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shelandsorcery · 5 months

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Astronomics Game Art : Designing Mining Equipment!

Gonna talk this week about designing mining equipment for the sci-fi game Astronomics - demo on steam right now! - And I thought I'd start with a little conversation about research and process (...that doesn't really have on a much art in it but just stay with me) and maybe get to tap in a little bit into how someone like me who doesn't do a lot of technical design learned a lot about how to get excited about that whole field through the research stage of this game.

So when I say research I really do mean fairly old-school research — and this is probably gonna be a theme with a lot of the posts about this game in particular, because I don't think you can build sci-fi without some understanding of engineering systems and current scientific realities to then play with, you know?

As you may gather from the trailer, Astronomics is a game about asteroid mining, among other things. Which meant that we had a lot of need for legit industrial feeling props and tools for the player to use, things that felt functional and believable without feeling complicated or delicate. I really enjoy the challenge of adding appeal to something that maybe people don't always think about being appealing or fun or cute (this is never an absolute statement — there's always somebody already able to see more appeal in any given subject and I could ever imagine) so part of the research stage is going and looking for that appeal. So above you can see a sheet of loose rough sketches I did in clip studio paint from reference that I gathered with the rest of the team and by myself that seemed relevant to some of the designs we were pursuing.

If you've had the chance to play the demo, you'll know that it's not just surface mining but we are going to be letting you mind gases and liquids and underground mineral veins as well — these are all things that people do in the real world of course, so process one was taking a quick look at those actual industries and then figuring out how I could condense that activity down into a pretty simple and easy to understand machine.

So turned out what we needed was something that drilled and dug, something that pumped liquids, something that sucked air, and all of these things needed to then produce some sort of container to hold what they had collected.

In a videogame you really need to communicate to the player why each act they do is significant and different from the others, and as the art director it was my job to figure how to do that through visual design of the tools they're going to be using. So that meant that even though you could certainly store liquid and gas and solid resources in the same kind of box, I wanted to try and find ways to keep each thing feeling different. Best case scenario is that you're able to look at a prop we've designed and know in a split second which of these three states of matter it will be containing; in the research stage one of the things I'm looking for is any existing visual language that we have (in this Western English-speaking North American videogame audience culture) that already solves this problem.

The great thing about industrial design is that they indeed have very intentionally tackled this problem. Part of it is purely physics optimization that the field of engineering has been working towards for human history. For example, when you're storing liquid and you want to remove all of it from a container you probably don't want something with corners — that's how you end up with cylindrical liquid storage. When you're storing a gas you're likely keeping it under pressure, which means you need a shape that will withstand pressure evenly, which means you're looking for something with literally no corners or edges ideally — and that's how you end up with bubble-shaped gas storage like a propane canister. And then when you're storing something solid and you want to use the space most efficiently and be able to stack whatever it is that you have packed it into, you have a box.

Real good news is, a box and a cylinder and a sphere are all wonderfully visually distinct shapes in a fantastically strong place to start when it comes to solving the question of storage. So then we get into the challenge of the machines themselves — what distinguishes a drill from a pump from a vacuum?

So that's the beginning of some of the questions that you have to answer when you're designing props for a game — in the research stage is only one of bunch of different ways you start figuring out these answers. But I want to talk for just a second a little bit about how I personally wrangle my research, because I am definitely not telling you this is the only way to do it. It seems like it may be worth explaining what I get out of this process and see if anything here make sense for you!

One of the reasons that I have this huge page of sketches, big and detailed or tiny and loose, all laid out in one place for me to look at, is because I personally learn and remember things more strongly by taking notes. With my hand holding a pencil ideally. And when they're abstract concepts or verbal or numerical then I'll use writing and I won't have a problem with it, but my job at this stage was not to figure out abstract concepts or to find themes — my job was to solve visual problems. So my first order of business was visual research specifically. Now for me, that involves lots of things — I have a Pinterest board for any sort of subcategory of stuff I'm researching to just do enormous broad research with; then I probably bring most of those images into a huge working .PSD file and move them around to create groupings. And then I start drawing.

I really think that drawing is integral for me at this stage. I don't think I could do this without drawing as part of my research. There's so much that I just don't bother noticing if I'm not going to be drawing the thing that I'm looking at; even the worst, fastest, sketchy as drawing makes me pay infinitely more attention to something then I do when I am simply collecting information mentally. I'm phrasing this in a somewhat exaggerated, self-deprecating way, but I really can't exaggerate how much more I get out of things when I sit down and draw them. They talk about drawing is a way of seeing, and for me that's a practice I've intentionally pushed and explored in my life.

The other thing, though, is that visual problem that I need to solve. Sometimes solutions to the problem aren't obvious until they are visualized — it can be very easy to get distracted by things like surface details and miss the silhouette language, or vice versa, but when you are doing the drawing you have to wrestle with the silhouette and the details and make decisions about them. Visual trends appear way more clear when you are drawing something for the 10th time as opposed to simply seeing it for the 10th time. And all of the layers of cultural meaning and context that clutter up a photograph can be simply ignored as you transfer only what you need to a drawing, where you might discover something that everything else hid until then. Beyond that, one of the things you may notice about the sketches is that they are somewhat cartoony — I'm certainly trying to capture important details and be representational to a degree, but much like gesture drawing the human figure, researching this way lets me start finding out what the gestures are of these different sorts of subject matter. This is something that I knew about creature design, and about flora design, and one of the real joys of this game in particular was proving to myself that this gesture approach applied to industrial machines and technology as well.

I mean, I knew that there were cute trucks out there, but gosh.

I think if you are in need of something to reinvigorate a particular piece of subject matter for you — if you're designing something that you are just not that excited about, or if you don't feel challenged by the work in front of you — I really think sitting and sketching from reference can open up the complexities and help push you and your work farther. It certainly works for me and I know that the learning I did on this game is something I carry with me to future projects as well.

That seems like a pretty strong place to leave this post in particular, but I'll be back later this week with more breakdowns and screen caps of the actual design process of all of our adorable mining equipment!

I would really love to hear from folks if you also engage in similar research processes before going into full design mode — or if you have a completely different way to get your mind revved up and ready to go, I would really enjoy reading about it!

In the meantime, if you're curious about mining asteroids but it's cute please feel free to check out the Astronomics demo on steam, I made an awful lot of visdev art for this and handed it off to some incredible game creators who have done some really impressive stuff taking their ideas and my ideas and running to honestly some pretty new and exciting places with them.

#video games #indie games #art director #behind the scenes #concept art process #designing games #drawing #trucks are cute #dictated but not thoroughly reread

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scurviesdisneyblog · 3 months

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The main goal is to adopt the Sanders style and convey it throughout the film with extraordinary uniformity and commonality. We’ve done our best in the Cleanup Department to emulate it, to capture its essence, while not being able to duplicate it precisely. - Christine Lawrence-Finney from Lilo & Stitch: Collected Stories from the Film’s Creators.

#disney #Lilo & Stitch #rough drawing #animation #disney concept art #andreas deja #rubin aquino #animation art #disney animation #art #artwork #my scans #concept art #illustration #animation process

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loosketches · 6 months

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couldn't sleep so I made some iterations of my last work.

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shepscapades · 2 months

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Souls in the Sand: Concept Art

As I’ve mentioned here and there, I’ve spent the last two years developing an original story inspired by a small Origins+Empires server a few friends and I started planning. The more I developed plans for my empire to be a sprawling overgrown cityscape of ruins and stone framework inspired by the nether, the more I built up this backstory for the character I wanted to play, a small deerfolk boy named Esra. From there, and over months of working and reworking the story and its characters, I’m proud to say I’m coming up on a 100 piece gallery for my Masters Exhibition to display this story in the form of a song-inspired comic, titled: Souls in the Sand.

Over the next month and beyond the date of my exhibition in April, I wanted to start sharing my work here! I thought it would be fitting to first share all of the concept work I did for the characters last semester as I took each character from their old lineup and reworked them from scratch to see if there were any designs I could make more unique or appropriate for the story. This process consisted of four stages: silhouettes, full-body mock-ups, face and head shapes/designs, and experimenting with the final characters’ designs with a set of unique expressions that best fit their personalities and narrative role.

Since each character was reworked separately, the “new” concept lineup is a little disjointed (and some of the characters’ faces actually ended up different from their full-body designs), but I thought it would be fun to line them up to compare the overall cast to their old designs. With each character(s) I post the concept process for, I may share little bits of the work I’m doing or talk a little about their narrative roles as I go, but for now, have Esra!

I know I don’t post original work here often, but I wanted to share parts of this journey with you guys because it’s been very meaningful to me! And I hope all of the work I’ve been doing may at the very least serve as a bit of inspiration or encouragement for us to keep making silly minecraft stories, to keep drawing the characters we love, and to keep being creative in whatever way is meaningful! <3

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ingoodjesst · 2 months

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have you put the pieces together yet, detective

#goro akechi #akechi goro #persona 5 #persona 5 royal #p5 akechi #p5 spoilers #persona 5 fanart #jesst some art #i may have worked on this for... just under two weeks? i had like. so many fckgin thoughts i might make a process/concept breakdown post #it's honestly just for my own peace (haha piece) of mind because i overthought about. SosoooOoOo many motifs and symbols and i just wanna #idk PUT EM ALL somewhere........ maybe it'll become its own jessay of mine. god. who can say.#also DUDE tumblr rly does crunch up quality wow ouch #unironically a core thematic inspiration for this piece is a quote from the folding ideas' video 'the nostalgia critic and the wall'#'it doesn't all make sense or resolve or coalesce because we don't all make sense'#'everyone is the illusion of order constructed brick by brick out of chaos'#i've watched that video essay through at least. a dozen times at this point. everything about it. yeah. it's good.#this piece initially went many different directions and i have realized ah yes to fully explore just THESE themes that i'm interested in as #they relate to goro akechi i will need to draw. at least two more pieces. sdlfhsdlkfjsd

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sboochi · 10 months

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I've always liked the idea of a sequel for RotG set during summer. Cold never bothered Jack anyway but scorching sun sure does

#hijack #frostcup #httyd #rotg #my art #these are actually concept designs for a fic I started planning #but then BOOM the big four fantasy au hit me so this has to wait a bit #I tried a different drawing process this time

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avenoirn · 22 days

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DEATH & REBIRTH portgas d. ace pin series

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surprise surprise, it is a new pin set and it's ace!!! about time :) funnily enough i had planned on an entirely different thing for the first ace pin reveal but decided to work on these first instead (will eventually reveal it in the hopefully near future haha)

also! these are available to pre-order on my store until 6/9 ET time, there's also a limited edition bundle that includes an extra mystery ace pin, the reveal will be later once store closes.

#opgraphics #one piece #op fanart #portgas d. ace #artists on tumblr #dying with style looking very aesthetically pleasing #enjoyed the process to realize this concept too... maybe bc its ace #also my fellow gif makers pls don't critic the gif i was trying my Best #tumblr why dont you up the gif file limit size to 15mb smh #.art

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11thsense · 1 year

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Going through my files of my more illustrative work and this is a bunch of studies, abandoned pieces, and Wips. Some of which I posted then deleted.

#long post #my art #wip #concept art #sorrryyy i just thought i might as well dump all this here....alos because some of u ask for progress shots and my process #though my process for these is very different from like my just regular character drawing process....#these look so nice together maybe i should actually finish some of them......#the “umi” painting in the water is an irl painting btw and its done i havent shown anyone the finished product tho sorry u guys lol #its 40 by 60 inches tho its pretty damn big....

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owlmaya · 1 year

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reverse transmigration AU + christmas!!!

aka how mbj and lbh help put up the decorations (despite being able to reach high places just fine on their own)

#sqh is processing the view #how long do you think it took mbj to grasp the concept of a christmas tree #i have this headcannon that sy looks like wantanuki from xxxholic #mxtx #svsss #bingqui #moshang #shen qingqiu #luo binghe #mobei jun #shang qinghua #scum villian self saving system #my art

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polina-savitskaya · 4 months

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Just Business Based on GBTQ by @sigmalied Music: Legio Symphonica - Echoes of the Past

#omega #omega dlc #zuria alaris #eruam anikot #aria t'loak #mass effect #concept art #digital art #2d drawing #tutorial #drawing process #photoshop #batarian #asari #polsav

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ghost-bxrd · 2 months

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“Scared, pretender?”

#digital art #sketch #doodle #jason todd #Tim drake #titans tower au #Robin #red hood #Jason and Tim #fanart #angst #illustration #drawing #batman #concept sketch #wip #work in progress #art process

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spooky-month-archive · 2 months

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Concepts for Spooky Month 5: Tender Treats, showing ideas for the plot, locations and new characters.

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loosketches · 8 days

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Yakub hanging out in the woods.

Took so long to make this gouache (40/50hours) Had to figth with my old ass paint since half of the tubes were almost empty definetly need to restock them! Planning to make some prints out of them, don't hesitate to reach out if you want one!