The first part was visualizing general ideas as we figured out our story. Based on the principles of the game (Fragball) R6 is based on and the world and feel I wanted to have in R6, I started threshing things out, comparing ideas with the synopsis, and trying to zero in on the design language and style I wanted. I decided eventually to go for a modern sports meets sci-fi soldier designs for the characters, and have something more surreal and aesthetic as far as the sets went (Steering clear of the usual industrial gray and brown colored gritty look). These are some of the early sketches:
After playing around within these guidelines (doing a lot of sketches, looking up references on the net, watching game trailers and cinematics, etc.), I ended up with the football derived design for the team players, the bulky and gritty design for the Preacher, and a host of sketches and ideas for the sets. Here are some of these:
We have a lot of left overs from this stage we still use to further develop the Fragball world.
The second part started after we had the synopsis and most of the storyboard done, and I needed to start fine tuning the designs to providing more accurate art for the 3D production to refer to.
Here I a) Figured out lighting and color schemes for the sets:
b) Collected photo references for materials, sports gear, anatomy etc.
c) Made detailed art for various parts of assets:
d) Generally made sure the next stages in the 3D production had all the resources they needed to be in sync with each other and with the artistic direction, which meant mainly collecting a lot of references from the net
(Some of them were also used for compositing and shot lighting reference later in the production).
We ended up starting the 3D production with a few dozen paintings and sketches and a few hundred reference images from the net.
In future posts I will show the artistic progress which lead to the final design for the team players.
There was also the art and graphic design for the whole frag-list (scoreboard) and timer shots, as well as the titles, but I'll keep that for another post, too.
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