Pip note: Cornifer is one of the creatures I've actually encountered so for so as a bonus you can take a look at what he looks like now: This extends even to the dialogue and lore, with us sharing the duties equally." Hollow Knight's look and feel is really a middle ground between his sensibility and mine. The concept above for Cornifer the Cartographer is one such example. Though William is busy constructing the game's systems, he does occasionally fit a few designs in. "Lastly (and very importantly!), I should mention that a lot of the style of the game is conceived in collaboration with William, who along with being a designer, is an artist and animator himself. Even the most remote corners of the world are filled with strange creatures and bizarre sights." Help Is Other People As players, we love exploration in games and in Hollow Knight we want to reward that urge. "Currently, my time is a mix of animating bosses, tiling out remaining areas and adding unique landmarks and discoveries. The sketches produced during that event tend to cover about a weeks worth of final work." Most of these sketches are produced on Thursday nights at a cafe meet-up of local artists. Almost everything within makes its way into the final game. To date, I've filled 3 sketchbooks for Hollow Knight. "Sketches like these, while seriously crude, form the basis for most of the game. "The tiny scribble of an overgrown beast (in the top right corner of the page), can be seen in it's final form in one of the screenshots below." These room interiors are some of my favourite things to create. "A few of the shops the Hollow Knight can frequent. Being 2D animated, each enemy takes a while for me to produce and I can't afford to use up that time iterating on a design." Retail Therapy/Detail Therapy Many of these I concept on the fly or with a single sketch (though I'm hoping that's not too apparent). "A selection of enemy sprites from the game. Post Kickstarter, almost all art is final game assets or sketch thumbnails." The Enemies Of The Hollow Knight I tried to illustrate the adventurous tone we wanted in the game, something the previous artwork was devoid of. It helped solidify the new look, with simple graphic characters and the blue palette. This is some of the only key art created for the game. "Taking the game to Kickstarter necessitated new promotional art be made. The town above is almost identical to that seen in the final (much larger) game, though the cavern art has seen significant enhancement." To Kickstarter "Here's the art I produced for the first night of the jam. I really like the evolution the character's had from here." In these images the character wasn't so much a knight, just a strange traveller embarking across a surreal wasteland. These images formed the basis for the new game's aesthetic, though looking at them now, they're quite a bit darker than the game ended up being. "In the interim between the two jams, I produced the four images above, exploring further ideas for the character. For this game, we just dragged his sprite-sheet across and gave him a jump animation (the previous game was top-down)." Between Two Jams I'd originally designed and animated the main character for an earlier jam we'd attended, Ludum Dare 27. "These in-game sprites show the Hollow Knight alongside some of the other friends you'll encounter. The game's ambition quickly exceeded what was possible in 72hrs, but this the core concept has remained through to its final form." The theme for the jam was 'Beneath the Surface.' This rather abstract image was the first one produced and it still represents the game quite well, with a small town above and the player spelunking through dark caverns below. "Hollow Knight began from the game jam Ludum Dare 29. Clicking the sketchbook images takes you to a slightly larger version but otherwise what you'll see when you click through is the same picture, but it turns them into a clickable slideshow which can be a nicer way to look at concept art as it greys out the rest of the page and lets you concentrate :) First Impressions Here is a whole bouquet of concept art along with Ari's own comments and explanation. As a result artistic lead, Ari Gibson, has opened his sketchbooks (at one point literally) for RPS. HOWEVER that didn't stop me emailing the game devs about the artwork. There's a beta awaiting further exploration in my Steam library but I've only been able to dip in for small chunks of time thanks to a set of trips and other distractions. It's all bluey greys and underground exploration to solve a mystery - kinda elegiac. Hollow Knight was a Kickstarter project I remember being captivated by because of the art style.
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