Joe Hutchinson - 2023 Portfolio

Rumour has it that the West Imperial Trading Enterprise has come to possess a priceless and rare ancient artifact - a result of the Empire's latest campaign of colonial expansion and plunder.  This treasure is guarded by the Empire's finest officers onboard a train bound for the Imperial Capital.

A pair of thieves have followed these whispers and boarded the luxurious Imperial Train, disguising themselves among the staff and wealthy passengers - lying in wait  for a chance to take the artifact back! 

This is 'Lost Property', a concept art project taking place in a Victorian - 1900s inspired fantasy setting, with a focus on designs for animation.

Main Characters

Drawing on the real history of poverty and class inequality that defined the Victorian era, I envisioned my protagonist as a working class man attempting to steal back from the Imperial ruling class. I looked into clothing of the era, including porter outfits as I liked the idea of him blending in amongst workers, passing unnoticed by the wealthy officials he robs. I explored angular shape language to reflect his unscrupulous personality. 

I wanted to incorporate additional visual influence to the design of the uniform, looking to Indian/Egyptian culture as inspiration, reflecting how real 1900s England appropriated the cultures it had a hand in colonising; particularly in the craze of 'Egyptomania' which swept Europe at the time.

With the second thief, I referenced Victorian women's fashion, traditional Indian dress, ancient Egyptian clothing and 1920's Neo-Egyptian fashion. I wanted her design to feel appropriate amongst other wealthy passengers on the train, but still clearly show her culture. 

Of my thumbnails, I found myself preferring those that pushed towards blockier shapes, and was drawn to the idea of her being the 'muscle' of the pair, contrasting the protagonists lanky build. 

With the sergeant, I looked to iconography of  Victorian/1900s police and imperial uniforms to inform his design. I tried to use shape language and gesture to convey a severe, authoritative and uptight personality. 

I wanted to portray him as refined and reserved, with his poise unravelling as he desperately chases the thieves, transforming his attitude with wider poses and extreme expressions. 

Background Characters

To design a varied set of wealthy train passengers, I looked to upper-class Victorian/1900s clothing, as well as Neo-Egyptian fashion.

I did a number of explorations for the Imperial Official in particular, as he was to be a more prominent secondary character. I settled on a design where he appears stuffed into a tightly constrained, high collared outfit, with many layers and adornments - giving the impression of a feeble man adorning himself with the trappings of imperial power. 

Environments

I was interested in how railways were used as instrument of colonisation by the British Empire, and so wanted to emphasise wealthy and luxury in the design of the train, making it a symbol of Imperial power. I referenced old-fashioned, luxury train interiors, including Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee Train, alongside Egyptian Revival and Indian furniture.  

Alongside thumbnails for the main train carriage, I sketched out designs for a private carriage for the imperial antagonists, filed with plundered artifacts and symbols of wealth and power.

I modelled and textured the train in 3D, creating a library of modular assets I arranged to create my final location. I wanted the look of my renders to match my previously established illustrative shading style, and by experimenting with the use of shaders in Blender, adapting a method from a tutorial I found for creating comic book style shaders by the YouTube channel 'Littlerolz', I was able to achieve fully adjustable stylised lighting that fit the look I was going for, inspired by the work of Gustave Doré.

Props

For the artifact, I wanted something striking, complicated and somewhat fantastical. I was inspired by old celestial globes and the Antikythera Mechanism, and Ancient Greek device use to predict astronomical positions. 

I modelled the design in 3d, arriving at a design with many layers and a complicated geared inside. I textured it in Substance Painter to have a dirtied, corroded metallic look, as if found buried or lost underwater, increasing its sense of ancient mystery.

Initial Look Development

Before creating the above designs, I undertook some initial visual research and exploration to begin exploring the aesthetic and overall visual language of my project, pushing towards exaggeration and and illustrative, graphic look. Initially I was aiming for a more 1920s inspired appearance with my character sketches, however I eventually settled on an primarily Victorian - 1900s inspired look for the project

I was interested in trying to incorporate a more illustrative, line-heavy approach to shading, inspired by the work of Victorian artist Gustave Doré, to create a distinct and unifying style for my designs that visually recalled the time period I was aiming for.

I explored a number of different illustrative textures to achieve this effect, settling on an approach that mimicked the style of a Doré engraving. 

I also explored different approaches to colour and shading. I experimented with more 3D, painterly rendering, as at this stage I had not decided if I was going to aim for a 2D or 3D animation concepts with this project.  I reached the conclusion that the illustrative, graphic style I was going for suited a flatter approach to colour with large areas of pure black shadow, which fit 2D animation. 

At the highest point of the Cathedral of the Fallen Angel sits The Hanging Library - a vast collection of forbidden knowledge, and the centre of worship for the Fallen Angel's disciples. It's towering central stained glass window tells the Angel's story -  cast from heaven for gifting his forbidden knowledge to mankind.

 A lone traveller ascends this great library, in search of a Divine Scroll, but his intrusion has awoken the Angel from his  slumber, and he is not eager to allow a prized item from his horde to escape.

'The Hanging Library' a Boss Room concept art project for a hypothetical 3rd person action-adventure game. 

Throughout the design process of the library, I heavily incorporated reference of Perpendicular Gothic Architecture,  an architectural style that prevailed specifically in England from the 14th - 19th century. It's characteristic strong vertical and horizontal lines and structure helped to emphasise the vastness, oppressiveness and rigid organisation of environment. 

The architectural style's association witch Churches and Cathedrals also felt like an interesting opportunity for me, as by subverting the structure of a typical church with an inverted hanging design and upside down arch to the central stained glass window, I could portray the structure as an 'unholy' place - the building equivalent of an inverted cross. This helped reflect the nature of the Fallen Angel boss through his environment. 

Callouts

The central stained glass window tells the supposed story of the Fallen Angel boss. The first row of windows depicts him in heaven, observing mankind and descending down to gift them with forbidden knowledge, for which he is then punished by God.

The image of the second row depicts a battle between the boss and other angles in heaven.

The third row shows the boss defeated, and cast down from Heaven to earth.

The final row depicts the Boss being found on earth by the humans he gifted knowledge to, who begin to worship him - building his cathedral and gathering knowledge for him. 

Hidden deep in thick forest and towering rocks, lays the head of what remains of a giant being, overgrown and abandoned. Believed by most just to be a temple carved from the cliffside, this structure was the host for an ancient being that hailed from another plane beyond our comprehension and was worshiped and feared as a deity by ancient people. They offered up sacrifices in exchange for the magical ichor it produced - which they used to power and create magical technology that should have been beyond their capabilities. Due to a mysterious conflict the being was abandoned by its worshipers and now hundreds of years later appears to show no signs of any life. 

A young airship pilot, eager for adventure, has ventured into the mouth of this being, a cavern where legend has it the last residues of its magical ichor still remain, in order to seek the power it can provide. Within she encounters a corrupted beat, a once noble ancient guardian, now an avatar for the being which possesses the living temple.

This is 'CLOUDFARER',  a concept art project for a hypothetical 3rd person action-adventure fantasy game. 

Characters

Protagonist

With the main character I sought to portray an adventurous, confident explorer. She pilots an airship, finding and exploring ancient sites. I referenced traditional Cambodian clothing,  as well as early 20th century pilot flight suits with her design, hoping to give a traditional fantasy feeling, but with a somewhat more modern twist. I envisioned her world as being on the brink of an industrial revolution, but still steeped in tradition and ancient culture. 

The character carries a staff with a magical infinite thread. Various attachments can be picked up throughout the game to transform the staff into different weapons/tools. 

Temple Guardian

The Boss is a noble ancient creature, overtaken and corrupted by the tendrils of the living temple. He is based on the Gaur, or Indian Bison, as well as the 'Kting voar', a cow-like animal with twisting horns rumoured to exist and Cambodia and Vietnam. I also took inspiration from Khmer/Cambodian armour, clothing and sculpture to inform his design. I attempted to push his proportions and shape language to create a dramatic imposing silhouette. 

As the fight progresses, his level of corruption increases, making the player have to change their approach to fighting him, using their weapons different attachments. 

The Living Temple

With the design for the temple, I took inspiration from the large stone heads of locations like Angkor, Cambodia. The overgrown look of Angkor also inspired the idea of having the temple overgrown with organic tendrils, the veins of as living creature within its stone exterior. 

The veins within the temple are attached to a complicated mechanism of syphons and channels, remnants from the ancient civilisation who drew Ichor from the creature. This serves as a puzzle or the player, who seeks to restore the flow of Ichor, due to its magical properties. It is these properties that have promoted extreme plant growth around the temple, where the plant life has been feeding off of its magic for years. 

These designs were created as part of a Collaborative Concept Art Project for Uni, where me and several other students were designing characters, environments and props for a game pitch titled 'SpaceLand 5000!', which we imagined as a 3rd Person Action-Adventure game where players take control of the equally brave and stupid avian crew of the barely functioning spaceship, the 'USS Throckmorton', facing off against the evil Geese Clone forces of 'Kapow' - a massive evil corporate empire/family friendly lifestyle, tech, media, entertainment, transport food and fashion brand. 

I served as Art Lead for this project and with the team developed a style inspired by Hades, Mike Mignola and Trava: Fist Planet, with strong exaggerated graphic shapes and pure black shadows, with pops of saturated colour.

Thank you very much for viewing!