Not only am I lazy, but I completely forgot to upload a sketch yesterday. 🙁
Concept art for Project Legion‘s art style in the levels. As the sketch itself clearly proclaims, this particular location is called “Yu Hill Forest”. Expect a follow-up soon of what the realized, in-game version looks like.
Slowly piecing the level editor together. This is probably the most tedious part of this stage of development, but it’s starting to really come together. Now I can start putting together some early art and level designs. Pretty soon I’m going to have to start working on the actual art the will be used in-game. (Most of what’s there now is just temporary.)
You can click on the screenshot to see it at full size.
Missed two weeks in a row there. I’d say I was losing it, but I often miss Sketchbook Monday. ;_;
Plenty of concept art for Project Legion today which, as you might guess, is primarily what I’ve been working on as of late. Here’s a sketch of the main hero. The idea was that each unit class have a unique head shape that quickly identifies them on screen, and–taking that even further–that the head shape actually be something related to that class. For example, the archers’ heads would look like an arrowhead when viewed and profile and, as you can see, the hero’s head would be shaped like a star. After toying around with it awhile, I’ve largely dropped the concept. In practice a lot of the characters’ heads are obscured by others in-game anyway, and honestly it would make for some pretty wild hair, hats, and head accessories that I’m not so sure I could pull off without looking completely stupid.
Just to drive the point home.
A more recent sketch of the hero.
An early concept sketch of a villain (perhaps the villain?). I like to try and not create the same kind of antagonist in every story I come up with, so I make this guy a lot rounder than Warlord Keaton in Swordmaster Odyssey.
And here he is, with more realistic proportions, in a close-up.
Sorry it took me so long to get around to this post, things have been a bit harsh lately.
If you’re reading this, it’s probably because you’ve already noticed that Vision Riders as a whole–including Swordmaster Odyssey–has been on hiatus lately. Here’s the deal: for the past two years Vision Riders has been my full-time job. Before that, I’d worked freelance jobs here and there when I could land them, but I wanted to see if I could make a living working on my own stuff. For now, the unfortunate answers seems to be “no”. Money that I thought I would be able to put towards Vision Riders ending up having to go elsewhere, as life has an annoying tendancy to be unpredictable, which only compounded the problems I’ve had trying to get animation going–which was the whole reason Vision Riders was started in the first place!
At the moment Vision Riders as a company, a web site, and a creative entity, teeters on the edge of non-existance. However, while I may no longer be able to devote my full time to it, I want Vision Riders to continue because I enjoy it, even if I can only pursue it part-time or as a hobby. We’ll have to see how that goes. For now, Swordmaster Odyssey is set to return next week, but everything involving animation has basically been put on indefinite hold. I’ll see if I can’t get Vision Riders in the air again and will be actively looking into alternate business models, namely ones that don’t focus on animation. At least, not in the short term.
Don’t worry, I’m still alive. Or maybe that was your worry?
Jessie in a different style again.
Colin, “The Grand Hero”. He’s been featured in a couple Sketchbook Monday entries as I recall.
Here he is again.
Gigas Khan, a giant of a man who serves at different times as both an enemy and an ally of Colin.
And now for an assortment of Project Legion supporting character concepts:
