Cart CGD Visual Artists Meeting – June 7th
June 7th, Visual Artists Meeting
Sharah, Charlotte, Nick, Moh, Nancy, Alexis
Nick: Shows comics examples. Brings up the ideal of surrealism. Real things get mangled ie: a lamppost vs. a twisted lamppost with veins.
• We enjoy complex toon/cell shading (think afro samurai, prince of Persia – the most recent). This works the best for all three characters.
• Can we, in ogre, get the black outline?
Moh: Wants a stylized reality. Real but something is off. Shows paintings – white and washed out.
• Materials look real, but angles are off, plus cell shaded outline.
• The style itself can have visual meaning, humans into endangered animals. It’s the environment’s way of adapting. We are the parasite and the circle of life is trying to bring us backwards.
Opening scene: The same event witnessed by all three characters. Ie: a truck crashing into a school
• Man: sees truck out of control crashing into school through window
• Child: a truck crashes into her school
• Woman: wandering through the street and CAUSES the truck to go out of control
• ALL: People scream, the sky goes dark suddenly. Even though it is midday.
This game has to end somehow. WRITER’s THOUGHTS?
• Different endings: all die or all take the truck and drive into the sunset.
Note: all these people are dying. City is crumbling all around them. Just try to avoid it, but can’t. Escaping the city = escaping death. Can you? Perhaps…(psst. Take the truck!)
Who would you statutory rape? Male: Kid who plays Jacob in Twilight? Female: Miley Cyrus – Alexis’ choice, minus the accent.
CHARACTER DETAILS:
Man:
• Typical, boring business man. Implied in his intro that something is off about him. Maybe he’s stealing from the company? Maybe he’s suicidal? Never know.
• Vision: everything is washed out white and grey. Certain key things are slightly more colorful.
• Otaku. Plain and pasty. Looks like he hasn’t slept in a while.
• SKILL: Stronger than the other characters. Can move things than the child and woman can’t.
Child:
• Little Girl is “gothic” and listening to headphones. Her entire scene she is listening to music no matter what horror happens. Avoid voice acting, yes!
• Vision: She sees things dark in more extremely colors of, for example, an warm palette of oranges, reds and blacks.
• Remember, she is around 8. So no extreme goth. She wouldn’t be wearing makeup or have dyed hair. Just looking like she is on her way there with dark clothes .
• A little overweight perhaps.
• BELIEVES IN VAMPIRES! 
• Sees everything from a ‘looking-up’ perspective.
• SKILL: Tiny. Can get into places that the other characters can’t.
Woman:
• Vision: Multicolored, bright. Overexposed.
• Deterity is off. She trips and wobbles. You can’t control her sometimes.
• Asian junkie around 30 years old. Skinny (gaunt. Messy hair.
• Coke whore makeup perhaps? Over the lines lipstick in a gaudish pink
• SKILL: She’s a thief. Can pick locks and get into places the others can’t/ won’t. Like homes and cabinets.
ARCHITECTURE:
Think GAUDI. Think GIGER. Think Paris metro signs. This world is ‘art-deco’ composed mainly of organic shapes. This implies the city can be in the future, can be Barcelona-esque, can be alien. A see-saw for example will be a twisty curve instead of a straight bench linking the two seats.
damn…im really annoyed now that i couldnt make that meeting.
can i ask why the girl has now been turned “goth” ? seems awfully cliched, no? Why cant she be average instead? Not distinguishable? I mean is there some other story element that drives her to becoming “goth” ?
Also, business man? So we’re ditching the idea of never seeing his face and him being in a sort of trench coat/hoodie?
I was thinking that cell shaded/surrealism might be a good direction, however, that will lead things to be a bit cartoonish, which might diminish the overall feel of what we’re aiming for?
Me and a certain non diclosed member of this project were discussing that someone needs to take charge and make final decisions. We seem to be taking too many odd random directions based on personal preferences. Perhaps a secret vote to give two-three individual executive decision making power? So that we can stop adding/substracting ideas as it feels like we keep changing direction. And art direction meeting once a week seems a bit too much. I cant make meetings on sundays in june because i have hockey games (unless you guys post-pone it to a bit later than 6, and let it go on till like at least 9). Plus one week to work out stuff seems like too short of a time frame, has anyone considered that maybe once every 2 weeks might provide better results?
Yeah, seems like im doing a lot of bitching…i know. So sorry about that (in advance).
@Jos
Hey Jos,
The character changes were actually discussed in the previous general meeting and we artist had just given them and the setting some detail. We have not touched the story from the last meeting. The ‘never seeing his face and just a hood’ had been scrapped a while back.
For the ‘goth’ girl: we just used that word as a quick way of describing her personality and how she sees the world. As an 8 year old, she won’t be into the makeup and hair cliched stuff (which I have in fact never seen a goth character in a game actually…Unless the game style was horror. Hmm). Anyway, to give her character a little style we gave each of them a sort of ‘belief’ on how they view the world that will only be shown in the colors and rendering of their personal setting. Concept art away just using the idea that ‘this girl believes in the dark fantastical and is a little obnoxious’. Like me when I was a kid!
We already had the non-distinguishable male character. No need for them ALL to be completely ‘average’. And, I ‘d actually say these type of kids have since become the average. (Damn you Twilight!)
Do no worry about the idea shifting. I’d say we did well on the ‘not subtracting, just refining the existing’ ideas. At the beginning we had 3 random characters in a city. Now we have WHO those characters are and look like, a map of the city itself (scanned soon), the sets, the props AND the city style. But yes, we also did decide that next week in the general meeting an artistic director will be voted on if only to keep the style even once we start production.
I’ll get back to you on the meeting time. According to the Doodle vote though, the majority of people could ONLY make in Sunday nights. All other nights had less than 2/3rds. I may send another one out where there’s the option of ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘only if needed’. Hopefully that third one will open up some times.
Feel free to email me with any other comments or questions about the concept art. The weekly artists meetings are just for while we’re still in this ‘concept’ phase. Once in production, it will be less frequent probably.
I only have one comment: EDWARD.
@charlotte
for God’s sake, i hope not…