For the intro to our game, we wanted to have a simple 2D cinematic that sets the scene and lays out the rough backstory to the gameplay. The idea of this was to have simple, painterly (I use the term very loosely) images that would show the very beginning of our main character's journey in an atmospheric way. To begin with, our Game Designer handed me a rough storyboard and outline of the story, which you can see below.
From here, I drew out my own storyboard and made some changes to certain scenes for efficiency as there wasn't much time to draw all of these out and I had to find ways to save a little time where possible.
I went for a colour palette of orange to blue, overlayed onto a contrasting purple and cyan. This gave a nice warm-to-cool appearance and also made the pieces fairly colourful and ethereal. Here are the finished individual images of the story:
At the beginning our wizard is imprisoned in a magic crystal restraint that prevents the use of his powers.
He is trapped in a powerful, magical and ethereal dungeon from which he has no hope of escape.
Until he receives an unexpected visitor.
Another prisoner has found a way to find him via some type of astral projection.
And then uses all the magic at her disposal to break his bonds, so that he may free her in turn.
The crystals that hold him break, unlocking some of his former power and beginning the story.
She returns to her body to await a return of the favour, and he recovers his strength.
He notes the magic-inhibiting bracelets that still hold back his full power, and then prepares to escape the dungeon. The game begins.
These images were done in a fairly tight time frame, and so I didn't have quite as long to work on them as I would have liked, and so they're quite rough and riddled with issues in places. A few of them, which I figured were the most important, have had a little more time applied to them than others, and therefore came out a little better overall. In certain places, mainly with the figures, I'm mostly pretty happy with the anatomy, expressions and posing. The weakest aspects are the ethereal, flaming projections and magic, which in places look overly cartoonish and far too stylised. My work is always a little like this, and not particularly deliberately, but because of the limited time frame this has come through a little more than I usually like. I think on the whole, however, it does mostly work as a cut scene, and once applied to the project with the voice overs and music put together by our game manager it might actually be fairly successful. We'll have to see how it all comes together. The images do tell the story, and seem for the most part clear enough - apart from perhaps the scenes in which the magic spirit lady teleports in and out, which are a bit confusing. I'm looking forward to seeing this finished and setting the scene before the game starts.
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