Throughout the summer, I had gotten to thinking about the main themes and aesthetics that I desired to cover within my Final Major Project, with no major emphasis on what form the final outcome would be. Whilst 2D art is something I wanted to completely hone, I wanted to explore the extent of my 3D modelling abilities, as well as being able to learn new skills and pipelines within the workflow.
The main thing that I wanted my concept to include was a wider world and narrative with larger themes that I felt would be important to include. I decided to build multiple sections of this world that would all encompass unique, yet coherent aesthetics that emphasise the separate factions/ areas of the world, and how they have developed individually.
CONCEPT 1
For my first concept, I decided to explore the aesthetics of an old, Victorian and Classical era society. Taking much of my inspiration from the Gothic texts that I had read, along with the setting of the game ‘Bloodborne’, I decided that I would build a world from this initial foundation. In many Gothic texts, the class divide and disparity is shown through many instances of duality and explorations of morality, and I wanted to reflect this divide in my narrative here as well. I decided to create a city that would be victim to a sea-borne plague on the coastal side of their land, yet, be thriving and ignorant to the suffering of that side on the other section. This would not only socially, but visually display the disparity that I wanted to convey. The gothic text, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’, a text that I looked back to as part of my research, displays this divide through displaying lower class family struggles amidst the affairs of high-life society. Another text that I also looked back onto, Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’, displays the class divide in many ways of symbolism, and the discovery of the corruption of the upper-class, their restraint from associating with them and their own hypocrisy.
Through this, I used various inspirations such as theatre and opera aesthetics, the Classical period (along with their era of music), traditions and customs from the Victorian period, old fairy tales (Alice in Wonderland became a large inspiration when it came to the character’s races/species), many themes explored in the Gothic (such as incarceration, duality, evolution, corruption etc..), to create a small mood board to encapsulate the concept, with plans to create a more extensive moodboard when solidifying my concept.
Using this general idea, I created a couple of quick ‘NPC’ designs for the ‘brighter’ part of the city. Due to wanting a more ‘surreal’ feel to the city, I did not want every single citizen to be fully human, and decided to add designs that were derived from inanimate objects and humanoid species that had non-human features such as tails, horns, wings etc- many of these ideas were inspired by the character designs from the games ‘Reverse:1999’ and ‘Arknights’.
Overall, I was very pleased with the aesthetic and vibrancy of these designs, and I think it conveyed the feel that I had desired from this concept.
CONCEPT 2
When thinking of concepts, I wanted to be linear in terms of my narrative. So, I decided to move this concept and focus on the coast of the CIty that I had previously mentioned. I decided that I wanted to keep the Gothic themes and the Gothic in general as a core foundation for all of my potential concepts, so, that remained when I was making a mood board for the aesthetic that I desired. I wanted to explore the concept of fear in this own, especially the fear of the unknown, so I took a lot of inspiration from H.P Lovecraft and the concept of Eldritch Horrors. Not only that, I also wanted to explore the human condition, madness, and many themes that relate to the human psyche. Within this concept, I thought of the sea itself as a threat, by making the ocean, and the unknown creatures within it enormously dangerous. In order to combat these threats and push them back, elite, armoured soldiers would have to be sent to battle to fight against the horrors within the sea, and sail to pursue these threats to fight to protect their already dying City, and for the right for their own land.
Instead of any form of duality within the themes, when I compiled the small mood board, I wanted to convey a sort of gloominess and dread. I took a lot of clothing inspirations from films like ‘Van Hellsing’ and ‘Brotherhood of the Wolf’, along with Bloodborne once more. I felt that the isolation of being in or sailing on the sea would be an effective way to explore the human mind. Pirates also became a point of inspiration within this concept, and I also took many sea-based creatures into my mood board as part of my inspiration such as Cthulhu, the Orphan of Kos (from Bloodborne) and more. Within this spinning of themes, I wanted to place armoured knights within an ocean setting, so I found some inspiration for that as well.
Using this general idea of this concept, I thought of how to approach making a lead character for this concept. I thought it would be appropriate for the main character to be one of the ‘Tidal Soldiers’ that have to sail to the depths of the ocean and fight back the terrors that threaten to breach the coast. So, I wanted to design a unique armour set for the main character that would have some narrative depth to it, along with fitting the multiple aesthetics that I wanted to encompass.
I wanted to create a good balance between well-protected, and also keep the aesthetic and clothing choices from some of my inspirations. I experimented a bit with the balance and ratio of armour to cloth, and found a combination I was satisfied with in the end.
For the next designs under this concept, I decided to make several ‘boss’ characters that would be encountered during the player’s time in the ocean-area (which I had decided to call the Abyssal Hollow, to invoke a mysterious, threatening feel to it). Whether it is on a ruins or small island above or under water, I wanted the player to have to get across many, many threats before finally reaching the final area, and get a feel that many of these enemies hold much more depth than they initially let on. To remain aligned with my theme of the ocean, I decided to base the character designs off of already existing ocean animals, such as an angler fish, a lion fish, and a swordfish. For the lion fish character, I decided to approach in a different way by making it a creature entirely.
Overall, I was very satisfied with this concept, and liked the direction that the designs went.
CONCEPT 3
For my third and final concept, I wanted to explore the origin of all of these disasters, along with bringing back the core theme of duality. I wanted to make two kingdoms, one that thrives, and one that his been destroyed by the other and has been left in ruin. To create a foundation for the contrast, I made the kingdoms based on the Sun and the Moon. One of the central themes of this concept would be corruption, so to build upon this, I decided that the Moon Kingdom would have taken over, or taken the power of the Sun Kingdom in one form or another. Since this is an initial concept, the idea was still quite underdeveloped, but, overall, I wanted there to be some sort of ‘Eclipse’ Kingdom that was built by the Moon Kingdom after the power of the Sun was taken. Using this idea, I constructed a mood board, making sure to show the differing sides clearly. A lot of inspiration was from the medieval era, along with the Arthurian Legend’s knights and their myths- one of the knights, Gawain, attributed his power to the Sun, so I also took him as inspiration when I contemplated this concept. In terms of games, I took a lot of my inspiration from Demon’s Souls, Elden Ring and Dark Souls.
When developing this concept, I first leant onto making some sort of servant or warrior that fights on behalf of the Moon’s monarch. I did some research on old types of armours and then did a couple of experiments for this concept. I wanted to create someone that was both elegant and threatening, but experimented with the degree to which he looked threatening by tweaking the ratios of armour and cloth.
However, I was quite fond of how one of the silhouettes ended up, and then figured that I would use this to actually design the current ruler of the Moon instead (now turned Eclipse Kingdom).
I thought it would be more appropriate to not emphasise the half nature of the eclipse, and lean more towards the Moon aesthetic, with hints of Eclipse motifs, to truly emphasise how the Sun’s power had been stolen.
I really liked the development of this concept, so I developed with different colours, accent colours and the sigil above his head.
After designing the Eclipse Monarch, I moved onto creating a concept for how the player would find the Sun’s Monarch, practically in stasis due to having the sole source of his, and the Kingdom’s power taken from him.