Concept Art by Benji

The Cat's Path - Entry Level

This project is the beginning of my Master's Thesis work, a gathering of concepts and artworks all feeding into the same world. The goal is to create a visual library for a game/world building project in the style of "The Art of -" book.

The world itself is called the Cat's Path and is a pretty and colorful world filled with dark secrets and monsters. The idea is to balance the dark and grim inner working of the city (The Citadelle of Cats is where the story itself takes place) with the wonders of an open world full of colors and eclectic hidden spots.

The entrance of the city would be used as the tutorial level for the players. It would serve as a spot to introduce the world and its creatures slowly while building up the anticipation to enter the city itself.

I used this opportunity to add buildings and some architecture to my portfolio.
The Citadelle is built around French baroque and Sumerian culture/mythos, and in support of it, the small town at the bottom of the city is based on old French rural villages and Sumerian cities.

The Cat's Path - Denizens

While on the topic of the Cat's Path, I wanted to introduce some of the work I have done for its denizens. The Citadelle is run by cats and any related monstrosities. Most people coming to the city enter as humans and end up living in the Citadelle as monsters. All try to reach the top, where the Goddess of the city lives and they suffer the consequences by changing physically one way or another. 

I wanted to use this project to push my character and monster designs as much as I could. With the idea being grotesque and play around some body horror. The thought is to have the skills to create good extreme design and be able to bring them back to more conventional if need be.

I started to get in the habit of painting some form of illustration for the creatures I design to make them part of that world. It is also a good way to test their designs and see if it all fits together well. 

The Witch's Hut

This project was my first one geared towards concept art specifically. I wanted to explore a building with its different facet while still addressing some story/world building. 

This Witch Hut is designed to be a moving building with a based of vines the witch controls. The rest is based on ancient Europe during the era of Gaul.

Some of the early sketches include research of Celtic buildings, based on both real reconstructions and drawn reconstructions.