Concept Art Followup

Although the main brainstorming aspect of the game’s concept art is over, in one sense we only took a surface look at eight cultures. For example, so we could iterate quickly, I didn’t ask for color sketches. But color is something that’s obviously important for the look of the game, and Jan and I are discussing it now. (By the way, I highly recommend Blue: The History of a Color, although you probably need to track down a used copy or check it out of a library). And Jan is also trying to make sense of my “take the hat from this sketch, and the man’s shirt from this sketch (but change the length), and the woman’s pants from this one” instructions.

And the artists are asking questions about whether there would be jade, or if it’s too far from the ocean for a certain people to have shell beads. In one sense, it doesn’t matter — it’s a game, about a fictional world. But it’s the sort of attention to detail I think really matters. It’s important to fit into the Gloranthan canon, but it’s even more important to be portraying a a realistic and consistent setting. A player won’t know or care that a drawing of a woman with a pearl earring is “correct,” but the game is building up a story out of hundreds of pictures. If they each tell a different story, the overarching epic is not as strong. It’s great to be working with artists who care not only about how a single image should have a range of colors, but also how they are contributing to the overall story.

Art review at A Sharp

By the way, in the last post I forgot to include the picture of the review meeting Elise Bowditch and I had, with printouts spread all over. (In our informal meetings I would often bring up images on an iPad. Even though as a developer we have a number of iPads, we don’t have that many — the paperless office is still a vision for the future.)

Concept Art Process

As I said last time, I asked three different artists to work on concept sketches for the game. This was because I wanted to get a defining look for a number of Gloranthan cultures, and to get alternate ideas for the more important ones. I was also really hoping to get some collaboration going.

The game studios I’ve worked with have tried to foster collaboration by getting everyone together in one room (usually with an open office). That wasn’t going to work when each artist lived in a different country, so I decided to try Slack. This is sort of a team-oriented chat system which looked easy to use and had apps for pretty much any platform. I felt a little hesitant asking people to install software and create an account just to work with me, but they all agreed. (One of them even said it helped to compartmentalize the work, so everything didn’t end up cluttering email.)

Working with contractors can mean it’s easier to work with the best people (you don’t have to find them something full-time to do, or ask them to relocate). But they are also temporary contributors, and often work in their own bubble. I’m really pleased that for the duration of the project, it did feel like there was a little team. People shared cool historical stuff, complimented each other’s work, and even answered questions about Glorantha.

Having a team meant that I could draw on different talents. For example, DarioTW made sure things were technically sound, Marguerite Dabaie was keen on costumes, and Jan Pospíšil was well-steeped in the look of Glorantha. (Not that this was their only dimension!)

To me, the concept art phase is about generating a bunch of ideas and seeing which ones work. It can be tough having to say no to something that’s actually really good, but doesn’t quite fit what the game needs.

At the same time, one needs to keep an open mind, and figure out whether a good idea can be worked into the game. I now know more about Glorantha thanks to the artists (similar to how the King of Dragon Pass artists helped define it).

And once in a while, an idea just needs a little tweaking, e.g. “how about a shorter tunic on that guy?” (Some of the tweaks turned out to be dead ends, though we do now have a lot of hat sketches.)

It’s still too early in the development process to show much, but I will share what’s actually the first sketch I got, from Marguerite Dabaie. It’s an example of something that I actually like a lot as a distinctive look, but is not quite right for Six Ages. Maybe for a future game?

Another nice piece, by DarioTW, would be perfect for another part of Glorantha. Again, maybe a future game?

All the artists did great work, and I enjoyed working with them. Now I just need to distill everything into art guidelines for production art.

Concept Art Continues

King of Dragon Pass had great art, but we’re trying to go even better with the concept art for Six Ages. As I said last time, we’re trying to be cool and distinctive, which weren’t explicit goals in King of Dragon Pass. And of course, we now have the excellent art from the Guide to Glorantha to live up to.

Looking back at the original KoDP art, we had only 11 concept sketches, from two artists. For Six Ages, we’ve asked for 72, and have three concept artists. Partly this is because the KoDP concept art only portrayed the Orlanthi settlers (although the game ended up showing 7 other human cultures, plus a couple of historical ones). Glorantha is full of different people, and we might as well figure out what they look like up front.

The team has assembled an extensive set of art reference, drawing from the web as well as printed sources, in a number of languages. (Our shared Dropbox folder is over half a gigabyte.) I borrowed a couple more Osprey books from my brother-in-law, and bought a few more (thanks in part to some good suggestions). A few library books were disappointing only because First Ancient History already included the same illustrations. I also found a few other useful books in my personal library, which I had forgotten about.

We should be wrapping up before the end of the year, and I hope to show you a little of the work in a future post.

Concept Art Goals

Like King of Dragon Pass, Six Ages is is going to portray a number of Gloranthan cultures. Many of them have not been well documented, so we need to come up with some art guidelines.

I’m asking a few artists to come up with concept sketches. Here are the goals:

• Look cool (this is a fantasy game)
• Look distinctive (ideally you can tell from a screen shot that it’s Six Ages)
• Support the story (players need to identify who is who from the picture, so different groups need to be recognizable)
• Look realistic (it should feel like these are real people living real lives; many fantasy art staples like chainmail bikinis wouldn’t work)
• Not just a transplanted Earth culture (it’s totally fine to draw on Scythians or Hittites, but if so that should only be one element of the design)
• Fit the setting (Six Ages is set in Glorantha, and needs to be compatible with the license)
• Be acceptable in the iOS App Store (the Minoans had no problems with an open bodice, but Apple would. Guide to Glorantha doesn’t have the same restrictions, and can portray people living in warm climates wearing appropriate lack of clothing.)

To help my own imagination, and to provide reference as needed, I ordered a bunch of Osprey books. They tend to be a bit military-focused, but have great reconstructions with lots of detail. The books cover the time period of 5000 BC-1500 AD, so we can definitely mix & match as needed.

Many of these books came out since we did King of Dragon Pass, which had its own collection of Osprey references (which I’ve also dug back into).

It’s too bad the Tessloff books aren’t easy to get in the USA, So lebten sie zur Zeit der Wikinger was a great reference for daily life (we used it for King of Dragon Pass), and I suspect they have others that would be helpful.

For that matter, am I missing any other Iron Age or Bronze Age visual references?

P.S. I ended up ordering a few more references. The Mayas book (which is not an Osprey) may actually have the same content as a Tessloff edition.