Hello! Not much happened this week when it comes to graphics. Alot of time were spent on very small arifacts, writing in our design dokument or managing our backlog. Most of the in-game graphics were done but there was one last piece that we implemented this week: The story.
So this week we’ll take a look at the story-pictures that I drew for the intro of the game, wich sets up the event that you, the player, will take part in. I kind of went through how I thought with the aesthetic style of the story-pictures last week, but to sum it up quickly: I’m going for kind of a storybook aesthetic with a scale of brown and beige. Here I’ll go through what I thought with each of these pictures, what I like with them and also all the stupid mistakes I did with them…
Well, to begin with I should show you the first steps of their creation.
These are the first storyboards that I drew. Small and simple, and while my finished pictures are less messy and sketchy, these basics are still intact for most of them.
Ehm…
So here I wanted an establishing shot of the owl, the train and the enviroment around them. There are some sloppy mistakes though, like a missing window on the train, but overall this is one of my favorites.
This is the first point you get shown the owlets, whose rescue is the main objective with the game. Since the level-designer was still working on the level we didn’t know exactly how many owlets you’d be able to pick up during the game so the number changes a little between pictures… I also think this is the worst looking drawing of the owl in all of the pictures. Somethings just a little… Off…
Smoke coming out of the chimney, the first sign that something is wrong for our little owl. The biggest mistake I made in this picture is a little more subtle this time. Apparently the sun decided to move to the other side of the earth and shine a little on that side instead.
This is probably my favorite of all the pictures, the perspective and dynamics of the scene was pretty challenging to pull off, and the dust pushing out from the front of the train with smoke bulging from the locomotives chimney makes it clear that things are moving. Ofcourse there are some mistakes here too. One owlet is gone from the last picture and also that other thingimajig that should be on the engine of the locomotive.
A reverse shot to show the shocked face of the owl mother and her children being scattered out a bit. Also liked the perspective of this one and it’s probaby the one picture with the least amount of continuity-mistakes of the whole bunch.
I’m being pretty negative here. I do not dislike these pictures, actually I’m pretty happy with them overall. I’m not very good at drawing different perspectives and enviroments, wich this task really challenged me with. The mistakes that I did had really nothing to do with that. They’re just sloppy blunders that I noticed too late.
I do hope that these things will not turn people off this little vignette as I put both time and effort into it and also had a really good time making it.
Karmosin 
I sadly never got to play your game at the launch thing but it looked fun from what I could gather.The stuff you made for it looked really great especially the animation for the thunder cloud, it had some really good use of squash and stretch.
The blog post itself is fine; you could have gone more step by step of your process than stating all the stuff you had missed in the pictures.
Now usually people tend to comment on these posts with tips and stuff that could be changed but since the project is done that seems unnecessary, well that and there is not much to comment on that you haven’t said yourself. Some of the perspectives are a bit skewed but it’s hardly noticeable. The uses of warm colors really do set a good tone and feel. I do like the last frame a lot if it were animated it would be a great freeze frame to end on the distraught face of the owl mother. Again I never got to play your game but I hope that this made it in because it really helps set the tone of it.
Good luck in future project and all that.
GillaGilla
Hello, Daniel!
Final comment coming up! I hope you’re as exiced as me.
I liked your story. I found it silly and cute and I liked that it was monochromatic. I think it really sold the idea of it being a flashback leading into the gameplay. It seems from your sketches like you had a pretty clear vision of how you wanted the whole thing to look.
I did play and enjoy the game, I clicked throught the story quite fast though and did not pay it much attention. I just enjoyed the pretty pictures and the silly little story. I won’t comment about the continuety errors and nitpick.
However, I will give you a more overarching critisism of your story, and I don’t know how relevant this is to your game. But the idea is, that a mother owl nests on the front of a locomotive, lays eggs, they hatch and then suddenly out of nowhere they get thrown off and spread out? When I look at the pictures and think about it it doesn’t really make sense. Why are they thrown about all of a sudden? And why did the mother owl lay her eggs where she did. Don’t owls, or birds in general nest in some more secluded areas. Was there no better spaces than right in front of the train conductors window?
Anyway, I think you’re really talented. About the one picture you felt was a little off, I do agree. The wings look a bit like they have gone limp and have been hung up on some invisible hooks. I think it’s because the ends of the wings are pointed straight down. If you would have changed their angle, I think it would have made it even more life like.
GillaGilla
Hej!
Eftersom jag var en av dem som skapade Trowl-conceptet är det väldigt kul att se storyn träda fram såhär. Det var en väldigt kul läsning och jag tycker om hur du beskriver varje enskild bild och vad du gillar/ogillar med dem.
Jag kommer inte ihåg om jag spelade ert spel nu på sista speltestningen då jag inte kommer ihåg denna story i spelet, kanske var så att den inte hann bli implementerad eller så missade jag det. Men jag gillar verkligen era färger och hur ert spel trädde fram. Det är väldigt likt så som vi hade Trowl i bakhuvudet!
Det är väldigt fina bilder du har gjort och jag gillar hur det är mycket svart runt omkring så att man ska förstå att det är som en liten tillbakablick av något slag. Att det är inprincip samma färg hela tiden gör att det blir en slags sepia-känsla som är riktigt snyggt. Det ärockså väldigt bra dynamik i bilderna och de har riktigt bra komposition. Något jag tänkte på var dock att i den första bilden trodde jag att tåget rörde på sig. Såg senare att den inte hade någon rök men antingen var det träden som gjorde någon synvilla eller så är det för att den är lite mitt i ingenstans, och då brukar man tro att ett tåg är påväg någonstans. Men utöver det var det riktigt snyggt!
Att solen byter plats var inte heller något jag tänkte på förrän du nämnde det i texten, kunde ju ha varit något tidshopp eller så mellan bilderna. 🙂
Annars vill jag bara säga sjukt bra jobbat med dina bilder och ert spel!
//Madeleine
GillaGilla