Category: Concept Art
After Lotus Point #003 – Randomly generated Space Leviathans.
The storyline of this game required there to be a series of very large, vaguely biomechanical space hulk environments for the player to explore. There are several ways to tackle this, and initially we considered simply hand building a few different examples- you encounter these less frequently in the game than the various floating island types.
Early designs for space hulk.
Obviously that method would be
A: not quite in the spirit of things here and
B: too easy.
Instead the decision was made to build a random-generator for these Space Leviathans (as they quickly became named) that would build interesting astrocadavers out of modular blocks of ship design pieces.
Some hastily-assembled space things. Made out of the same few parts.
This random generation system is now up and running (albeit in an early stage) and able to create some nice skeletal shipwrecks adrift in the ALP cosmos. Here is a video of the pod flying around some and only occasionally crashing…
Pseudofamiliarity
The interesting and frustrating thing about being the lead (by which I mean sole) artist on a project is the responsibility for creating lore-applicable imagery on the fly.
I’ve just been finishing up some artwork to be used for promotion, and it called for some kind of alien writing.
Yet it has to be recognisable *as* writing and not seem like a picture or something.
I like things that seem familiar yet aren’t- misleading in a playful way. So I sketched out some eldritch hieroglyphs until I liked what I was looking at. The following image was then used as a basis for a much larger element of the finished artwork.
Doesn’t look much I know, but it require thinking about the concepts from a different perspective.
Groundwork #3
The technology was used to visit strange worlds…. at first
A big part of creating a game (for me) is fleshing out back story and making a rich world, even if that may not be directly seen in the final product. I like to develop these aspects and create a detailed space for the project to inhabit.
Luke
Groundwork #2
I love creating stuff, and worlds for that stuff to inhabit. One of the great things about this kind of project is I get to do exactly that.
Here is some more work at building up the visual backstory:
Powerstation Incident
Creating dramatic scenes helps me to not only pique people’s interest, but also to test out scenarios that Phill and I have discussed as events that might happen in the course of the game, different storytelling perspectives and tones.
X ray incoming. Weapons hot.
This kind of urban attack scene is a typical trope, but not all is as it seems with our plans. Part of the fun is playing with what people typically expect of a monster attack scenario.
Brainbase launches
Also these creatures have their own backstory, which will remain secret for now- you will probably have to play the game to get to the bottom of what s going on with them!
Rumours in the wilds
Anyway that is enough for now.
Luke
Groundwork #1
Mass panic
So the long and short of it is we don’t want to give much away about our game… here is what we can tell you: your job will be to manage a force defending your nation from the attacks of enormous creatures.
Many of them.
I’ve been painting up concepts that develop what this world *might* look like. More to follow.
Luke
