This week I am working with the main menu for the game, so pretty much I have only been sketching and drawing the whole week this far. Most of the time I have been drawing some different backgrounds, which have take more hours then I thought it should. This is because I am not the fastest artist but I am perfectionist and want everything should be as good as it can be. Also I think the main menu is important because it is the first thing the player will see on her screen. It is important for the player to get the right narrative feeling and I think the main menu also can give a certain expectation of what kind of quality the game have. The narrative feeling I am trying to give the player are that the environment (the mansion you are breaking into) are a bit spooky. Also that the mansion is huge and a touch of a steampunk theme.
The buttons in the menu going to match the HUD from in-game game-play, some sort of metal frame with cogwheel and maybe a pressure gauge. (check down bellow for some sketch drawing of the buttons)
The nr 1 are pretty basic but are surrounded by tesla coil electricity. This feature we maybe will use when the player holding the mouse over the button.
Nr 2 have some metal, cogwheels and pipe that smoke coming out from. This design I did because to get some feeling of steampunk.
Nr 3 design is not that far away from nr 2 but I added a pressure gauge to it and different metal pieces.
This nr 4 consists of a long tube which also exists in-game.
The background I made some sketches, the very first one was kinda small but it gave me an idea of how the final background should end up.
When I sketch I always use color red this is because later I can put down the opacity of that layer and add another layer on it and draw over it with black color. I do not trace it, I just draw over it and make it better.Sometimes I use different layers for different objects or details so I can simple see if the drawing works with it or not. After this when I am happy I merge the layers (not the sketch layer) and start painting with colors.
So for my background I got sketches and a kind of a clean lines drawing. But it is not colored yet.
This is the first sketch of background, to give a picture of how I imagine it to look for my coworkers.
This is how it looks like now.
Leave a comment with some critic or what you think and if there is anything you wondering.
See you next week!
/Kim