So I started a game company almost three years ago with two friends, its called Midnight Hub, and now we are days away from releasing our first game: "Lake Ridden" a mystery, puzzle, story game. Wooooooo! - (think Myst/Ethan Carter)
Its made in Unity, self published and we are five devs (2 artists 2 programmers and 1 Marketing/Producer)
Leading up to the launch I figured id post some gifs from the game, cuz this has been a painstaking, crazy, fun, exhausting and overall amazing journey and its so weird to see the product of 2+ years of hard work finished. I mean, Im gonna have to come in on Monday, NOT WORKING ON THE GAME?! Wtf! (Well there will probably be patches and shit, but still) - I need a friggin vacation.
So to start things off here is to gifs, and tomorrow il post another one ^^
Ok so this week I have been doing some face studies, faces are something I really wanna get better at, Its one of the things I have the hardest time painting and we humans are really good at spotting when something is of with a face so to me, that makes it the perfect place to grind pure painting skills. + you dont have to focus on design so nothing gets in the way of the paint grind. I have written a bit about the process for this image, for whomever might be interested, All n all it just feels like I needed to type it down to really let it sink in.
I suck at producing good portraits on demand reliably. I dont really judge myself as ok at painting something unless I can reliably paint something half decent (reliably being the key words "happy accidents" dont cut it for me).
What I want to get better at is brushwork, simplicity, and finding a good pipeline that works for me. I want to find a way to paint that is my kind of painting process, that lets me have fun when I paint, not feel angst at every brushstroke. I want to find a way to paint that lets me feel confident and in control of the painting. So when I start doing studies im not really trying to paint the exact photo, my lesson is more of a reflective, internal one, trying to figure out how to paint and how to make things the way I want them. Heres my process for this specific study, and its usually how I approach these things, its what works for me (Basically go at it until its the way I want it to be):
I started of with a photo study where I painted as I normaly do, very structured, line art that I was quite happy with, and a set up of "the right colors"
At the end of the session I was really with the final result, the anatomy was ok, but the colors was really horrible, the brushstrokes was to harsh and muddy. I spent a few days reflecting a bit, deciding to opt for a really saturated version where I was less strict about picking "the right" colors, and just went with what I felt like. My idea was to get a cool effect by painting over the saturated colors with more "sane" colors.
That failed epicly. I learnt a lot of cool shit for doing more abstract stuff, but It just didnt develop in the direction I wanted. Again I spent a few days reflecting, looking at other artists thinking, making a simple plan to try next time.
Third time I went for a simpler start, I felt like my brain had trouble trying to nail down the anatomy while also focusing on light and colors, so this time I started with a general sketch without any facial features and instead focused on getting some good colors on my skin.blob. I then used a redish tone to paint in the important details figuring that the sub surface scattering of the skin would influence the Ambient occlusion shadows of the face, (not exactly accurate but i decided to overdo the effect a bit for the sake of learning) This time around I left almost all of the face details out in favour of going more on feeling and gut, trying a "less is more" approach, I picked this idea up from looking at other peoples art (sometimes you need a good reminder to not overcomplicate shit). Overall im pleased, I learnt a lot and was able to nudge my stuff a bit more in the direction i want it to be. A tiny step closer to my personal goals.
For me, doing studies like this is a lot about self reflection, thinking about my approach and finding new strategies. I feel like you sometimes learn more from taking a break and letting your brain process the information then just blindly pushing onwards without a good understanding of what you are doing.
Today Lake Ridden is released, almost three years ago me and two friends started up a game studio here in Malmö, Sweden called Midnight Hub and started working on a first person, Mystery Puzzle game dubbed: Lake Ridden.
Today its finally out! Heres a tiny art dump from me and Anton. We did all the art of the game, every prop, texture, light, scene, level design, rigg, animation, GUI, concept art. CRAY CRAY that its finally out!
Lake Ridden is a Indie Mystery puzzle game similar to Myst and Gone Home in tone. During the project I served as the Art Director as well as one of two 3D/2D artists on the project. The game runs on Unity and was produced over two and half years.
Heres some of the Concept Art and ingame art I helped produce. The ingame scenes are in many cases a collaboration with Anton Sander.
Went back to some old paintings today and re-painted them a bit. Really good practice actually, Finding and fixing your own mistakes and giving yourself critique. + It allows you to see how your workflow has changed, how much you have learned and they are a good base for trying things out rapidly.
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Its made in Unity, self published and we are five devs (2 artists 2 programmers and 1 Marketing/Producer)
Leading up to the launch I figured id post some gifs from the game, cuz this has been a painstaking, crazy, fun, exhausting and overall amazing journey and its so weird to see the product of 2+ years of hard work finished. I mean, Im gonna have to come in on Monday, NOT WORKING ON THE GAME?! Wtf!
So to start things off here is to gifs, and tomorrow il post another one ^^
A mysterious cave from Lake Ridden!
At the end of the session I was really
Today Lake Ridden is released, almost three years ago me and two friends started up a game studio here in Malmö, Sweden called Midnight Hub and started working on a first person, Mystery Puzzle game dubbed: Lake Ridden.
Today its finally out! Heres a tiny art dump from me and Anton. We did all the art of the game, every prop, texture, light, scene, level design, rigg, animation, GUI, concept art. CRAY CRAY that its finally out!
The offical soundtrack! - https://patrikjarlestam.bandcamp.com/album/lake-ridden-official-soundtrack
Lake Ridden is a Indie Mystery puzzle game similar to Myst and Gone Home in tone. During the project I served as the Art Director as well as one of two 3D/2D artists on the project. The game runs on Unity and was produced over two and half years.
Heres some of the Concept Art and ingame art I helped produce. The ingame scenes are in many cases a collaboration with Anton Sander.
Went back to some old paintings today and re-painted them a bit. Really good practice actually, Finding and fixing your own mistakes and giving yourself critique. + It allows you to see how your workflow has changed, how much you have learned and they are a good base for trying things out rapidly.
Heres some of my old faves with some new stuff:
