Building Alliances: Presentation and Concept Art

Presentation Preparation:
In preparation for our group presentation - in which we would pitch the intellectual property of our game and explain its gameplay, style and concept art - we created a short slideshow. This would show, in simplified terms, the entirety of our project: illustrating our pitch, our research and the considerations we had taken towards its design.
As such, we split the presentation into numerous sections, dividing it to show what each team member had individually contributed. We would then each add our work to the PowerPoint. After having added my work, I went back to produce more splash art of our game. I felt that this was necessary as it would help to visualise what our game would look like when presenting our work, as the vast majority of our designs were singular enemies, towers and levels. More scenery could then help to show how these elements of the game would interact with one another, creating a more cohesive presentation with stronger visualisation.

When creating new concept art for the presentation I used the same technique as before, creating a base sketch atop a perspective grid, drawing line art over it and then proceeding with block colours and shading. Peer feedback indicated that the first splash art I produced bore too dark colours, which may not be representative of our target demographic. As such, in these following pieces I used brighter colours with more stark variation between different focal points.

This piece also contains a "Fungal Spore" tower, one of our previous tower designs based around the idea of fungi overtaking a large, blocky body cell. Though a part of the same fleshy and meat of the rest of the body, I coloured this aspect lighter to put more focus on it and to show how it is a different element in the scene.

This next piece of concept art shows a level in an abstractified analogue of the heart region, based around previous concept designs I had made. This level contains a larger quantity of detail, including different tendons and valves, and as such I used a different texture and different colours when creating the scene. This scene also contains a greater variety of Microplastic enemies, all based around prior concepts I had made, additionally showing my rendition of the "Fungal Artillery" tower design.

This piece also contains the Fungal Artillery tower, though bears a different and more complex design. When discussing this concept with my group, we decided that - though perhaps out of our scope for this project - such complex and large designs may be used in specific levels, a setpiece that assists the player greatly in specific circumstances.

With these pieces done, I went back and added them to the presentation. Additionally, I added some details to the presentation - such as white circles in the background - to give it a bit of visual flair, breaking up the large bodies of text into two columns to make them appear more organised.

All slides were categorised by who created the work, additionally serving to prompt us when we were presenting. On the whole, I believe that our presentation went incredibly well: we all spoke about our work and did so in a timely manner whilst not cutting out large swathes of content. Feedback also indicated what we should work on next: 3D assets and finalised designs that can be placed together in a multitude of scenes. As such, as we discussed in another meeting, I will work to create finalised designs, key concept art and orthographics for use in the 3D pipeline: this will allow for the 2D art I have produced to inform and influence the 3D pipeline.

Next Steps:
From this point onwards, I will work on a multitude of different assets that will assist my group as we approach final submission. These will mainly be 3D Assets that utilise our simple art style, as well as Loading Screen Art and Orthographic renditions of some of the more complex models. These orthographics will assist our 3D Lead in creating models of the designs we have finalised. I myself will also be available when needed to assist in texturing and UV unwrapping of models. I believe this point represents a transition of sorts in my role: as my group has decided that the look of the game has been consolidated, my sketches and thumbnails of different game elements are not largely useful going ahead: I will instead work towards production, with my 2D art being supplementary to the primarily 3D elements that are being produced. 

In this, there is an Asset List of sorts that represents what we require to move closer towards submission. This includes models of the Microplastic enemies, Towers and of a Level that our game could be staged within. As we have discussed using Unreal Engine, this level could be "Whiteboxed" and not necessarily final. Nevertheless, our game assets could be placed within the level in a variety of renditions, with similar assets being used across the level form. Our final Assets are as follows:

Towers: Funal Artillery, Fungal Spore, Bone, White Blood Cell

Microplastic Enemies: Fragment Slasher, Fragment Cluster, Fibre, Pellet, Foam, Film

Level: We discussed which level would be the best to create, and decided upon the "Lungs" level. We chose this level due to its unique visual style. In its creation, the level itself may be populated with alveoli-like "trees" that may be modeled separate from the level's overall form.