Happy 73rd birthday to the most inspiring firebreather, rockstar, film composer, voice actor and chicken owner out there. Happy birthday to the one and only Danny Elfman!
This is the third and final part of Sawyer's character profile series! Here's Part 1 and Part 2, in case you missed them! Today we'll chat about her visual design and inspiration, featuring some newly revealed behind-the-scenes concept art created during the design process! We'll also talk about some upcoming project details.
Keep reading to see it!
Let us know which of our three other playable dino gals you want to see a profile on next! We have so much stuff to share... so many fictional dino facts. Hit us with an Ask, or send an email to [email protected]! You can also check out our Bluesky. We post some smaller stuff there, too.
Sawyer's Visual Design:
Sawyer was the first of the four dinosaur characters we designed! Here's some of our work-in-progress images used during that process. You can see how much of an inspiration real-world bird feather patterning was.
Her design process was also the most straightforward: We essentially nailed it in one, going with C1's pattern but with a snout color that we felt matched better.
Her amazing character design (and all the rest of her in-game art!) is done by strflr.tumblr.com!
What are all those redacted lines in the image? Don't worry about it! We can't go ahead and spoil everything about her, can we?
Some interesting tidbits about her design process:
We wanted to use hawk + deer patterns and colorations, to evoke "hunting" themes
Her feather crest and overall plumage is inspired by the ornate hawk-eagle (a bird), but also by ancient Greek / Roman soldiers with their iconic brush helmets. She's a commander, after all! We wanted to instill the idea of tactical and strategic intelligence.
In order to recreate her 3D version, we had to painstakingly re-paint her complex feather coloration onto her 3D model. It was done in stages and took nearly a whole day before it started looking good! I still remember the dread we felt after designing Prati, when thinking about this process...
We knew we were making an ensemble game, so we wanted to make sure each of the characters existed in different color "spaces". However, since Sawyer was designed first, we had only rough ideas on what color palettes the others might have. You can see them in the upper right. (They've since changed! That's the design process for you.)
That's all about Sawyer for now! What's next?
Which of the other three characters do you want to see a profile for next? Let us know!
We'll feature all four in time, but we're interested in hearing what order you all want.
What's next for the Game!?
We're still working on it!
Coming up soon, we want to share details on some huge enhancements for the demo. We've made big changes focused on dinosaur movement and character appeal. We've also been working to greatly expand the depth in the battle system beyond the very early version in the demo. These are changes we want to make for the full game anyway, so why not have them improve the demo first? That way you all can sink your teeth into 'em ASAP!
There's might even be a little bit of brand new content to play, if you're good! Be good! Eat your vegetables!
When we have more details, you (the person reading these!) will be the first to know. (Not counting all the other people we told before you.)
Thanks for reading!
With that, we'll close you out with a random collage of Sawyer! Many of these are new... We've almost (almost but not quite) run out of dinosaur pictures! We'll go scurry off to make more.
I can't stress this enough: as someone who regularly gets attacked by a bird the way the raptors attack the children in this scene, yes, this is actually terrifying
(I love my caique but I would never, ever, ever recommend caiques as pets to the vast majority of human beings)
The number of people who are afraid of even a 10lb bird (my peafowl, sure, but my turkeys.... Canada geese....), I feel like a 6ft tall predatory bird with teeth and grasping claws would uhhhh actually be terrifying to a lot of people. Especially if you add on the clear intelligence, and the ability to coordinate/cooperate to hunt in a pack. Cool to look at but the idea of facing them down in person? I'm NOT afraid of most birds, but I would NOT want to face down one of these. Adding to the aesthetic changes, the fact that their movements are a little more fluid and birdlike on screen in this, it makes it feel way more like I'm watching a real animal, which makes it harder to remember it's not as you're watching.
They really do bear a good, striking resemblance to modern day, bone-eating vultures. It’s like if Jim Henson Studios dabbled in horror beyond Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal and decided to create the deadliest, most fucked-up dodos you’ve ever seen.
This strange landscape, carved by scouring winds and vast ancient rivers, might appear empty of life. But here, in Asia, hidden in these narrow canyons, is a new family of Velociraptors. The young are just a few weeks old.
In the far south of the planet, on the islands of the Antarctic peninsula, winter brings months of freezing temperatures. Here too, being part of a family brings benefits. A thermal camera reveals a huddle of glowing bodies. Imperobator: hunters. Like most dinosaurs, they are warm-blooded, but to stay warm, they need a lot of food, so they must make a kill every few days if they can.
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