You can try them against other people’s backgrounds as a rough guide, and then the next step is to create concepts for your own background. The next step is to do background tests, testing them against various backdrops to see which ultimately fits. I tried to find characters from a number of different visual styles and see which I preferred. Here’s a quick glimpse at some of my inspirations for the character and early working designs. Designing palm trees for the beach level, for instance, required looking at inspiration from various area’s, from photos of real life palm trees, to other retro games like Sonic CD. Before Puzzledorf, a lot of what I did was graphics for side-scrollers, so top-down was not something I was comfortable with.
I do this a lot in my games, especially when working with a new type of visual style I’m not familiar with. Be inspired, then create something that is your own.
The important thing to remember, however, is to use it as inspiration, not to simply copy. This is what the greats did, and it helps produce amazing work. It is important then for an artist or animator, when looking to design something visual, to use reference images to help design something unique but also worthwhile. He’d taken these designs and reference images deep into his subconscious, it had become part of his natural way of thinking, and so when someone asked him to create a character, his brain served them back up again to help create something original. He went to the board, started drawing, and out came a fully formed concept for a character, on the spot. Then one day someone asked him to draw a particular character. He spent weeks if not months doing this without drawing anything. In Roger Rabbits case, he stuck up lots of different cartoon characters from other works. He would have a board somewhere and stick up lots of photos of various characters or reference images for whatever he was working on. There’s a very interesting story in there about how he designs the visuals of a cartoon. The man who produced it is in fact the animator who designed Roger Rabbit. It’s absolutely fantastic and worth getting a hold of for anyone serious about animating.
#Make visuals great again series
Back when I was studying 2D animation, we watched videos from an interesting series called “ The Animator’s Survival Kit“. The visual look of Puzzledorf was quite fluid in the beginning. Before we dive in, some quick images of the final look. I want to start with a background on how I conceptualized the visual style and the process behind it.
This article discusses the visual design of Puzzledorf, looking at the visual style but also how the graphics tie in to game design to enhance the users experience, including subjects such as how the visuals are used to communicate ideas with and engage the player and help teach through design.