Karina Alvares

Blog page for the process of my projects

[kalvares-conceptart]

Project Deliverables - environments and characters

I am shifting the focus of this project to concept art. For this reason I will remove the game development aspect of the project.

I want to create a variety of environment, character, prop and vehicle designs. I will also create some complimentary model sheets.

Environments:

Outer View of Dome: I want to decide on how the dome looks in situ which will also involve designing the surrounding environment. I will need to gather visual resources and decide on the level of destruction that surrounds the Dome. - 1 1920x1080 image

Dome Model Sheet: This will be a model sheet of how the Dome structure looks by itself, this is without the buildings inside as well. - 1 1920x1080 image

Inside the Dome, Various: I will create concept art for multiple scenes inside the Dome. I want one to be of the gate in and out of the Dome, One to be of the living area/ districts and one to be of the wealthy government buildings nearing the centre. - 3x 1920x1080 images

Optional: Outsider Settlement: I think a very valuable aspect to look at would be the people that live outside the vault. Designing their homes and exploring their way of life would create a more rich world - 1x 1920x1080

Characters:

Dean: I want to go into this with a better idea of who Dean will be, I want to do a complete redesign with a far more detailed costuming and better pose. I am going to create a detailed model sheet to go with the turnaround as well as splash art to characterise him and show some of his personality.- 3x 1920x1080 images

Agent: Every corrupt government needs a masked highly armed security task force. I will create a design for a faceless agent uniform that works to serve the association's aims pre and post disaster. I am only going to create a turnaround and model sheet.- 2x 1920x1080 images

[kalvares-conceptart]

Oxygen:Redux-Reasoning

I will outline an idea for a revisit to a concept I developed during my time at the BRIT School. I intend on updating the idea with more sophisticated art and design skills and a more developed point of view. I am motivated by current events, a strengthening of my political beliefs. I also want to work on my burnout and rebuild my confidence by looking at my past work which I can see clear room for improvement in, meaning this project will be deeply personal.

In my original project, I did research into narrative driven games of a similar nature, air pollution, viable domed structures as well as earthquakes. These aspects were significant to my final goal which was to create a short demo. In this revisit I am not going to create a demo, so I want to focus more closely on world building and informing my design with the narrative. For this reason, I want to look more into social and economic injustice in our current climate crisis and how the top 1% can afford to escape disasters, leaving humanity behind. Some pieces of media I can use are the movie Don't Look Up and the Fallout franchise. I also want to tackle intersectionality in systematic issues, i.e. how racism, transphobia, misogyny and ableism all link which each other and poverty to create a complex and covert system that keeps wealth flowing upwards whilst common people that benefit from those systems are none the wiser. I believe this is and idea that I was beginning to discover but I wasn't informed enough to realise at the time.

I will also expand my focus towards the groups of people that reside outside the Domes, exploring the possibility of multiple concurring levels of injustice; at the same time as the people of the Domes are being abandoned by the wealthy ruling class, generations of people have been locked out, left to suffocate. I will explore how they survived outside of the Domes.

The dialogue I wrote is fairly embarrassing. My dialogue for Dean as smug and self-centred came across as childish, as it was clear I did not have a clear enough understanding on how to write complex characters. There is also a clear self-insert character in Priya, which I absolutely intend on reconceptualising. The other NPCs also have amateur dialogue which is uncharacteristic of what should be grown adults. I may explore characters by writing their interactions in script format alongside sketches. This can allow me to form some developed ideas on the characters by fleshing them out in a form that has a much lower level of commitment that an actual game demo. I will be taking inspiration from Disco Elysium on how it beautifully writes sophisticated and simultaneously unlikeable characters.

The first step will be to examine my original workflow and pick out parts I felt were strong ideas with potential, as well as sections I can improve and develop and additionally any new concepts I want to explore. The outcome will be a clearer idea of what additional research I need to undertake, as well as what artwork I will be doing. I will then create a project plan. I do not currently have an idea of time frame. As always it is important I keep an open mind towards changing ideas and be prepared to kill my darlings in the case that an idea is not strong enough. In the event that this is found by any interested parties, I would love to hear anything from you, feedback and suggestions are much appreciated <3