examples of hieroglyphics I wanted to give me an example of what they look like. I didn't stick with the art art style of it but the hieroglyphics show mythology.
I wanted to draw some hieroglyphics. Personally drawing these I was adding more of a story to this dungeon. In some mythology, sometimes it tells a weird story and while drawing these I made some start on a little story. The story is a mother who lost her child at birth and devastated due to her lost. One night a spirit dressed in crocodile skin speaks to her offering her a deal to reborn her child. Out of desperation she agrees and if the drawing didn't spell is out. I wanted the crocodile to be the devil in this situation. The baby turns out to be this human crocodile hybrid. This story came naturally as thinking why did the player come down here? And I thought to stop one of the disciples of the devil. Why is this dungeon here? Well the Mother couldn't bring herself to kill a son of the devil so creating a gladiator ring for the sole purpose for someone else to do her dirty work and kill her son. A demon.
Here is me doing some experimenting with light. I started going digital as I find I can do initial sketches faster digitally. I believe initial sketches vary artist to artist so, doing lighting is more rendering I find I did initial rendering which I would count to my Initial artworks. I struggle with lighting especially but rendering value is a weakness of mine. I just not grasping it but slowly doing better.
The Mycena Luxaeterna fungi can produce small light and I thought that would be really cool and Periconia has these little bubbles things so I thought making fungi with these two combined could be very magical yet it's a grounded idea.
Now, I'm experimenting with the floor for the same reason as the walls.
Experimenting with the ceiling.
Experimenting with the pillars, I'm still going to put the hieroglyphics on them just wanted to put more of construction like there were people there that built this place using objects that we use today.
Here's me experimenting with the colours. I love the muddier use as this is based in Africa Congo and using more mud colours as those are the colours used when mixing sand and water. I wanted to try other colours just to scope out if I feel like I'm using the right colours. I really like the 3rd one which uses more purples and rouge colours.
On the side of the pillar I wanted heads of crocodiles. Admittedly they look more like wolves but I wanted to get the idea crossed. The reason why they have the horns is the influence of the devil but they look like ears of the wolf. I added the button eye because I wanted to create the feeling of someone tampering with the heads and it makes tells the audience if they notice that whoever is here, has some intelligence.
Comments
Post a Comment