I focused more on art these past two weeks. I had about a week off for personal reasons, and going back to my work routine was a bit difficult, but things are again. Here’s what I did
Robot Head Designs
I was initially going to make a single head shape for every NPC and rely on clothing and color to differentiate between them, but I realized I’m limiting myself for no reason in particular. It’s not even that time consuming in the grand scheme of things, and it adds a lot of charm and character.
I started with a ton of quick and rough sketches, to see if there’s anything interesting that comes up. They’re not the best, but they do the job.
After that I started sketching in 3D, with rough and unpolished shapes. I made a few modules for the eye screen thing, and a more pronounced chin. This is only one version, and I’m planning to do more of them. It looks like the NPCs have different characters and personalities even with the small changes, so this was definitely the right call.
In terms of lore, this makes much more sense actually, without me having to adjust anything. The player is noticeably different from the rest and many NPCs point that out and ask about it, so the fact that his head shape is unique conveniently explains that.
Story
I reorganized the story a bit and thought about it in terms of arcs. It helped me figure out some difficult parts in the middle. I decided to go with the following structure :
- Main: Things that directly involve the players, and are essential for the progression of the story.
- Secondary: Smaller events or stories that are not essential, but they can enrich the story, world building and character stories. They can also serve as a transition between two major story arcs.
- Tertiary: This is about stories that don’t involve the player, but they happen over longer periods of time. Eg. if a main story arc happens over 2 days, the tertiary happens over the span of a 2 weeks. It also usually involves a large portion of the community, like something political or how to deal about the lack of certain resources and such. You can finish the game without knowing any of this is happening, but if you interact with NPCs or overhear their chatter and discussions you’ll figure it out. A real example would be some item descriptions from Dark Souls : while it’s likely that you’ll finish the entire game without reading them, you’ll know a lot more about the world and its struggles and stories if you spend the time to do so.
This is not a strict rule though, there are a few instances where the story doesn’t follow any of this structure. Here’s an example timeline of the story structure, with the names blurred to avoid spoilers.
To not spoil the story, here’s a random example (not part of the game or anything else, really): The main character of the TV Series is a detective in the 80’s. The first major story arc is about solving a difficult homicide case. There is a secondary arc where the main character deals with the boss who isn’t too fond of the unorthodox methods and insubordination, so the main character is punished with a lot of desk work and revisiting old cases. The case is solved and the murderer is found and dies in a confrontation, and that concludes the first story arc. However because of the desk work, the detective notices a detail which reminds them of a different case, then a pattern emerges : all of them had different perpetrators who all died, but all the victims and M.O. are eerily similar, this is not the full picture. The detective presents this to the boss, which leads to ceased punishments and a permission to investigate further, concluding the first secondary arc, and starting the second major arc.
Environment props
I made even more metallic structures and prop, still using the same material and trimsheet as the previous ones. The models are air duct and pipe kits, an air filtration baghouse, a water tank, and a satellite dish. Click on the images below to expand.
Portfolio cleanup
I cleaned up my portfolio and unpublished many projects that I didn’t deem worthy, interesting or relevant enough for a portfolio, including projects I still liked. I also re-rendered the french revolver model in a different light setup because I thought the previous renders didn’t do it justice and I could salvage it. I didn’t do much work on the textures, I only reduced the dirt very slightly, but it looks much better with the new lighting.
Okami Fanart Collab
More work on the collab with Bl3iz-Du, it’s almost done. I added some background props, and added the glaive model(ignore the broken animation). I’m happy with the result.
That’s all for this week, thanks for reading, and I hope to see you again in the next devlog. Have a nice day!