Redesigning characters from the original pixel art
After completing the necessary research I needed to complete in order to understand the company Chucklefish, the game Starbound and the different characters that help to build up the game, it was time for me to move onto and start focusing on the first element of the studio given art test. The first task given to us for this art test was to interpret and redesign the original pixel art sprites which could be found within game. This basically means that what we need to do is look at the images of the pixel characters from starbound, study their appearance and clothing and then re draw what we think they would look like although, there is no specific style given. This means that we could make them really realistic looking or stick to the already running theme of pixel art, the choice is completely ours as it is our interpretation.
Baring this concept in mind I decided to start getting some design work. To get the ball rolling I started by looking over the images of the pixel characters that Chucklefish provided to us along with the brief. I think it is safer that I don't post them on my blog just in case they aren't meant to be seen by anyone but our class but in any case they are just examples of what the different sprites for each race look like in game. Being able to use these as a reference was really useful as it was able to give me a clear understanding of the different design elements that went into each race, as each one had it's own clothing style and set of appearance limitations. As well as doing this I also made sure that I had a look at the different weapons that were used by the characters in game in case I wanted to add and props to my redesigns. Some examples of the weapons found in Starbound can be seen in the image below.
After looking at some image research I felt confident enough to start working on my redesigns as I knew I had plenty of reference images to work from to help inspire my work. Although the brief didn't specify exactly how many re designs we were supposed to complete for this art test, for all we knew it could have been just the one, I decided that I wanted to do one final polish design for each race. This was to allow me to try and draw some different type of character designs to what I usually come up with and would also help my to try and work more quickly when it came to completing final pieces. This was the plan anyway. I also decided to set myself a little process to help my keep producing work at a good pace and this was to complete a drawing a day, that way my brain was working on a new concept each time around and I would be able to keep up my productivity.
I started off the design process by sketching out each race redesign in my sketchbook as this is the method I am most comfortable with when it comes to creating concept work and I wanted to make sure I was producing the best designs I could so this is the method I stuck with. Then from there on I
scanned in my work and imported it into Manga studio. This is the programmed I used to complete my line art as I was trying to keep it as neat as possible to make my work look crispy and tidy and I just didn't think that Photoshop would give a good enough effect for this. After completing the line art I looked through all of the image references of the pixel art races and make sure I was choosing a colour scheme that was similar to the ones used in the original art work. Once I had a selection of colours schemes liked I would send my colour variation images to other members of my class and ask their opinions of which ones they preferred instead of just picking one out myself on personal preference. Once the colour variations had been through the peer selection process I was able to work on the preferred image to create a final colour and shaded design.
Below are of all the different race designs I was able to complete. These include Avian, Hylotl, Florian, Novakid and Human. Unfortunately due to time constraints I was not able to complete designs for the Apex or Glitch which I am really disappointed with.
I am really pleased with how each of these turned out as they look neat and do look a little similar to the original Starbound promo art I have seen. Obviously I do prefer some of the designs over others and I feel like as each day I made progression with my work I started to lose motivation with some of my concepts which was a little disappointing but overall I don't think they are too bad.
The redesigns I completed
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