Developing a boss part III

I started the week off by getting some feedback on Matramara’s phase 1. My feedback was mostly clean-ups and tweaks, but otherwise this sketch was green-lit for rendering. Below are my mentor’s notes. He told me to be careful about the center line and to keep it consistent. He also gave me some small design suggestions to push the forms of the character and make it look more three-dimensional.

Below is my response. After my mentor brought up the center line, my drawing definitely improved. The clothes made more sense and showed off the character’s form better. After taking a good look at my first drawing, I also realized that the actual character underneath the clothes was leaning back too much and looked like she would fall over. I fixed this by drawing the form underneath first, and then adjusting the clothes to fit on top.

My mentor also told me to apply the same concepts to the phase 2 design. He told me to think about ways I can make this look more 3D.

I then realized that the wing-arms looked flat, so I redrew the arm poses so that some arms would reach towards the camera. This definitely added a sense of depth and three-dimensionality to the design compared to the original pose.

I also felt like the cloth in the back was lacking but I needed a break to see it with clear eyes again. I decided to do some thumbnails for my planned illustration.

My personal favourites where D,E and H. However, A and G where quite popular when I showed my peers and tutors. I wondered why people like A more than D but when I took a step back and compared the two, I found that although they where similar, A looked has a more interesting composition because the ratio of Matramara vs Yul exaggerated the size difference, with the demon queen taking up most of the composition. This makes her look much stronger and more menacing as an enemy. However, I really liked how I posed Yul in D so I might mix that into A’s composition.

I also ended up doing another prop; the lantern that Yul’s blade is attached to.

I think these each of these sketches have a very successful element. My favourites are E and I because they match the blade the best. For this prop design, I challenged myself to minimise my reliance on tutor and mentor feedback and tried to remember what I’ve learnt from my previous feedback sessions in another context. For the most part, I was able to recall and apply my previous feedback. For example, my previous feedback on making my drawings look 3D — I drew these lantern sketches at a subtle angle to show off form, instead of drawing them flat at an isometric view. I feel that by drawing them this way, I was able to convey shape and form much better. One of my previous critiques was that I needed to be bold with shapes, so for these sketches I focused on either creating interesting silhouettes or including interesting shapes and patterns within the design. My success with these sketches was confirmed when I showed my mentor, who said was impressed by these designs and simply told me to proceed with my favourite iteration!

Overall, I was proud of myself because I was able be more independent. I was able to apply what I learnt from my tutors and mentor in independent work and came up with some really cool designs on my own. I really learn a lot from getting feedback, and now I feel more confident to view my own work critically and improve by myself. Though, of course, feedback is always a great tool for improvement!

Developing a boss part II

Above is my clean sketch for Matramara’s phase 1. However, I felt that something was off, so I sent this to my mentor for some feedback.

My mentor and I discussed design issues. He said that I was being too timid with the design and that I could push the shapes and be more bold since this is a fantasy character. We also talked about how the little hand charms were nice but that they’d get lost because they’re so small. Above is my mentor making quick notes on how I can incorporate my hands idea in different ways and what kinds of shapes I might want to experiment with.

I ended up revamping my idea and came up with this. I made the hand motif more subtle to hint at her 2nd form and I also added more southeas-asian inspired garments such as the headdress and chest piece. The headdress is called a Makuta, which symbolizes royalty and divinity – which I thought was perfect for a demon queen mimicking a human.

Above are some bits of research I did for this headdress.

After some cleanup, here was what I came up with for Matramara’s phase 2. I really liked the direction this was heading in and felt excitement for this character again. I then sent it to my mentor for feedback.

He agreed that this direction was quite strong and gave me some pointers to think about. He mentioned that I need to make the pregnant belly more round to make it more grotesque by making the proportions look unbalanced. He also told me that I need to consider a ground plane to make things look more 3D. Another thing was that she was just a lump of flesh, which would make her boring material-wise and said maybe to add a cloth to call back to the dress in her first form. Lastly, he suggested exaggerating the hunched back and the veil in the front.

At the end of the week, this was my response to my mentor’s feedback. I did agree that the lump of flesh wasn’t giving “queen of demons” vibes, so I gave her the flowing rags in the back, which would add a sense of ghost-like ethereal flow when she moves around. I also made her veil bigger because I remember in my other previous feedback sessions that I was too timid with my designs.

Overall, I was pretty satisfied with my work this week and can’t wait to see how far I can push my designs to be the best they can be (without dragging it on too long!).

Developing a Boss

I began to develop the boss character and decided to rename her as Matramara instead of Rangda. I wanted this game to be inspired by southeast Asia rather than being fully based on their mythologies as to not appropriate any significant themes or symbols. Rangda also has a specific look in the Balinese dance, which I strayed far from. I want to respect the original dance so I instead just used the idea of a demon queen from the dance’s narrative.

I showed my work to a tutor, who went over some ideas with me and did a paint-over. This tutor works as an art director and helped me think about character design for games in particular. Firstly, he talked about scale. He said it was important that I think about how big this boss will be compared to the player. He told me to consider how much of the boss will be seen on screen by asking me questions such as “is the camera first person or third person?”, “what is the position of the camera?” and “how close will this character be to the camera?”. All of these made me realize that there’s actually a lot to consider when designing bosses for games. Another piece of feedback I got was that the idea was too convoluted; she’s the mother and queen of all demons, who is also a centipede with lots of human arms, and she’s pregnant etc. My tutor said that I should be more picky with what ideas to keep for this concept, and save the other ideas for another character. Above is a quick sketch example he did to illustrate his point.

I tried again with my tutor’s notes in mind. I reduced the number of arms and simplified the body shape. I also kept in mind that I was designing for a game so I made certain shapes bigger. I still wasn’t satisfied with this direction so I consulted my mentor.

My mentor gave me some notes on this design, saying that it should have sharper shape language to convey that she’s a villain. During this feedback session, I confided with my mentor that I didn’t like the direction I was heading in. He advised me to take a break from this and not to be afraid to start again if I didn’t like what I was making. This character is meant to be the final boss of the game, so I can’t just let her be an okay design. She needs to be bold, intimidating, yet elegant and effortless. I decided to take a break from her phase 2 design and focused on her phase 1.

These are my sketches for Matramara’s phase 1. I wanted this character to look like a demon’s parody of a woman. I wanted her beautiful face to draw victims to a false sense of safety, but when you take a second to look at her, you would notice her uncannily large belly and eerily-off proportions. I got a lot of positive feedback from these sketches and moved forward with my favorite elements.

These are the sketches I ended up with near the end of the week. My tutors said they really liked her phase 1 but phase 2 still didn’t feel like a final boss. I decided to start again from the beginning.

I completely scrapped my ideas and started fresh. I began by listing her main defining features; lots of arms and pregnant belly. I also defined her fighting style; she is a magic caster. This means I can get away with her being a larger scale because her move set will include a lot of jumping far from the player to cast spells. I was really happy with these sketches and concluded the week inspired.