Concept Art Collection 2023

CHARACTER DESIGN

TIMELESS ELEMENTAL MAGE

Imagine yourself as an elemental mage. Over what element would the universe have granted you some degree of control? Are there any animals that you seem to resonate with? Is there an object that has special meaning to you? Once you have answered these questions, are you able to envision yourself as a powerfull mage with all these components? This is the question I needed to answer for this project. I had a lot of fun pondering these questions and manifesting these ideas on paper.

I chose water as my element and tried many variations on this element before settling with the idea of an ink mage with a mythical cobra-feathered peacock as the animal companion. My main goal was to achieve a design that would be timeless. While keeping my element fixated, I tried out many different objects and animals as the other essential components. The following are the selected few of many.

Once a certain design  was selected, the vertical iteration phase started and multiple studies were performed. You can observe in the following images some of the studies done, namely a study regarding the gesture, a study regarding the magical hairdo and a study regarding the final composition.

GODS AND DEMONS

For this project, traditional masks depiciting demons and gods were to be used as a starting point. These masks needed to be translated into humanoid beings. 

Masks from three different regions were studied: East-Asia, Africa and Mesoamerica. Here are a few of the designs that preceded the final result.

PROP DESIGN

HERO ASSETS

Depict a person without actually showing this individual. Only visualize the objects used by this character. How does one even proceed with such a task? This project was a really enjoyable challenge indeed. I was able to learn a lot during the design process. One needs to completely immerse oneself in the world of the person and try to figure out even the most banal daily experiences the target character goes through.

The individual I tried to depict with the following assets is a scholar that was sent on a expedition to a newly discovered celestial realm. While the world of this academic is quite similar to ours, the props convey the idea that there is definitely an influence visible of the other realm.

The general starting point of these designs (conceptually) would be to push the idea that something is affecting itself. A book writing itself, a reed knotting itself, an astrolabe using itself to show the desired direction, etc. This self inflictive nature gave birth to quite some interesting starting points.  Two other frequently used foundation ideas would be the academic improvising tools with the natural resources present in this exotic celestial realm and the abstractions used by humans actually being able to become animate beings. 

The asset that caused me most issue was the hurricane lantern. It became quite clear to me that I need to actually understand how an object actually works in order to be able to make redesigns. Playing with proportions might seem easy, but when the underlying mechanic of the object is not understood, it becomes hard to get credible results. 

THE SHOPKEEPER

This project is very similar to the previous one: creating assets to depict a shopkeeper. However, this time the individual needs to be depicted as well. Another difference is that this person is an insect. While still humanoid, one still needs to think for a second what exactly would be different. Next to the assets, the shop itself needs to be designed as well: a blacksmith specializing in garments and tools that protects himself and fellow insects from great dangers.

I focussed on the idea that the smart and crafty insect blacksmith would probably be using contrasting colours and eye-like shapes to scare off the bigger predators. Other ideas like using the remnants of other bigger predators as a similar means were considered, but in the end I stick to the use of the eye-shaped patterns on textile and other shapes that could trick the attacker and save your life.

When imagining the blacksmith, I tried to think of the workflow of the insect shopkeeper. Where would he start his sequence of actions? What kind of tools would he use? Where would he keep his resources and his finished products? I also wondered how the design of their tools would be like. This time, I could exaggerate the application of the insect theme in some of the designs due to this project's stylized context.

When designing the shopkeeper, I tried to maintain a the elements one recognizes in an insect, but without losing any of the requirements of being a humanoid. Eventually I went for the grumpy engineer-blacksmith looking at the orders on its notebook with squinting eyes.