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Artist Inspirations: Ari Gibson (Hollow Knight,) The Divine Comedy (Multiple artists,) etc

For my games style, I was inspired barley by any artist, going into my project, I was not hindered by such trivialities as such, rather I went with my own artistic vision that I had in and outside of work, with my overall style being lightly influenced by artists such as Hirohiko Araki of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure fame and little else, (and that was for the roughly humanoid creatures, for those less related there was no other inspiration.)

Due to this, I was not greatly influenced by artistic interpretation, rather, my influence came from other artists, such as those in the musical spectrum and that of literature, such as Will Wood, known for his robust yet sentimental songs or Dante, known for his writing, the Divine Comedy, who I looked into for research on this project. Sadly, as it is, this is not wanted, rather those who make art as it’s basic terminology are required who I cannot talk of as if I was influenced, as I surely wasn’t in great spades.

Because of this, I see it impossible to, in good tastes, say I was inspired as such, though I intend to look at artists that might have subconsciously influenced me or were an inspiration in another media translated into art, similar to the outstanding musical interpretation of War of the Worlds that I would highly recommend a listen too.

Ari Gibson: know best for his art for the beloved indi game Hollow knight, Gibson portrays his characters in a lower, smoother and less detailed form than the rest of his artwork, such as backgrounds and set pieces to allow them an easier time to animate and implement them into the world, as with more highly rendered characters would take a far longer period of time to implement due to simple facts.

While it did not inspire me, and even though I was not the biggest fan of the game overall, even though I was quite pleased with it and respected that it was owed more respect than I could give, the idea of simpler characters that would allow for a quicker workflow with, hopefully, better yields (such as quantity and quality) than if they focused on hyper realism, what wouldn’t have been a bad way to take the game, as it’s settings and themes would allow such a more morbid aesthetic, the cuter, yet still uneasy characters would have been something useful to be inspired by.

Divine Comedy: while having lots of artists depict the story since it’s conception, no doubt helped by its surreal imagery, the magnum opus of Dante has had some stellar art produced for it over the years. My favourite depictions come from French illustrator Gustave Doré, who’s art work depicts my favourite pieces of work on the subject with his aesthetically pleasing, monochromatic works.

While defiantly not inspired visually, as my work would never reach a mere pittance of what they have achieved, I could have been inspired by them character wise, with their characters consisting of spliced animals from mythology, tremors giants and uninlightened popes, the twisted body of Arachene and the mental horrors of the rings of hell and the mystical visages of those in heaven.

Emmy Cicierega: Sister of musical artist Niel Cocierega who was a big inspiration for all of my work, she has helped Niel on his album art in her spare time, such art is that of the cover of Hip to the Javabean but works as a story board artists for many Disney based properties, such as Gravity Falls and the new show, the Owl House. Her style, at least on these projects, leans heavily in the western animation branch of art, what makes sense as that is where she works.

While not a major inspiration, I have always like the artwork of Lemon Demons albums, especially colour wise for his most recognisable album, Spirit phone. The use of a spectrum of reds gets across the point of the supernatural horror aspects of the album, not including bonus tracks, and the use of the eye flares, depicted in a blinding white, is used to great effect as it suggests that there is another character behind them that is out of view, adding onto the fear that the songs entail. This could have inspired my far more bright colours that I used in my project and also my far more cartoony, bold lines art.

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Media and techniques

Evaluative section on the media and techniques that were used and explored in your project. What did you learn? How did research help this? How did these techniques meet your proposal? For my Project, I have focused on artwork throughout with minimal to no interaction with implementing such into a games engine. This work has been purely conceptual, usually consisting of characters, locations and landscapes. To achieve these goals I used Photoshop and a wacom drawing tablet together to draw out these pieces of work. Throughout said project I used a wide range of styles and techniques to achieve a look I was finally happy with by the conclusion, such as Ben-day dots, hatching, hard and soft shadows, digital brushes that imitate paint and layers and so on. This project was the first time I used many of these tools and especially to a higher standard, alas, in my given proposal I truly didn’t propose my use of such tools, rather. I kept it vague and outlined the basics of my tools. I, again, also did minimal research into my tool due to my affinity with them, having used them before this project, such as a drawing tablet and Photoshop, staying with them instead of changing to conserve my time I had on the project. Other tools could have been, perhaps, more useful, but the tools I have used were fine and satisfactory for the media I was trying to manifest and so I have no grudges against it, but I could have looked into other art applications like Kirita, what I would have especially looked into if Photoshop was not available due to its ludicrous prices, as it is a free platform, yet again, learning a whole new tool wouldn't have always been useful in its whole.

Purpose / theme / concept

Evaluative section: the thought processes and the way you solved problems. The creative journey and the decisions you made to meet the context and theme of your project. What did you need to change or explore to make sure you hit the themes of your proposal? Did you need to alter your idea ortwaerwaerwa43q54wz754er direction / outcome? I did not solve problems, I did what I did without a care and I didn’t learn nothing, I did. My theme was around the End, about change and everything concluding, even what seems incuncludable, such is the inciting incident, the death of Satan. Not much was ever needed to change to meet this theme. It's about the youngest son of Satan taking over hell with his long lost elder brother, David, fighting and killing his siblings to achieve his dreams. Little decision was made through this, because I don’t care. I wanted a comedy with a bitter heart, not to make the game unbearably sikining, at that point it would become unfunny and result to gross out humour to attempt at shitty jokes. I am unimpressed with all of my work and was stupid enougth that I could make somthing interesting and inclusive, perhaps something that could help, but I was wrong as always.

Outcome

Evaluative section on the final product. Did you meet your expectations? Does your outcome fulfil the project that you set and meet your FMP brief?

I did not have a final outcome for my project. There is none as this project was not building up to anything as I’m a worthless cunt. Rather, it's a collection of images and ideas, with multiple characters, landscapes and attempts at world building and creation. My final outcome was going to be bringing parts of it together in the game engine Unreal, but sadly I was too fucking stupid to implement it. While I think the outcomes are well done and made, they are still worthless as a final piece, with, sadly, my first piece of work being the closest thing you could call a, “final piece.”

This project doesn’t fit in with my FMP and what I sent out to do, in that sense it would be similar to comparing a cat and a decapitated dog, one has places to go. I hate how it has turned out, it is unlawfully awful in trying to be what I wanted, as this project was going to focus on menus and yet, the most I made for it was 2 pieces that were so small I forgot I did them at all.

Conclusion

Evaluative section on the processes of evaluation, feedback and peer assessment. On reflection how you could have improved your project and what could you have done to support the improvements needed. What have you learnt and what do you need to make sure you do next time to improve your project? By the end of this project I have learnt nothing nor have I produced anything of merit, and I am fully aware of my imminent failure even if told otherwise. On reflection I could have done anything better, I could have been a better person but I wasn’t, I could have done more, but yet again, I didn’t. To, perhaps, have tried would have helped me achieve a better outcome than the one I have so selfishly handed in. I don't think there is going to be a next thing to improve personally, I am already a failure and there is nowhere else to go for a ugly twat like me. However, to improve, I could have at least tried harder, perhaps not think that I had more time than I did, that wouldn't have really helped but the thought counts I guess.

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outcome HNM

I have, overall, made 11 pieces of artwork, small and large, for FMP, some far more courageous than others such as my first major piece that was an early idea for a menu screen depicting an image of a tree where the main character would sleep with the pathway to hell looming in the background as a bellowing mountain spewing ash in the air as tyrannicidal storms swayed overhead with other locations present as well such as the main area and a side area, ( found in the background.) I am quite happy with the outcome for this piece as it looks quite nice personally and gives off an idea of what the game is going to be like tonally, at first nice and bubbly with lots of pretty pastel colours to realise that they are hiding the true intention of the game as the title pops up in its fiery colours. This is probably my favourite outcome of my work in this FMP as it truly encapsulates the idea of the game. To improve this piece if I was to return or retry it would be to add slight animations to the piece such as David sleeping under the tree and Sa10 flying out the mountains belly, (the main characters of the game.)

My next piece is of an NPC that would be found in the thought out HUB, Mayor Barnsworth. This is a character piece with no background done in my personal style blended with the games more cartoonist style with his exaggerated styles. I like how he came up, with the hatching used giving him a roundness that make shim pop out more than if he didn’t have any at all. I like the outcome of this piece as well, even though in his current style he partly clashes with the rest of the characters, what was the intent of the demon due to them being revenants of the past, however that was not the intent for Barnsworth. To improve upon him, I could try and implement the style of the game onto him, such as using bright colours to imitate it and to use less of my own personal style that clashes with it more. alas, I still think they came out quite well and that he himself fits the rest of the world.

Next is another character piece, pieces that I did quite a bit for as I am more expected in designing characters than I am designing places and areas what is an area I need to expand on. This piece is of a potential enemy, (a boss specifically,) called Minotaur. he is quite different to the rest of my art before hand as I used ben-day dots for shading instead of cross hatching or colour, I did this because I wanted to conserve time for other pieces instead of wasting so much on colouring when I didn’t believe it was needed. I think it came out quite nice for my first time with the method and I must admit I grew an affinity for it. Minotaur, being a boss and a demi-demon who made a pact with the devil looks more humanoid than animal what is greatly shown by the mans build being quite swoll what infers of his origin. I am quite proud with his outcome and I think he has the best positioning than another piece i had done up to or after it, with his body having so much oomph and personality, the only part I would change would to be to add colour, what I did attempt to do earlier on in its development but I thought better of it after his head looked wrong due to my terrible colouring shadow technique.

Probably one of my better pieces, or at least one that I am more preferable to, it’s the character piece for Freya, daughter of the Devil Satan and the, in theory, Final boss of the game on the hardest difficulty. She is based on the Norse God of the same name and takes cues from her and also from the song by Shayfer James, Every Fallen Feather, for story purposes. I really like how she, design wise, came out, I really like how I used a rail as a vaile instead of the classic flip over the face variant, I also like how it insinuates her character as she herself is trying to hide her demonic attributes to try and ascend to the spot of Archangel.

Overall, I used my new use of Ben-day dots and shadows with the inclusion of colour to really make her pop out compared to the rest of the characters, and her humanoid design tells us shes a demon like the rest. I am truly pleased with her outcome and can see only slight, ease of life changes, I could make to improve her overall, the only thing I would change would be putting her in a more interesting pose that has more life to it like that of Minotaur’s, but that is a slight problem I can see.

The next work I did was far more minimal, even though I had done a quick and simple idea for box art, being that of David’s face, (Found on the first slide as the major image,) I did a few conceptual pieces of longer box art for an actual sleeve instead of a launch icon. I made a few quick ones trying to get the feel of what it should look like, one having the 3 major bosses on it, one with David walking towards the player, another one with David and Hellium, (2nd major boss) in a pose reminiscing the famous manga sheet of Jotaro and DIO fighting face to face from the end of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Part 3, Stardust Crusaders, however I ended up on a simpler, cleaner picture of David and Satan with a flag, staring down the pathway to hell. I think this image gets across the adventure inherit in travelling down to hell and so I developed it further than the rest and think it turned out quite nice. To improve, I could have kept to the style I wanted to with instead of going for a monochromatic look, even though I am pleased with the outcome.

Record Slave was my idea for a character who was actually menu, with his design based off of being spliced with tart and his most prize’d valuables. There is really nothing that interesting about his development that hasn’t been stated in the previous characters such as Freya and Minotaur, except that I learnt how to make a good and interesting “drip” atheistic that made him look like he was melting like a boiling record. Other than me copying his limbs and slightly tweaking them to save on time, nothing has changed much. I am quite disappointed with him overall, while I like how he generally looks, his pose is awkward and rigid as if he was made with confining materials. To improve, I would defiantly, 100% give him more time to make, my major problem was trying to make a distinctly different character in less than half the time needed, leaving him looking unfinished and janky in his far more complete for compared to my other outcome so far. I then went onto other aspects, such as spesific lesser enemy types such as the Golem, Dem-fish and the Arcane Twister redo from my original outcome of the game around a year ago. I used a book like design for the backgrounds for these as the idea was that Sa10 would be a guide of sorts and would open up into a beasteriry to tell you facts about them, so I added this look to the rest of my slides going on as I think it makes it far more interesting to look at.Sadly, even with the pieces I am quite happy with, I must admit that these outcomes were not what I was expecting in my proposal, as I absolutely blindsided by menus I wanted to do for this FMP and instead when into the hardsholder of character design instead. I think I did this due to my desire to do good, and due to my minimal menu designing skills I went headfirst into what I knew instead of taking the risk and making a worse overall set of art pieces for my FMP even though I had done a couple of basic, conceptual pieces with littler splendour. Because of this, I cannot say that I met my own set requirements that I wanted to meet, however I would not call this amount a failure, not by any means, even though it dose all look nice.

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It’s the End of the World as we Know It- Inspirations for Hell’s New Management

Hell’s New Management was not the first game I thought up for this project, originally I was going to have a go at an RPG like Skyrim or a Looter Shooter on line with Destiny, but through some knew lenses, I instead focused on a Rogue-Like/Lite based on some of my personal favourite games such as Enter The Gungeon and Risk of Rain Two, such inspirations I went over in the earlier slides with other inspirations, however this Slide is to go further into depth onto some that were less developed on the original page, such as my musical inspirations.

Lemon Demon: One of my favourite artists, Niel Cicirega, A.K.A, Lemon Demon, is an Indi artist that is well known for his bizarre themeing and interesting use of unconventional music techniques. Lemon Demon has been a big help throughout the entire creation of my artwork for my FMP, his style of serious yet joking songs, to a point that some songs, even without meaning are given such by those who listen, have inspired entire ideas for the world, such as the dialogue I have throughout of being that of a comedy while having a darker and more serious undertone, with the idea of taking over hell comical in nature, but serious in execution with different ideologies clashing together.

I was also inspired artistically by his album cover to Hip to the Javabean, a cartoony demon like pillow who would influence characters like the Golem to be more cute instead of horrific abominations. Record Slave, another character who is a physical manifestation of the extras menu, (such as replaying music, dialogue, cut-scenes, etc,) is based off of the song Modify and how people will go to extremes to look cool, what reflects how Record Slave gave up his humanity for what he wanted.

Shayfer James: A far more, at least overall, serious song writer and singer known for his far harsher rock that looks into a characters actions, what most songs do, but with James’s following curler characters or those who have been wronged, such as the song Every Fallen Feather, following a man’s and Angels love story before God kills her for sinning by sleeping with him, or Tombstone Road, of a presumable violent group who are fighting for their lives and trying to prevent change.

Shayfer James’s songs inspired characters such as Freya, this is due to her wanting to rid herself of her biological attributes and to become an angle instead of a demon what I was influenced to do by his song, Every Fallen Feather, but inversed to be about her instead of an angel, with her having a human lover who went to heaven who she wishes to go back to.

Dante’s Divine Comedy: Dante’s writings have been a major source of inspiration for my proposed game, with his depiction  of Hell, Purgatory and Heaven being amazing sources of interesting and perplexing Ideas, and even though I didn’t act on them all, like an area within Hell full of sand that damages you when you stop moving, forcing the character to continue moving and to not stay still, based on the seventh ring of hell’s final segment. I had always heard of Dante’s Inferno, but to find out that more existed was quite a shock, considering that I find Inferno a bit sluggish and the later segments, while longer, much quicker and enjoyable to read.

Dante’s writing introduces many aspects from across mythology and belief and is quite sad with some historical knowledge before entering in, with Dante having a character, Virgil, the Roman Poet, unable to achieve his return to Heaven due to being born before Christ and so unable to rectify his sins, what is a extremely unsatisfying, but shows Dante’s devotion to his own world that not even in his own writing can he save his hero. This influenced how I wanted to implement generally morally grey aspects to characters and how many innocents suffered, unable to ascend and to be stuck in hell for the remainder of their lives, with very minimal choice.

Adma Ant: A weird choice overall for inspiration, but when brainstorming ideas, Adam Ant, (from band Adam and the Ants,) kept popping up. A talented singer and songwriter in his own merit, his music, while falling out of favour in modern days, and even being considered crude back in the 80’s, was a pioneer of his genre, who helped elevate it to where it is. However Adam, while many close friends talk of his kindness and good manners, was not alright, being host to Bipolar Disorder, causing droughts of happiness that caused gusts of depression that could last days, weeks and months on the worst of occasions, what terribly effected his mental state. This doesn’t mean that Adam wasn't a good man, as he certainly was at times, especially when a good day came by, but Adam talks about how he struggled with his Bipolar Disorder and how it kept derailing his life, with himself finding himself in assaults and crimes that he was deemed too fundamentally unwell to deal with.

Adam Ant talks about his time recovering and how he did, talking about how the drugs he had to take to help himself actually caused his life to become generally worse than before, with him unable to create music while on it. This had such an affect on his life that he wished to help bring it to the spotlight, such as when he helped the Depression Awareness campaign “My Black Dog,” named after the metaphor for depression.

Adam Ant has become one of my favourite artists as of late after my father introduced me to him through his vinyl collection and his punk/rock style influenced my while making my artwork.

Super Paper Mario: I was inspired more by this game due to its place inside my heart, it being one of my earliest memories I can recall clearly. This game was a main pillar for what Hell’s New Management was sculpted out to be, a comedy with a darker core, as in SPM we see worlds get erased before we can help them, we don’t stop it just before everything goes wrong, we fail as we see it get enveloped by a swarm of purple mists as it is reduced to a bleached void, even killing the heart of the world, leaving it a stone and nearly leaving you beat. This directly inspired the darker and lighter tones I wanted to be found throughout the game, similar to how Lemon Demon inspired me.

This game showed me at an early age that children media didn’t have to be stupid, but also it didn’t have to be cruel, it could have its moments of levity and happiness, but it showed me that if there is no stakes, and no show of what wrong could happen, there’s no drive for your goal. That’s why Sa10 pushes the plot forward, as if David just went to take Hell for no reason it would be pointless unless his character was revolved around it, what he isn't, that is why Mario is always out to save Princess Peach, so there’s a reason to go across the mushroom Kingdom.

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For the Love of GOD

Religion’s play a big theme in my proposed game, with the central theme of the game following the idea of Hell’s new ruler and how it would work out, who would want the role, who objects it and how it will turn out. Of course, Religion, as in all beliefs and rituals, is a hard sector to scale down, so I specifically honed into Christianity as the main group due to the game following inspiration from the writings of christian poets and their close religious brothers like the Jewish. As see previously, I was inspired by the Italian Poet, Dante, famous for writing the Divine Comedy, for the inspiration of hell, what he helped coined in the modern era even if his writings as conception were overall sweeped aside by the church due to his collaborative writing with other mythical and historical notes and for his depiction of religious leaders, (many who appeared in the 10 Rings of Hell.)

Due to Dante’s writing, while a devoted Christian, makes his work not the best gauge for Christianity as a whole, but it’s not as if Christianity is clear in of itself, as their biblical vessel of knowledge, the Bible, contradicted by its own followers daily and its words twisted and made void to match their own views, truly making it an excuse to even call them Christians in the first place. However, this lack of concrete source, even though it exists, lets people play around with the idea of heaven and the afterlife, with many poking fun at it for who it lets in and who god appoints to be his vessels in the real world, such as choosing incompetent or outright tyrannical leaders rule with his praise.

Other things that don’t truly line up is Jesus Christ, the infamous first coming of Christ, who, as with most people in his tales, appears white, what at first doesn't seem off, all depictions in popular media depict him as white even though hes from the middle east and was most likely a man of colour, but this point has been contested for some time by linguists, but at this point, Jesus's look has been cemented.

To me, it seems that Christianity has been more used as a power than a religion, using its leverage as the most known as followed religion against others, especially in the past when sciences were far more devolved and that they had a say in what was right and what was wrong, where they had the neck of the commoners firmly in their concrete grip, with the evil knowledge that they probably would never go against them, being able to pit the blame onto others and yet keeping them uneducated so they may not have higher thoughts about their place in society, to the point that many just believed that they were born into a role by God and had no choice but to fill it out.

I wanted to look into a post-human world, where peoples beliefs and twisting of others leads to the outcome of the end, where humanity end themselves in a sense, where beliefs clash together and to test their metal. I was inspired by Christianity for this as it truly is a weird group to be a part of, especially for those that are actively shunned by their own people for who they are, to a point when they have to ask themselves if they should really be part of a group that might not even see them as human, even if the person in question is good.

Religion is hard to grasp for everyone, and culture is too, I might look at Christianity and think that it is a perverted mess, but then I can look at another group of people who tell you who you can and cant love, who force you to wear what they want and to work what they deem fit, and I realise that there is far worse.

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What is set out for the future?

For now, the world is in a state of panic for what is around the horizon, the end, the calamities and the painful way out the back door. This has been the same sentiment for years now, everyone is aware of global warming and the political distrust and fear of the superpowers of the world, and with so littler power and capability to have change, with the general populous unable to truly save themselves due to how integrated technology is and how so little leeway they have into the real pollution problem, that being corporations, why wouldn't they be? At this point, I have no hope for the future and am prepared for the terrible outcomes that are coming.

This bleak future is an inspiration for hell’s New Management, with the game set after humanities demise due to a demon infested incursion onto the over-world. The world would have remnants of the human civilisation, be that through their mutant, animal hybrid cousins who roam the planet or due to ancient beings who have been around since their collapse. This is supposed to be a theme for the game as it shows that perhaps, even that in a twisted and mutant way, that Earth, and even the remnants of humanity, might still thrive into the future instead of withering away.

Some characters would be progressive or regressive in a sense in this new world, characters such as Murry, the Guide NPC and a cursed immortal foot soldier from the collapse prefers the new world and how it is now, while a character like Sa10, the main character assistance to David, the playable character, wants to develop the world again into a new frontier once again while a character like Frag, another NPC, doesn't mind what happens, just rathering that the people of the world are knowing of what they are doing.

This future is, of course, exaggerated, suggesting that demons and Gods basically restart the world from scratch, but Mother Nature herself is just as unforgiving, the Idea that entire cities and homes one day could be submerged under the sea and that parts of the ocean that once you would have to dive for miles to see would be bare to view on foot is absolutely frightening to think, that fires could envelop the world in their brambled hands, that storms could chock the planet and cleave the ground apart is only the start is even worse. The effects of Global warming and our mass pollution is already evident inside our bodies, even if it the smallest, tiniest flakes of plastic, it is still amazing to think that it has found itself into us already, that man-made waste is flourishing inside our blood.

Will I be around for the end of the world? God I hope not, those are some days no one would want to see through.

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Comedy Is A Joke

Comedy Is a Subjective form of media, one that has varied outlooks and styles throughout history, with some clashing on to this day while others have partly, or all entirely, faded away into obscurity. This is quite sad as there really is a form of Comedy for everyone, but in the current climate, some our less allowed than others.

I have always liked a overall distasteful joke, one made through means that insult or mock, because comedy, to me, is an expression of pain and failure. Everyone likes to joke about bad people who did terrible things, and the disgusting things they did, to an extent that it starts to insult others who were once not even part of the joke, extending into a stereotypical umbrella, like how all Brits teeth are on the wonk and how Americans favourite piece of school equipment is a firearm. How Australia is full of god awful monsters from the nether-realms on the rim of the universe and how Israel has never done anything wrong.

Understandably, some people cannot get behind all these jokes, as many can start to become a bit mean spirited to the point of hate.

However, I personally don’t care at all about rude jokes because that’s what they are, a joke, why should I get offended about someone mocking me? It’s a form of communication that can get past conversation norms and highlight one’s problems, what I think is amazing as a way to better oneself.

I am looking into this as my desired project is, in part, a comedy that is poking at a very big community, that being the religious sector of society.

Religion is no new group who have been joked about or referenced in other media, it’s truly hard to try not to due to its influence and ferocious size that makes it an easy target due to the history one can draw from to mock them. People joke about priestly pedophiles, religious rocks in peoples skulls and their hatred found where their compassion should be found, sometimes joked with the Satanic church who funnily enough popped up to poke fun at the christian church and how it is used to influence better change in the world, what is quite nice.

While joking about religion wont by the main source of comedy, as that would become stale fast, it still holds a main hold on the game due to the religious connotations and ideas I have drawn from for inspiration.

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This is some research that I did on Dante’s Divine Comedy, a collection telling the tale of Dante, an actual real person and the man who wrote the story, trek through Hell and back to reach the glorious domain of Heaven where he learns the just punishments of those who now dwell in Hell forever and those that must suffer them to attain heaven by climbing mount Purgatory’s 7 paths. This book was an interesting piece of research to go into as while seen as Christian media, its rather a mashup of multiple ideologies and mythologies, taking aspects from the Catholic church, expanding upon the pit that would open on judgement day and expanding it into hell as many know it while including Greek gods and fairy tale characters and those punished by gods and others just from history, what is quite interesting when you notice people throughout the series.

I am quite happy that I looked into it as it was a fun idea and it was fun to realise just how much larger and weirder it is than before I went into it.

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Sadly, I don’t have enough time to finish this piece off now, however, like the previous to pieces, this was going to show off another enemy called the Arcane Twistwer. To have avoided this I could have not tried to do something in such little time like an idiot and rather went onto my conclusions.

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This piece, like the one previous, looks at an enemy type concept, this being based on an old piece done for an arcade game prototype. Again, a few versions of the character can be seen on the side in the same style, however trying to fit more details into less space what was a bit hard, considering these characters have a longer body compared to the Golem’s stumpier look. True as that may be, I still think the came out alright, if not a bit derpy. Instead of doing lots of little sketches of the character, I actually went and id a larger, more dynamic bust of the character, still with more personality, but this was due to how hard they were to draw small, so I thought increasing it’s space would help. I was really ecstatic with how it came out, while defiantly not biologically accurate to a humans muscle structure, he could fool someone less versed in anatomy, such as me. I also implemented some foreshortening to add even more depth to the art and I am, again, chuffed with the outcome, while a bit off, it does at least get across that the trident is coming towards the screen with its head much larger than the rest as the handle trails off down to his side.

These creatures were loosely based on mermaids and my attempt to make them more painful looking, not in the sense that they would hurt you worse as mermaids are already monsters of the deep, no, rather I wanted to make them look more painful as if they were in constant, agonising pain. I wanted you to look at these monsters and feel a tiny bit of pity for their situation as their legs violently merge at the thighs, as their necks balloons out in a rigid cage with them barley able to bend their jaw down with their heads near constantly held up.

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This piece is very different compared to the rest before it, throughout its development, I wanted to give the next few pages a old, ancient and weathered look similar to that of a book like the bible or long lost scriptures that depict these monstrous beings lined in its pages, what was brought up due to my like of the children's book series, How to Train Your Dragon.

This piece is specialised on an enemy type from my original proposal for Hell’s New Management, that being the Golem. He has changed quite a lot overall, with me increasing the amount of overall space his face takes and basing his overall look on a lemon rather than a bolder as I always thought he looked a bit off, but this more organic, lemon look, actually makes him look sharper yet rounder and especially cleaner. For this piece, (and hopefully the rest that come after) I have gone to a blend of the games original style and a new, evolved variant blending in Ben-day dots into the shading scheme taken from my previous larger pieces like Freya and Record Slave but with a more cartoony character design like Minotaur. I like how these have come out and think they have the perfect blend of cute and frightening, I also like how this allowed me to easily change slight parts like where they have come from with their variants, such as the Forest of Thorns look that adds the forests red moss and thorns that could be seen way back in the original promotional art I did for the game. 

I also experimented with a pencil brush to do quick little sketches of the character in more expressive and emotional poses without having to use too much time designing the. This was a splendid idea as it gives them more personality and character than if they didn’t have any.

[hellsnewmanagementblog]

[hellsnewmanagementblog]

So far, I have been drawing my idea of a manifestation of a menu as a character that feeds into its general stereotypes. This character, dubbed Record Slave, Is coming along quite nicely, altogether, I really like how I have designed him, especially his face that, like my previous piece of Hellium, has a long running line on his face, this time from his lips to his brow, what I really adore and think that makes him look incredibly out there, even if his bodies lankiness is a bit generalised. 

Throughout the process of his creation, I slightly changed his face colour to make it stand out more and to diversify his scheme, alas, I don’t know if I actually prefer when all the colours were flush with one another. I also, to conserve the amount of time left on my project as we come to the broadside and are nearing the end, copied segments of the character and flipped them, such as the arms and legs, to save time. This has had the inverse side effect to cause him to look really janky and weird, what I bet some might think was the point, it was not. Overall, that would be the major change I do if I was to come back to this stage, to give him a more defined pose.

[hellsnewmanagementblog]

so far today, I have started a little brainstorming on what my games hypothetical game case art would be, as I already have a game icon designed and a spread piece of art. I think it is interesting to look into the hypotheticals such as this, as while it would never need it due to it being a project, it is nice and important to think about it as it is a key piece of promotion for your game, especially if the game is less promoted, as the cover art draws consumers in, and if its boring or doesn't convey its genre or ideas, it will turn them off of buying the game.

1: The first one I attempted was a piece depicting the 3 main villains of the game and Sa10, however I stopped this very quickly, even if the characters were well drawn and rendered, it would matter not due to it telling them noting, what is it about? From a quick glance they might think they were the main characters instead, what would be confusing and irrelevant. because of this I moved onto a different idea.

2: The second image depicts David and Sa10, the main characters of my game, walking through a very terribly drawn hell city armed with a cartoony gun with battle wounds and a fire lit on their ear. This better conveys the idea of the game, you play as a bunny with items and you fight, simple. This is much better than the original, however it is quite flat and boring. Yes, it gets the massage I wanted across, but its a bit bland, and some might take it to be a cute yet gory game, but that is not what I am aiming for, as gore for the sake of gore in a cute game or show is boring, and would rather want extreme exaggeration than blood, like a fishes head flying off of its body and landing o the floor behind it.

3: The third piece is actually inspired by a very, very, early depiction of David and Sa10, the very first in fact, where I drew them atop a skull of a colossal being putting up a flag in servitude to Sa10. This also gets along the idea of the game, that being that they are the main characters and they are trying to take over Hell and that they will kill for it, even killing creatures much larger than they to achieve it. The problem hear is that I didn’t know what to add to the background, but taht could later be resolved, but for the time being, I moved on again.

4: This is a very different depiction of the game cover, showing David and Sa10 facing off against Hellium, the second eldest sibling of Satan. While I like how David looks in this image, Hellium is not the same due to my rushing through him, and again, it doesn't really tell you what the game is about. You can tell that David is the main character but this would also suggest that Hellium is the main bad guy, when he isn’t, that role being held by Freya in the main game, the eldest sibling.

5: the final one I attempted was also quite different, with it not taking place in hell, rather the over-world. It portrays David and Sa10 looking at Old Smokey, a treacherous mountain that bellows out involuntarily gusts of vapour and flames from his gut, one that leads all the way down the the fiery depths of hell. This image lets off more of an air of adventure, foreboding letters surrounding the grinning peak, a storming storm surrounds superstitiously from above, as if the natural disaster is all but common, and David and Sa10, standing in the foreground, looking on to the mountain, a flag in hand prepared for their crusade into the unholy.

This image gets across some of the views I wanted, but not all. For example, no combat or action is depicted, but this could be subliminally achieved as adventure games usually contain action of some sort, but this is not a guarantee.