Sketching in Portland

 

Study of a Pansy

I was inspired by all the awesome drawings the students did today in the class I'm a Teaching Assistant for, so I came home and drew this pansy. It felt good to dust off the old colored pencil collection.

Hadiyah Color Turn-Around

Color!

The 3rd person camera will be looking at her back most of the time in-game, so I did color comps from a rear view. I also figured that since the camera is above her, she'll most likely be set against a tan stone floor color.

The battleship-style label grid is so that my teammates and I can communicate quickly and clearly about the different options over our online forum while we get only limited face time during summer semester.  

Thrones

Here is some early exploration for the thrones. Not only do they need to read as wind-god thrones, but I also want them to help tell the story of the two brothers. My current favorite is the one on the left because the heights show which brother is older and more dominant, the flags indicate wind, the broken leg hints at the little brother's downfall, and it is such a big brother thing to steal all the throw pillows. 

Temple Arena

Basic "How to Play" instructions and overview of current high-level game design:

The whole game takes place in the Temple of the Wind Gods high up in a tower in the middle of a desert. The main sanctuary is acting as our arena. Here are some early ideas about the space:

Rough Concept Illustration

This is a moment from our game when Hadiyah, the blacksmith warrior woman, takes on a wave of lizard minion enemies. We now have a much clearer idea of the characters. My teammate, Parker Pierce, has been working on the lizard minion designs. 

Hadiyah 1st Rough Turn-Around

Hadiyah Refinement

Getting closer to a final rough character design. I took my team's feedback and mix-and-matched our favorite pieces. 

Contrast: Earth v. Wind

While working on the character development, I really wanted a more clear-cut way of visually distinguishing the good guys from the bad, so I made the following handy chart for myself and my team.

Bladed or Blunt?

Can't design a warrior without her weapon. I've been exploring the options: battle ax? mace? war hammer? We've even toyed with the idea that she made herself a weapon out of an old anvil. The anvil-hammer is probably too humorous for the tone of this game, but it was fun to try out none the less. 

The Other Guys

Early exploration for our secondary characters:

Aidan is the son of the protagonist, Hadiyah. and the God of the West Wind. He's an overconfident teenager who aspires to be a hero but gets himself in trouble. In our story, he's been kidnapped and is being held captive by his uncle, Ilimatar, the God of the East Wind. 

Aidan wears many of the same colors and material types as his pragmatic mother, but has far less sense about the difference between functional protective armor and suggestive fashion. His clothes are worn and disheveled from the fight when we was captured. 

Iliamatar has kidnapped Aidan as bait to lure Hadiyah into his temple full of vicious lizard minions. He wants to kill them both as vengeance for the death of his brother, Demetrious.

His clothes are very showy and made of light flowing materials.

Hadiyah Character Exploration

We've been working on our story, character relationships, and visual exploration simultaneously. 

I've been doing the visual development, starting with silhouette, stance, and general body build. We knew we wanted her to read as strong and capable, so I'm leaning toward a stockier build and heavier weapons. She's almost certainly a melee fighter.

Warrior Woman Beat Boards - Color

More moments, now in color:

Top: Instead of starting in the arena, the heroine first has to fight her way up an open staircase to get to the main temple.

Middle: Inside the temple, the god is lounging on his throne. Our villain, the God of the East Wind, used to share this temple with his little brother, the God of the West Wind, until the brother fell in love with the heroine, gave up his immortality to father the (now captive) son, and died. The design of the thrones, through their heights, forms, and relative states of disrepair, will help tell that story visually.

Bottom: Villain watches heroine fight extra-large lizard minion from the safety of his throne.

Warrior Woman Beat Boards

First thoughts on some moments from the game:

Top: Introduction. Mom enters arena prepared to challenge the god to rescue her captive son.

Middle: God watches from on high as his minions are released into the arena to destroy the protagonist.

Bottom: Having defeated all the minion creatures, the heroine fights the god herself in a final boss battle.

Warrior Woman Game!

Started pre-production on a new game with a new team. We knew we wanted a story with a strong female protagonist set in a lush fantasy world. 

The game features a young male aspiring hero, Aidan, who got himself in over his head and is being held captive. You play as his strong middle-aged mother, a total bad-ass blacksmith named Hadiyah, to defeat the god-villain and rescue your son.  

First and foremost, our heroine will be reasonably dressed - no battle bikinis here. Secondly, I was drawn to a warm color palette, which suggested a hot arid environment. 

Goes Around - Beauty Shot

Here is a still from one of my favorite moments in the film. 

Goes Around - Final Film

Here it is! The final film.

My goal with this piece was to tell a story in which an environment prop, the carousel, was the protagonist, and to pit it against a human antagonist. I always thought of the carousel as the hero, and I wanted it to display a two-sided personality; cute and harmless at the beginning and end, yet forceful and strong when the need arose.

My secondary goal was to translate a 2D cartoony feel into 3D without losing the stylized charm.

Tashi & Hom Graphic Novel

Tashi & Hom is a game featuring a young boy, Tashi, and his companion blob, Hom, magically hacking and slashing their way through waves of delightful, adorable, and voracious enemies.

In addition to working on the game, I also made a graphic novel version of the main characters' backstory based on the established game mythos. The graphic novel isn't technically canon anymore, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Character design for Tashi & Hom by Tyler Stuart. World and premise was a collective effort by Papertooth Games. I authored and created the graphic novel by fleshing out story details, writing the script, designing secondary characters, creating page layouts, and producing the final art. 

Bonbon Voyage - Title Illustration

Quick & dirty illustration for the title menu. As you may have noticed, many of these elements are embellished versions of the orthographic concept art made earlier in the process. We needed something fast, and this was a reasonable solution which still conveyed the essential character of our game. Buttons along the bottom (over the grass) let the player begin a new game, read a tutorial, see the credits, and exit. 

The character was designed and drawn by our character artist, Jacqui Sessa.

Tashi & Hom Game Menus

Pause menu, confirmation menu, lose screen, and win screen from Tashi & Hom, a hack-and-slash action game about a little boy and his magical companion fighting their way through waves of delightful enemies in stylized Bhutanese-inspired temples.

Ctrl P Print

This was an exercise in conveying sound effects and intonation in a purely visual medium. If you haven't already seen Eddie Izzard's "Glorious," it is definitely worth the watch.

Bonbon Voyage - Gingerbread House

And finally, the gingerbread house. I wanted each side of the house to be distinct so that if and when the player caught a glimpse of it from withing the labyrinth, he would have a reasonable chance of orienting himself at least in relation to the central landmark.

The production schedule was getting pretty crunchy by this point, so the orthographics aren't nearly as well noted and explained as I would have liked. Luckily, I was working closely with my modeler and texture artist, the fabulous Brandon Orden, and we were able to clear up the more ambiguous bits face-to-face.   

Bonbon Voyage - Gates Orthographic

The next orthographic for Bonbon Voyage. 

As the player approaches the hedge maze, the first thing he finds is a large gated yard filled with tantalizing candy treats. The initial idea was to slam the gates closed behind the player, forcing him to make his way to the gingerbread house in order to escape. The further we got into game development, however, the more we realized that this step wasn't necessary - the player wanted to explore whether or not he was locked in. Closing the gates only served to frustrate those avid explorers who insistented on scouring the whole game world to illuminate every last lamppost.

Bonbon Voyage - Hedge Orthographics

This is the first orthographic design I did for Bonbon Voyage, a game in which the player must work his way through a labyrinth of hedges and candy to reach the gingerbread house in the center. 

We knew we'd be using a ton of hedge pieces and connecting them at odd angles, so the cylindrical topiary piece served to hide the corners and create visual interest without limiting how the hedge units could fit together.

The candy cane lanterns lit up when approached by the player, helping him to recognize territory he'd already explored.

Goes Around - Prop Design

Here are the orthographic designs I did of prop and scenery units for my film, Goes Around.

Goes Around - Concept & Color

Concept illustration and color exploration for Goes Around.

Jay W. Aplegren

Meet Jay, the antagonist of my spring film project, Goes Around. Jay's kind of a jerk. But don't worry, he's going to get what's coming to him.