Last time, I wasn’t truly satisfied with the game’s aesthetics mood board, although it had the majority of what I want, I was forcing myself to work in a style that wouldn’t suit the game that much. Although I do want to surprise the player with cute visuals paired with a darker undertone, the game’s true colours peel away as soon somewhere near the beginning of the game and it somewhat takes the shock value out of it when the player progresses.
So, I have come up with a new mood board which I think depicts the game’s art direction better:
I am much happier with this mood board in comparison to the last, I think that the bright colours and black would work well together and depict my game the way I envisioned it.
Colour palettes
Night
As stated before, these two art pieces inspired me to use the colours as part of my colour palette. I wanted to extract the purple tints as the colour scheme looks harmonious in both pictures. The way that I envision using this dream-like, purple tinted palette is by utilising this during the game’s night cycle.
This colour palette symbolises that the player is in another realm, both figuratively and literally; The player has gotten sucked into this dream like world and now they don’t want to leave. This remains true until they see what really happens in the circus and to their crew.
Day
This colour palette depicts a more realistic approach regarding real life spaces. I want the player to distinguish the differences from reality and the alternate universe.
I used these two images to help me pick the colours used.
Stylisation
For style of the game, I want to explore a cartoony art style, this will best “cover up” the underlying themes of the game. I also think there is some horror when a cute looking character breaks the 4th wall and points out your behaviour and decisions.
As my major focus is character and concept art, I want to have a go at making my characters in this style for the finalised version. To re-create this art style use:
- Big eyes
- Big head
- Small body
- Thick line art
- Simple shapes