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Vya In-Game Scene

This week's assignment was to create an in-game scene for our character, and include there one background and one foreground asset. You can view "Vya" on my itch.io page. Although it is not a playable scene, I ended up animating Vya and her campfire.

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Character Design--Part 3

Title: Vya Key Art

Tools: iPad, Procreate

Description: This image contextualizes Vya in her world. The bare mountains and evergreen trees in the background, as well as Vya's heavy coat, tell us that this is winter. Vya seems at home in this environment, but by situating the town in the deep background, I want to convey the impression that Vya is on her own. The pot warming on the campfire is a sign that Vya relies on survival skills for her daily needs, and that for reasons that remain a mystery (for now), the town does not provide these resources.

Below, I have included two composition sketches. I wanted to situate Vya in a landscape and ultimately settled on one that set her at a distance from the town. I did so in order to highlight the town as both a place of refuge and a source of isolation. In my final sketch, I preferred that Vya take up more space in the scene. She lives in a difficult, sometimes forbidding environment but is not overwhelmed by it.

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Vya Character Sheet

Tools: iPad, Procreate

Description: A character sheet for Vya, the main protagonist of a survival combat game set in a mid-winter Nebraska ghost town. Vya's thick winter coat conceals weapons like her dagger, a family heirloom. Her yellow scarf, an object that holds deep personal meaning, is always tied snugly around her neck.

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Four Character Views

Title: Four Moods

Tools: iPad, Procreate

Description: Moving clockwise from the upper left, I have sketched the four main moods of Vya, the protagonist of my survivalist combat game: Distressed, Pensive, Content, Enraged. On the lower right are two preliminary sketches that I consulted along the way. I'm not comfortable drawing faces, but Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston's book The Illusion of Life proved to be a gentle, encouraging guide. The book is essentially a history of Disney animation, full of detailed examples that illustrate how Disney animators adapted (or didn't) to evolving techniques and technologies. I paid close attention to a chapter on eyes and faces, noting how small adjustments to angle, value, and line weight communicate shifts in mood/emotion. The shape of Vya's head remains constant, so these moods rely entirely on the eyes, mouth and eyebrow.

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Title: Character Design

Tools: iPad, Procreate

Description: For this turn around exercise, I went with the middle silhouette which suggests that the character is wearing a long, heavy coat. Although the general clothing style remains the same across the three views, I did test out different color combinations. I'm not comfortable drawing faces but I am especially reluctant to do so for this character. She is Vya, the resident of a ghost town and the last living member of her small family. She is in her early thirties and comfortable living in isolation. She is resourceful and is able to subsist on the food she grows and hunts. Her clothing and tools, however, indicate that she has had contact with the outside world but the nature of this contact (friendly or hostile) remains unclear. In hindsight, a silhouette that emphasized an action (like carving) would have given me more to work with--in terms of narrative and personality--but I appreciated that the side view required me to make Vya's face more distinct and expressive. Three film/TV characters inspired this look: Julie Christie's Lara in Dr. Zhivago (1965, dir. David Lean), Rinko Kikuchi's Kumiko in Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (2014, dir. David Zellner), and Regina King's Sister Night in Watchmen (2015). Although this is a very heavy outfit, and one that makes Vya appear suburban and encumbered, Vya swiftly casts it off when antagonists approach. Underneath, she is dressed in sleek, form-fitting combat gear, reminiscent of Angelina Jolie's outfit in the final battle of Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005, dir. Doug Liman). The knitted muffin conceals her blade, which she wields against her enemies with the same precision as she fillets lake fish. The second "back" view hints at this second outfit.

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Title: Three Character Silhouettes

Tools: iPad, Procreate

Description: Three silhouettes for a resident of a Nebraskan ghost town. Each one captures the character engaged in different tasks (fishing, carving) and how she dresses for the region's different (and often extreme) seasons (summer, winter).

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Environmental Design, Part 3

Title: Post-crisis Vanity

Tools: iPad, Procreate

Description: Maybe a lot of time has passed or a destructive event has taken place. Either way, the greenhouse has been abandoned. Plants are overgrown, mold spreads across the floor and frame, and the vintage vanity looks like it has been ransacked. The cracked mirror seems to confirm abandonment. There is no sign of the unicorn here. Whoever rummaged through the vanity's drawers had no need for the Pond's cold cream, elegant brush, or any of the other items that once populated its surface. Were they planning a quick escape? Or looking for something to eat? We can only speculate.

Notes:

Moss and rust cover all objects and surfaces, darkening the interior at all hours.

Broken objects evoke disrepair but also violence.

Overgrown flora feel otherworldly, invasive.

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Two Perspectives

Title: Bookcase

Tools: iPad, Procreate

This week's sketch is a bookcase drawn from two perspectives: front and back. I envisioned it as a prop for my environmental design space (greenhouse), where it would represent an item that the protagonist has had since childhood. There is nothing remarkable about the bookcase--it resembles a 2x2 IKEA Kallax--but the stickers on the side and the markings tracking the growth of the family cat turn it into a very personal object. On the back, someone has painted images associated the package/storage labels "fragile/handle with care." My lines could be straighter in the image on the right, but I haven't committed to the final shape of this object. If it is an old bookcase, especially one made out of less durable wood, then it would make sense that it would be a bit bent out of shape. My sketch considers both options.

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Environmental Design #2

Title: Flora's Vanity

Tools: iPad, Procreate

Description: In the final scene of the game that I am developing, the player/protagonist enters a greenhouse (a variation on the "enclosed garden" trope) and encounters a combination of mundane and fantastical objects/creatures. For this assignment, I created a vanity table and populated it with a hairbrush, cosmetic jars, a glass vase with dry reeds inside, the fragrance bottle I created for a previous assignment, an assortment of necklaces, and an open book (Louisa May Alcott's Little Women). For the vanity, I took inspiration from Queen Anne style furniture, which translated into the cabriole legs and S-scrolls on the sides of the oval mirror. I saw Cecily Brown's Death and the Maid at the Met last year, which included several of her "Vanity" paintings. I love her use of green, especially this one particular shade on the cusp of neon. I tried to recreate it in the leaves of the plant on the left. The women in Brown's vanity paintings often face warped reflections--is this how they see themselves or is this how "we" (society?) see them? How much of our self-perception is informed by the gaze of others? (This is a rhetorical question.) In my scene, the unicorn is reflected in the mirror--is it aware of its own reflection? Or is it a representation of the protagonist/player? Is this reflection the game's true final encounter?

Supplementary Notes:

The surface of the vanity table should not be too cluttered. It is part of a morning routine that brings order and calm. Every item appears there with intention (for example, the necklace). The book is not incongruous--in the time of Marie Antoinette, for example, vanity tables also doubled as writing desks.

By the time you reach the greenhouse, it is starting to get dark outside but inside is full of color. In keeping with the interior environment, the items on the vanity should be colorful and have non-repeating shapes.

The book on the table is Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Elsewhere in the greenhouse there is a small bookshelf full of the protagonist's favorite books, the kind of books that would have been popular with US suburban bookworms of the 1980s and 1990s. One of these books must be V.C. Andrews's Flowers in the Attic.

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Props

Tools: Procreate, iPad

Description: I know that my version of this week's environmental design drawing will include a vanity table. Vanities often house a variety of cosmetic and hair dressing accoutrements, as my "environmental design" will show. One of these props will be a hairbrush. I tested out two styles-- short and long handle-- eventually choosing the latter for my scene.

Production notes:

The title of the game is "Flor," a brand or company name that appears on certain items that the protagonist collects. In the final scene, the single-letter monogram on the brush handle reveals that this is also the name of the protagonist.

(Right) This design borrows liberally from the Mason Pearson line, specifically the Popular Lightwood large brush made with natural wood (plane, apple, beech). I turned it into a pocket brush but kept the brand's distinctive red rubber cushion. The monogram is meant to look as if it is carved into the wood.

(Left) More of a "vintage" or "antique" style which recalls a brush I used to have as a child. I went here with tawny boar bristles that should look a bit more "lived in." For the back of the brush head, I attempted a koi but it came out looking more like an eel/salamander hybrid. The monogram is painted over the lacquered gold handle. This brush needs to feel special, less manufactured (than the one on the right), as if the brush had been a gift chosen to suit the tastes/personality of the recipient.

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Environmental Design

Title: The Greenhouse of Memory

Tools: Procreate, iPad

Description: Ever since I read Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1911 novel The Secret Garden, I have been fascinated by enclosed gardens and their long cultural and literary history. The greenhouse pictured here would appear at the end of the game I have imagined, as the final location the protagonist needs to visit in order to fully recover her memories. The greenhouse sits on a body of water (a representation of time and consciousness) at the end of a passageway extending from a railway track (it's not pictured here, but the railway is inspired by NYC's the High Line). I modeled the greenhouse after the main atrium of the Steinhardt Conservatory at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Plants grows abundantly both inside and outside of this structure, and as the protagonist approaches, the greenhouse's interior comes into view. The unicorn at the center has traveled here from the famed Unicorn tapestries, which are on permanent display at the Cloisters. Here is a short excerpt from my "world-building" notes: "The greenhouse is located on Earth, in New York City, but it feels like it is suspended in time. Like a room that has been unopened for decades but somehow has remained immune to dust and decay. It is clear that someone has been tending to this space but who or what the 'Gardener' is will remain a mystery."

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Flor Industries Logog

Title: Logo for Flor Industries

Tools: iPad, Procreate

Description: I'm currently developing a game inspired by the High Line for my Level Design class. This project overlaps perfectly with the world-building exercises and lectures in our 2D Art for Games course. In this game, the player is an amnesiac protagonist who utilizes a "seed gun" to encourage the growth of flora. Gathering the flowers that grow from these seeds reveals new memories. The seed gun is manufactured by "Flor Industries" and its logo takes inspiration from a few sources: the shape of hand seeders, the shape of the enclosure in the late Gothic tapestry "The Unicorn in Captivity" (from The Unicorn Tapestries), and the orange leaves of the butterfly weed (ascelpius tuberosa) which grows along the High Line.

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Making Many from Few

Tools: iPad, Procreate

Description: This is my first attempt at "procedural art" but without utilizing any code or generative art software. I wanted to see how far I could push my own imagination using basic shapes. At first, I felt that everything I was creating was predictable (figures, ice cream cones), but I started to get a bit bored and that's when things got more interesting for me. I especially like my riff on my ballerina character (see this week #00sketch) and the Yoda figure (both line 2). In line 3, I wanted to convey the sun rising behind the mountains and the last glimpse of the morning star (hard to see here, I know).

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Tools: iPad, Procreate

Description: On the lower left is one frame of an animated sprite that I created for last semester's "physics game." Rather than copy this image directly, I tried to apply some of the skills I have learned in this class so far. I really can't draw hands, so I cheated a bit with the pose, but I'm actually proud of myself for managing to give her legs some muscular definition. The legs turn out slightly, as they should when a dancer is en pointe. I'm less sure of the face. I wanted to avoid making it too realistic, but I haven't quite nailed it here. My inspiration is "Victoria Page," the doomed protagonist of the 1948 film The Red Shoes.

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Broken-Hearted Particle System

Tools: iPad, Procreate, Unity

Description: This particle system consists of three sprites: Broken Heart Right, Broken Heart Left, and Crack. As the Broken Hearts swirl upward, they occasionally close the gap between them.

Feedback: The inspiration for this is too personal for a public class blog but what I can share is that I wanted to capture the optimism of friendship necklaces and the paradox/inevitability of their breaking. Growing up, friendships seemed to always end at the edge of summer. I wanted the heart pieces to rotate in opposite directions but didn't quite manage to find the right setting for that. Still, I love that occasionally they (almost) meet. The crack sprite is too small so it's hard to see that its color changes over time, from bright red to yellow to white.

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Fantastical Packaging

Tools: iPad, Procreate

Description: This floral container masquerades as a tulip-shaped bottle but really stores fire, a scarce resource. The green tinted glass conceals the restless embers inside, but once the petal/bottle stopper is removed, oxygen rushes in. The flames, though small, warm cold hands, cast shadows, and light dark hallways and caves.

Feedback: I've been playing a lot of Hades (Supergiant) and love the game's many variations on fire. Partly inspired by the flames of Asphodel, I drew a bright red bottle in the shape of a flame. But the connection between bottle and contents felt too literal, so I experimented with different bottle colors and the idea of a floral "decoy" bottle took hold. Filling in some colors, I accidentally activated the eraser and brushed away part of the green. It's uneven but the contrast between the translucent bottle and the solid stopper sells the idea of a manufactured object.

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Star Bread

STAR BREAD

Ingredients

one loaf of soft, sliceable bread

unsalted tardigrade butter at room temperature

a bottle of stars

Instructions

Cut bread into half-inch slices. Butter one side with a generous amount of tardigrade butter to achieve a true galactic effect. Sprinkle stars generously, letting them sink into space. Enjoy but don't be alarmed if a memory of a different life disrupts your thoughts. Occasionally a twentieth century cosmonaut will drift by, bouncing between the stars. Its presence should cause no ill effects.

Feedback

My Star Bread is inspired by "Hundreds and thousands," a children's treat common in the UK/Australia/New Zealand (I've heard it referred to as "fairy bread" as well.). It usually consists of buttered white bread covered in round rainbow sprinkles, which I have reimagined as actual stars. But when I drew the stars they disappeared into the butter, so to create some contrast, I conjured "tardigrade butter." Tardigrades can survive in the vacuum of space--what if they carried that space with them? This question sparked the idea of dark blue butter to represent the visible night sky.

Tools: Procreate, iPad