Project Denovo - Art Auditions

[Zerok]

[Central News Post]

Hello talented graphic designers of NG! I'm excited to tell you about this little project I've gotten myself wrapped up in. I've recently convinced my university to let me build a video game for a course in the winter semester, so I'll have to have at least a working alpha by April 2011.

I'd like to see everything built up from scratch and a lot of different talent tapped, so I've designed this collab so that all the major "departments" here at NG can take part in some way. I've created this thread along with 4 others in their respective forums in order to focus the discussion.

Check out the thread in the Collab Forum for the basic background information!

Artist Requirements

The game is Choose Your Own Adventure with some RPG elements thrown in. There are two major categories of static art pieces that this game needs:

1) Characters (NPCs)

2) Backdrops (Locations)

I'm going to allow the community to help decide what appears in the game. So if you've have a personal character that you've always drawn or something like that then we'll try to integrate them into the game, depending on the limitations discussed below.

Limitations and Quality

Participation: I'm leaving this open to casual audition (explained later) since the exact number of Characters and Backdrops hasn't been set in stone yet. Indeed, the response from the community may help shape the scope of the story! Maybe two artists design 50 Characters; maybe 25 people make 30 of them... who knows! I'd like at least 10 different NPCs.

Characters: The story will take place on Earth, in a generic Western society city, so the characters will have to be human and within the realistic range of style (so no crazy gladiators, for example).

Backdrops: Same as above.

Art Style: While I don't want to limit this too much, I would like to tone down the anime style. Not to say there can't be touches of it, I just don't envision this having that kind of influence.

Quality: In terms of how detailed the characters need to be, check out this CYOA game that was illustrated by The-Swain:

• 
  Thousand Dollar Soul by GregLoire

  Click to view.

  Type

  Game

  Rated

  Ages 13+

That's a good standard to aim for. (In case you're wondering, the game I'm designing will look a lot different than that one).

Art Direction

The notes below pertain to working on the actual project so you can get an idea of the expectations before you sign on to participate. The requirements for auditioning are much less in depth so be sure to read that before you go and create like 15 drawings taking 2 hours each.

Characters: The game will present characters so that they face the screen, and typically from the waist up. Major Characters/NPCs will hopefully have different poses and clothing for different situations, lesser roles would do well to have different facial expressions or minor poses. How flexible you make your character will depend pretty much on how much time you want to spend on it.

Backdrops: They can range from things like parks to malls to clubs or a bedroom. Any outdoor scenes will need to have lighting changes: Morning, Day, Dusk, Night. These will evolve with the story and vice versa, so if you've ever had an inkling to draw a certain scene suggest it (so long as it's something that could realistically be in a big city... no volcanoes that spit glue; but secret hi tech lab? Sure).

Specs

I'm not super worried about the DPI or the specific colours used, etc. The Characters should be created on a transparent background though. The dimensions for the backdrops will be determined later - right now we're at the concept stage. But for a ballpark guess I'd say I'm not going to go over 600x600.

AUDITIONING

If this is sounding like something you'd be interested in, here's what I'd like you to do.

Make a post in this thread with the following things:

1) A picture of your character (ONE pose) and/or one backdrop. They DO NOT have to be to the quality that will eventually be in the game, but I would like to get an idea of your competency as an artist (obviously I'll check out your Art Portal stuff too).

2) An indication of what sort of commitment you'd be interested in. E.g. if you think you'd probably be able to do 3-5 minor characters, one major one, just backdrops, etc. None of this will be set in stone of course, it's just to get an idea.

3) If your character has any sort of story that you've come up for them, include that so I can try to build it into the game's story. If it's entirely fantasy based and/or you think it won't fit into my theme, include it anyway! I'm not against making little tip-of-the-hat references to your Character's background if possible, and even though the story is grounded in reality an element of mystique never hurt anyone.

As this gets populated I'm hoping the folks from Writing will be able to take a look and start imagining stories for those Characters without one. Criteria for getting picked to participate will be based mainly on quality and enthusiasm.

Rev Share / Credit

I'd like to able to fully adopt the API for medals and rev share. I will certainly split up the income between people who make significant contributions. Since Art is huge in this, up to 50% of the rev share will be given to those who take part.

How that gets split up will depend entirely on how many people I recruit. I don't know what'll happen if 50 people create 50 single characters... but I'm hoping it'll look more like:

2-3 principal artists, handling many major NPCs and some backdrops.

~10 others who create maybe 1 or 2 minor NPCs and a backdrop here and there.

A bunch of others who design smaller elements, maybe a Character here and there.

In that hypothetical case I'd probably go with splitting 30% between the principals (10-15% each) and the remaining 20% between the other 10 people. The people who contribute a teensy bit will get mad props in the in game credits. I simply can't promise rev share for every soul who chips in otherwise it'll get too convoluted and the percentages will start getting negligible anyway.

Questions, Comments, Suggestions

Feel free to ask anything art related here! For general questions I'd prefer if you used the Collab Forum thread or the Central News Post.

I'm also going to try to come on AIM on Friday afternoons under the email [e-mail] (note the 'o' between 'project' and 'denovo').

PMing me also works!

Thank you in advance for your time and talent!

[Kashi]

You asked me to post this here, so I will.
All the other information you already know thanks to PM! ;)

[Zerok]

At 1/15/11 10:41 PM, Kakashi1930 wrote: You asked me to post this here, so I will.
All the other information you already know thanks to PM! ;)

Tremendous, this is a perfect example of a plain type character. Thank you :)

[test-object]

Just tell me if I need to simplify the shades or something. It depends on the style you are aiming for.

[Zerok]

At 1/21/11 03:49 PM, test-object wrote: Just tell me if I need to simplify the shades or something. It depends on the style you are aiming for.

Nice.

Using this piece as a base, I'd say I'd want the body of the character to be thicker & closer to real human proportions. I like the facial depth on the guy, and can see him in role of a either a shady mobster or barfly.

[MrT-Time]

Quick question : is there a deadline concerning the artists (meaning you may be requiring to end the contributions before April) ? I've talked to a friend who would be interested to make a few drawings but he must recover from his waist injury first.

[comicretard]

Mr.Fluffy Manz. A cat with a sense of justice.

[Zerok]

At 1/22/11 09:12 AM, MrT-Time wrote: Quick question : is there a deadline concerning the artists (meaning you may be requiring to end the contributions before April) ? I've talked to a friend who would be interested to make a few drawings but he must recover from his waist injury first.

I'd say end-of-March might be a good art deadline to shoot for.

But I've arranged it so that I don't need a 100% polished game by April, just a working alpha at minimum. So it can be pretty flexible.

[Pegasu]

I would liek to be a part of this a lot I liek to draw wacky caroon liek stuff most of the tiimes but Imma try pls check out my stuff(not my flash theyre old and fucking retarded) and if you hav any advice and or raquest on the charecter style(moar caroony less cartoony) pleasss feedback.

[Aigis]

Here is a character I designed for THIS PROJECT. So feel special?

[Zerok]

lucasv, Aigis, both of these are great.

I'll PM you later today if you want, give you feedback and show you where to find the current art direction if you want in.

Cheers!

[Morthagg]

Any use for an ironically horrible/horribly ironic hipster? He could be an undercover journalist in the art-scene or something..

This really sounds like something I'd like to do and be good at, so I'm interested. It could be that I'm busy for school, though, but even if that's the case I will probably find a few days where I can draw a couple of characters. They don't really take that long. I don't think I'm that good at backdrops, but I could try if I get guidelines.
The hipster wasn't exactly pondered over, he kind of popped out the pencil. I have three more characters waiting from the same sketch, if this one is liked..

[Zerok]

At 2/2/11 03:54 PM, Morthagg wrote: The hipster wasn't exactly pondered over, he kind of popped out the pencil. I have three more characters waiting from the same sketch, if this one is liked..

Oh wow, that is awesome! I kind of want to use exactly what you posted, haha. It's about the perfect quality for what I'm looking for. And what game would be complete without an ironic hipster? I'd also love to see what else you have in your bag of tricks :D

I'll send you a PM with a link to some of our art direction thus far.

[bonkanailios]

[IMG]http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c 226/zeebashiv/Griff.jpg[/IMG]

This is Griff. I can't really work on your project beyond maybe giving Griff feet, but I figured any chars you get would be appreciated.

[bonkanailios]

Whoops, first post, usually IMG tags work. Weird.
This is a link to it. I'll figure out how to attach images properly someday.

[Harukawa]

I would absolutely love to contribute to this, but I do not draw digitally, and it seems like that is the only way I could participate.

[Kashi]

At 2/26/11 09:17 PM, Harukawa wrote: I would absolutely love to contribute to this, but I do not draw digitally, and it seems like that is the only way I could participate.

Well, you probably could. Make sure to make the lines clean and crisp, and make sure to color it, whether digitally or with pencils/markers. It might be good enough! :P

[SoConfused]

At 2/26/11 09:17 PM, Harukawa wrote: I would absolutely love to contribute to this, but I do not draw digitally, and it seems like that is the only way I could participate.

If you are really determined to participate you could take a picture of one of your drawings, you could load the picture into gimp or inkscape (both free, google it), trace over your picture and then color it in. If you choose to go this route, I advise you to become good friends with the pen tool.