Today Katie’s working on another important area of the game. (are there any that aren’t? D:) All she has to go on are some really rough sketches that I sent her a while ago. What will happen?!?

After Katie’s pieces are done, I’ll be dropping them into the game to test them out. Too bad you don’t get to see that part yet. :O

Number 3! We continue our series of staring intently at the work of Katie De Sousa, as she paints her way through “Marian” – our indie game project starring a marionette.

Katie’s starting with some sketches by Ashley Dumonchelle, which were in turn based on a Unity level prototype by yours truly.

After Katie’s pieces are done, I’ll be dropping them into the game to test them out. Too bad you don’t get to see that part yet. :O

Today, work is being done on some art started by Ashley Dumonchelle (last night/early morning, yay sleep cycles) – for an area that is very important to the game. (and Marian herself)

I’m excited to see this area start to come together. (again! but more on that in a few weeks)

If this proves to be interesting, we may do it again.

… from way back in the day, when we were playing around with building little physics demos a modified version of the Aquaria engine. (and thinking of calling ourselves “Bit-Blot North”) After many trials and tribulations, the game is alive and evolving in Unity.

Usually when you start something, it’s all smiles and hope. It’s thinking “this will be the best ___ ever!” You’re not worried about how it’ll all come together exactly, you’re just excited and giddy – ready to jump in and give it everything you’ve got.

But life can be a dick, especially where creative motivations are concerned. Working on a big (i.e. multi-year) project can be very difficult at times. Even if you’re working on something you care very much about, and you want to make it the best thing it can be – some days you have to dig really deep into your soul to find the motivation to carry on. It’s not just sunshine and giggles and then a game pops out!

If you want to finish something that’s larger in scope, you have to muster up a great deal of tenacity on a regular basis. There are times when you’ll feel like throwing in the towel – or just throwing up. It’ll start to seem like taking that position as janitor at the local McDonald’s may not be such a bad idea after all…

But in the end, you love your baby too much to just give up. You find a way to ride out the bad times and discover that you still love your project – but in a whole new way. You break down the parts that don’t work, and rebuild them better than they were initially (and naively) planned to be.

Hopefully.

Next week I’d like to talk a bit about one of the “least fun” elements of commercial game development – BUSINESS.

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Can you guess which one was mine and which ones were Katies’?

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New Marian concept art by Katie de Sousa.

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Although we have a work in progress model of Marian up and running in the game already, we’ve decided to pursue refining her design early on.

Adam is adapting the model originally created by our animator Liem based on feedback from our concept artists Ashley and Katie. To help convey ideas quickly, Katie and Ashley often paint rough concepts overtop of the character model:

To keep things simple at this phase we’re ignoring Marian’s hair for now, hence her unintended tribute to Patrick Stewart.

What will the new model look like when she’s done? I’m excited to get there.

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New Marian concept art by the talented Baltimore-based illustrator Ashley Dumonchelle.

As you’ve probably noticed, this is an interior scene… but the interior of what?

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Here is some new concept art by Katie De Sousa. What could it be?

P.S. There’s a new interview that covers bridging the gap between Aquaria and Marian on GameSetWatch.

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