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felassan · 3 years

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Dragon Age II and Dragon Age: Inquisition concept art & assets from a 2016 talk/presentation by Matt Rhodes, titled “The World of Concept Art” [watch link & source]

It’s an interesting and insightful talk which I recommend watching, especially if you have an interest in concept art and related things like character design and how it fits into the overall game dev process. It’s also interesting to see a bit about how the DA team’s art direction/process has changed over time between games, and hear a bit about how they’ve been doing things going forwards for the next game.

This is Part 1. [Link to Part 2]

(Some notes on the commentary given on the images and in general in the presentation under the cut due to length.)

On image 2: DAII had a fast, hot production period where decisions were made very quickly. The devs knew that the central hub, Kirkwall, had been a center of an old slavery-based empire in the past, and wanted to have indications of this [in its art direction]. There were going to be giant statues that the PC eventually fought - on the right is the design for the statues as they originally were. In the top left, this is all they had for the location [owing to the intensive prod period]. They also had a general idea that they wanted to have tableaus that came to life, shown in the bottom left.

On image 3: Going back to the design of the giant statues, the beautiful golden clockwork version of the design doesn’t really say ‘tool of an ancient slavery-based empire’, so they took the model and tried to come up with something that had more of the kinds of shapes that get into the back of your head and say things like ‘aggressive, hard, simple’.

On image 4: So here they had started doing concepts trying to find some of the right poses, accessories etc that these things would have. One of the hearts of the internal ‘DA art [direction] codex’ is “gray and pointy”; if they give a concept like this to [then] Art Director Matthew Goldman he instinctively wants to go “Yes! Approve!”, and so has to kind of reign himself in a little bit.

On image 5: This is where they ended up getting to and how the concept art turned out in terms of the model, with some negotiation back and forth. This is an example of how their art direction process now tries to tell a story with the art (i.e. it tries to support the story through art aspects of the setting and the environment). Historically, they would have just thrown the French-looking, Baroque clockwork version of the statue into the game and gone with it. They are getting more and more intentional with this sort of thing.

On this image: This was an internal image made for internal discussion. The characters in it aren’t ones that exist or that became other characters, with the exception of the Warden, who kind of became Blackwall. In this image, they were trying to think about visual separation among members of a group at the most basic level (simple graphic design principles, like different shapes and colors). This image is part of trying to solve the design problem of having 4 different characters on-screen in the party at once in their games - as in, players of course need to be able to easily tell who is doing what and where.

A general comment: At BioWare, the concept artists nowadays involve themselves in the character design process much earlier than they used to. Historically, as in earlier games, the writers would write up a bunch of characters and then concept artists would be brought in to draw them. Through negotiation and back-and-forth they would then come up with something. Nowadays though, the concept artists are involved from Day 1. The writers now write down 2 words to describe a character and the artists do sketches based on that. The writers then will write a sentence and the artists will do more drawings based on that. Then it progresses to a paragraph and drawings based on that and so on. In this way it goes back and forth and they build it up so that the visual aspects and the writeup/content of the character are developed completely in tandem, complimentary to one another. This is their goal. They aren’t quite there yet, but this is what they’re trying to strive for in this area.

On image 6: These are Dorian concepts. His initial 2-word writeup was “rockstar mage”. They had different artists take different swings at him. The middle concept is Matt’s. The third concept is by Casper Konefal. Everyone was very excited about it and so it was then taken up to a more final stage (image 7).

On image 8: Casper is one of Matt’s favorite concept artists because he goes in and lovingly details absolutely everything - all the pieces of jewelry etc. Each ring has a story. This attention and level of detail and thought behind it adds authenticity and verisimilitude.

On image 9: In game development, there is an effect on character design that can happen during review meetings. The concept/character artist will know what they need visually from a particular character’s design in order to visually tell the story and to help the character support that. Oftentimes, people who aren’t artists don’t have the language to describe this or realize that’s what’s going on in a character’s design, and instead they just see imperfections in the presented faces. What this can lead to is that unintentionally a group review meeting can slowly trim away all the features of a character that make them interesting or distinct. This is why, for many characters across the game industry, if they were shaved and had their facial decorations etc removed, it would be kind of hard to tell many of them apart, as they have all been subjected to this sort of “council sandblasting” process. Casper figured out an idea to help with this; annotating concept drawings with artistic knowledge that artists know intuitively, as has been done here. Artists know, for instance, that certain shapes and angles can allow for certain assumptions about the character to be made (for example, think about Cassandra’s personality and then consider the angular, straight strong lines that make up her face). Annotating like this and then presenting both versions alongside one another helps these aspects of character design be recognized in the review process, and helps characters remain more distinct.

On image 10: They knew that in DAI there was going to be a character who would be with the PC for the whole game - the humble little hermit, non-intrusive, someone quite closed off who the player wouldn’t know much about. “[quote] And at the very end of the game you’d basically find out that he’s Loki himself, or the embodiment of this ancient god that had been tricking you and basically manipulating you the whole time, characterized by a wolf.” And so Nick Thornborrow hung a wolf’s jaw bone off his neck and it was just there in plain sight the whole game. Because this detail was in the drawings at an early stage, it sparked conversations with the audio department, and the audio department could add touches from their end like having wolves howling when he walked into a new area. They could then get all of these different elements and things that could be hinted at, so that when you play the game a second time it’s like ‘They weren’t even hiding it!! It was there the whole time!!’ He loves that.

A general comment: Any one of BioWare’s 3D modelled characters standing in-game talking or animating probably ends up costing them something in the 40,000 - 60,000 dollar range (they calculated this).

A general comment: For DAI, the concept artists also started to get heavily involved in the storytelling side of things at a deeper level, doing things like quick’n’dirty storyboards for the cinematic designers and spending more time with the writers talking about what emotions they were trying to convey at different points and so forth. Since starting doing this, this has become a built-in part of their process.

A comment in the context of giving advice to up-and-coming and student artists, on the subject of how concepts and ideas are naturally thrown out during the process of iterating on ideas etc: “[quote] Right now, the project that I’m working on that I can’t talk about, I have 3 versions of the story in the garbage, and it’s awesome. Because now I’m working on the fourth with our lead writer and it’s so much better than it would have been otherwise and we’re doing it so much earlier so that we can actually change things up.” Said project could be DA4 or something else. (Please remember these comments were made in November 2016. MEA came out in 2017 and DA4 has been rebooted)

[source]

#dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #dragon age #bioware #solas #cole #cassandra pentaghast #slavery cw #spirit boy #my lady paladin #long post #longpost #da4 tag for the insight into post-DAI era art direction/design process #& for the reference to the project which may or may not be da4 #highlights compiled in case the talk as-is isn't accessible to someone

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solamancyzine · 3 years

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Welcome to our “get to know our creators” series! Presenting…

WRITER SPOTLIGHT: @maythedreadwolftakeyou

Role: Writer

What do you like or find compelling about Solas’ character?

I love that he is an inherently tragic character, in the true sense of the genre. He is making decisions where there are no correct choices, and ones that further his own arc rather than the player character's. I find the fact that his narrative and goals are so different to the situation we played the game through such an interesting setup, especially in contrast to all the other companions, who may remove themselves from the game if unhappy with your choices, but will not actively work against you or show personal agency in the same way. We are seeing two characters, Solas and the Inquisitor, whose lives are on wildly different trajectories, and yet intersect for the brief period of time covered in the game. Replaying DAI with knowledge of who he really is adds so much depth to the character and has me second-guessing every line and examining it for details. It really pulled me into the universe, especially with how a romanced Solas is so self-aware about how the paths they are on veer wildly apart, and mourns it himself. And so I play it again and again, because there is something very beautiful about a doomed romance and seeing those moments of love that only can exist in this one brief time when everything aligns, but not outside it.

What do you think is going to happen in DA4?

I think there will be a plot very unrelated to what we have seen so far, but I think that leaves a lot of room for personal interpretation of what's already come. I do hope we see Solas again, but because these games are meant to be stand-alone for new fans if needed, I don't know that there will much likelihood for direct involvement/interaction. That being said, I still look forward to it and being back in Thedas. I love these games for their escapism and getting to learn more about a world I've spent hundreds of hours invested in across 3 games and a decade of my life--so whatever DA4 ends up being, I will embrace it and appreciate the story and characters we get to experience.

What do you love about being a writer/artist/comic artist?

My favorite thing is being able to see that I've created an emotional response for the people who read my work--be it happiness or telling me in the comments they sobbed through the second half of a chapter. I pay a lot of attention in my writing to meta-narrative and tools for drawing the reader in, and hearing that someone has connected to my works deep enough to not only feel something but tell me about it is a sign to me that those techniques are working.

Link us/share with us one piece you want to show off (link to finished art/fic) and tell us why it’s special to you

As a writer all my works can be found on AO3, but honestly I'd love to show off my Solas themed embroidery! I worked on it slowly over 6 months, converting the tarot style of his Hierophant card to the stained glass style found in conversation wheels and other DA:I motifs, and then replicating this style with thread. I have always loved this piece of art and desperately wanted a version to hang on my wall... so of course as I was 1 month from finishing it, Bioware finally released a poster for sale. But I still love my little interpretation, and plan to make his other cards next.

Link to Tumblr

Link to Twitter

#solamancy 2022 #author spotlight #maythedreadwolftakeyou

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galadrieljones · 5 years

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Ship-a-thon!

tagged by @idrelle-miocovani and @pikapeppa, and I’m finally getting around to it!! Thank you!!

1. First ship you ever wrote fic for:

Technically it was self-insert fic for the Backstreet Boys, *NSync, and Hanson in like, 1997. More realistically, it was Solavellan, summer of 2016.

2. Ship you write the most now:

Right now, I’m pretty much only writing Arthur Morgan x Mary Beth Gaskill for the Red Dead Redemption 2 fandom (in a fast-growing chapter fic called A Funeral). Ships I meaningfully hope to get back to are Aloy x Nil (Horizon: Zero Dawn) and Sene x Ameridan (I still have a lot up my sleeve for them). I feel Sene and Solas have mostly been retired, at least in their canon divergent fix-it iteration. But of course, with DA4 developments, I am always likely to get back to their more tragic, awful canon circumstances. Lol.

3. Ship you read the most now:

When I read fanfic, I still mostly read Solavellan and Dragon Age fanfic, especially now that, for the time being, I’ve moved on from writing for the fandom. I try to stick faithful to my friends who are magnificent DA writers. I’m slowly combing my way through fics by @ladylike-foxes @bearly-tolerable @ellstersmash and @buttsonthebeach right now, and of course I always look forward to @thevikingwoman‘s Temporal Arrangements updates <3 Note that I am MASSIVELY slow when it comes to reading, particularly catching up on longfics, so you may not know I’m there at all till I whisper my way into the comments section all at once when I catch up....

4. Newest ship:

Arthur Morgan x Mary Beth Gaskill, Red Dead Redemption 2. This is a very rare pair, and I’m stoked for the readership I’ve accumulated so far at AO3 (and to a MUCH lesser extent, on tumblr). I’m not altogether sure why it’s so rare lol, but Mary Beth IS a low profile character for sure, and most of the fic I see for Arthur seems to be the second person Reader x Arthur, which is a sub-genre I’m not terribly familiar with. I do have theories that Mary Beth might have been the originally planned love interest for Arthur, and I know I’m not alone in that at least. There just aren’t a lot of other content creators for the ship right now, which is fine lol. I’m cool being the captain of this ship.

I also have some newer ships that I love, even if I don’t actively ship them? Like Arthur x Charles and Arthur x Albert Mason. I REALLY like viewing these as complex platonic relationships, particularly Arthur and Charles, who I see as platonic comrades fighting in a losing war (never romantic), but I’ve seen some beautiful art and writing for both of these as romantic ships and really like to see what people come up with.

5. Rare ship you wanna read more of:

I’d love to see some more Ameridan x Lavellan ships out there!! I know they exist. I also am definitely meaning to get into @a-shakespearean-in-paris‘s Arthur x Charlotte fic, another RDR2 rare pair.

6. Your taboo ship:

Most of the time, I give no fucks about what people want to ship. The only thing that legitimately freaks me out is Joel x Ellie from The Last of Us. That, to me, is gnarly af and I’m actually like, morally opposed to the pairing. I’m definitely a little squicked by Arthur x Dutch in RDR2, though I don’t have any moral issues with it. I just don’t like it personally. In the end, 99.9% of the time, I say ship and let ship.

7. They never met in canon ship:

I don’t think I have one of these. Unless you count Solas x Ghilan’nain. Though I guess they DID meet in canon? Idk lol.

8. Your unexpected ship:

Lavellan x Ameridan and Lavellan x Abelas. Tbh when I first got here, I never understood these sorts of canon divergent ships. It was bizarre to me. But after hanging out for a year or so and finding new ways to explore the story, I ended up being so fascinated by the prospect of Sene in a post-Trespasser world, attempting to move on from Solas, and her complicated relationships with other ancient and quasi-ancient elves.

Also, Aloy x Nil for HZD. This ship grew out of my own writing and not really much out of the game. I think Nil’s role in Aloy’s life is supremely unique, and I explored it in a one-shot, which became a yet-unfinished chapter fic that I’d really like to get back to one day.

9. The ship you always forget to give love to:

Morrigan x Warden Cousland. I feel like I don’t see a ton of other Morrigan x Warden ships (except you @buttsonthebeach!!) and I have always loved the complexities of the ship.

10. Ship your OC with a canon character (if applicable):

See #8 lol. I’ve shipped Sene Lavellan with every ancient elf there is lol. I’ve also got a Lavellan x Blackwall ship, which I wrote about briefly in my probably-abandoned fic Unsigned.

I’ve also got a very loose concept for an OC x Joel ship in The Last of Us that I never wrote about. Her name is Cynthia. She’s a widow, and she’s got a sixteen-year-old son. The two find their way to Tommy’s compound in Jackson at some point post-TLoU. I had an idea for a canon divergent fic in which Joel and Cynthia get married, and shortly thereafter, during an attack on the compound, Joel and Cynthia’s son end up captured and held hostage by the Fireflies. Cynthia and Ellie then must set out on a journey to rescue them. Cynthia is a skilled trap-maker, a little like Bill, but even more specialized. She teaches Ellie how to make some badass traps. Add this to my long list of fics I would love nothing more to write, but I have no time to write them.

11. Ship you’re embarrassed to ship:

I’m a grown-ass woman I have no embarrassment lol.

12. Your most romantic ship:

Sene and Solas. But also maybe Arthur x Mary Beth. I’m not sure which is more “romantic.” I don’t really do “sweep me off my feet whirlwind romance” writing. Though, of course, they’re romantic in some sense.

13. Your sexiest ship:

That would be Sene Lavellan x Ameridan, for sure.

14. Your most tragic ship:

Ugh. Probably Sene Lavellan x Abelas. I have not written as much about them as I should have. Their story is quite complete in my mind and has a few endings.

My Nume Lavellan x Blackwall ship is also pretty sad.

15. A ship you want more content for:

I always want more Iwyn Lavellan x Solas content by @thevikingwoman. In any and all forms, though my favorite story for them so far is Temporal Arrangements. <3

tagging @bearly-tolerable @wrenbee @a-shakespearean-in-paris @ladylike-foxes @lyrium-lovesong @buttsonthebeach @ellstersmash @ocean-in-my-rebel-soul ^_^

#ship-a-thon

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3parts · 5 years

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Man, I’m so curious about the DA4 protag!! I really do enjoy having a succession of main characters throughout the series, as they pass on the torch to one another as heroes. I really enjoy that each protagonist has their own reasons to be taking part in the current plot, but also the way they’re all part of a larger story, sometimes conflicting with each other just as much as the antagonistic forces*. While I half want the Inquisitor to be chasing Solas (as my character has a lot of unfinished business and questions), I’m also so looking forward to bringing in someone new! Someone who has to find their place among all these other famous names, whether they’re loved or reviled, and carve themselves a space in the unfolding story. They get to make decisions about what should happen independently of my Warden, Hawke or Inquisitor’s histories or desires, which allows me to add my own twists to the story, which I couldn’t do if I had to keep the same character going over all four games. I want to know who they are and what they want, and I want to know how they’re going to shape this world that I’ve been building!

---

*I gotta say, having a Mahariel Warden, a Hawke who got Merrill’s clan killed, and a Lavellan Inquisitor who had to decide who to sacrifice in the Fade, all as part of the same world and story? HOOOO BOY, that’s some tasty character conflict.

#dragon age #dragon age 4 #da4 #games #text

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galadrieljones · 5 years

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2018 Writing Review

tagged by @thevikingwoman @idrelle-miocovani @roguelioness and @pikapeppa I believe!

For this review, since I’m somewhat disorganized and quite terrible at keeping track of my word counts, I’m only going to focus on works published at AO3. I did not write a lot of tumblr only one shots this year; however, per the few I did write, it would be reasonable to add another estimated 7-8k words to my total word count.

Words Written in 2018: 91,160 (published on AO3)

This is a significant drop-off from 2017, during which time period I wrote most of The Dead Season. I’d say my overall word count, including unpublished work and also tumblr writing (which I have not included in the word count) would push this total over 100k, which is a number I’m quite happy with.

Number of short fics written in 2018: ~14

Number of fic chapters written in 2018: 23

Number of chapter fics completed in 2018: 2 (The Dead Season and Last Call)

Fandoms: Dragon Age, Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Last of Us, Red Dead Redemption 2

Pairings: Sene Lavellan x Solas, Sene Lavellan x Abelas, Sene Lavellan x Ameridan (she has achieved the ancient trifecta 😂), Aloy x Nil, Arthur Morgan x Mary Beth Gaskill

Proudest Achievements:

Finishing The Dead Season, a 64 chapter canon divergent Solavellan work of almost 400k words is probably the crowning achievement of my new writing life and certainly my crowning writing achievement of 2018.

I have written for so many fandoms this year!! When I first started writing fanfiction I never thought I would escape Solavellan or care enough to write fic for any other pairings or texts but I’ve now proven myself wrong. This year I fangirled hard over Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Last of Us, and Red Dead Redemption 2, and I really love the writing that I made (and hopefully will continue to make) for each of these new fandoms.

I also experimented with some new ships this year for Sene. Helping her move on from Solas in a canon scenario, by shipping her with both Abelas and Ameridan, sort of helped me process my Solavellan angst a little bit as well.

Inquisitor Revasan Lavellan! What a guy.

Focusing my writing style away from high themes and poetic prose and much more toward simplicity, realism, and brevity. My fics for TLoU, HZD, and RDR2 have all been fics focused on realism, sans magic or any fantasy elements at all. This has brought me back down to earth and to my roots a little bit. I feel my writing has improved immensely this year.

Writing goals for 2019:

Since I’m having a (second) child this spring, my main goal this year is just to continue writing at a reasonable pace while also keeping in perspective the fact that probably for several months this spring and summer I may not get any writing done at all. I am not worried about long term productivity, because I sort of more or less know, at this point, it’ll be okay, but I hope to just keep a level head, keep an open mind, not get too stressed, and see what happens.

Before my baby is due in April, I plan to finish my very short RDR2 fic, A Funeral. It is unlikely I will finish Zero by then, though possible I will revisit it (no promises tho) so my dear HZD readers I am very sorry. I hope it finds its footing again one day 😔

I’d like to return to my original fiction, at some point, probably later this year when the new baby winds die down. Even if only to finish a new story, maybe publish it somewhere, anywhere, just to remind myself that I can.

Last time I had a baby it shook everything up so much, and that’s when I ended up here in Solavellan Hell in the first place 😂 So I’m oddly looking forward to what is to come this year as my life takes a new turn. In terms of fanfic, I’m particularly excited for DA4 and The Last of Us, Pt. II, hoping we learn more to fan the flames, to get me excited about life and games and new possibilities for stories to come.

I’ll tag some writers, tho I feel most of you have been tagged already ^.^ @ladylike-foxes @ellstersmash @katalyna-rose @a-shakespearean-in-paris @dragynfox @ma-sulevin @ocean-in-my-rebel-soul @ithun @buttsonthebeach @nilesdaughter @lyrium-lovesong

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