Achi news desk-
Next up in our first IGN broadcast of Eternal Strands, we dive into the unique and colorful art in the land of the Enclave. We sat down with art director Sebastien Primeau and lead character artist Stephanie Chafe to ask them all about it.
IGN: Let’s talk about Eternal Strands’ distinctive art style. What were some of the guiding principles behind the art direction?
They got: I think what was driving the art direction at the beginning of the project was finding the scale of the game, because we knew we were getting the huge 25 meter tall creatures and monsters that. So we really wanted the architectural elements of the game – the vegetation, the trees – to reflect that kind of scale.
So one of my inspirations came from an architect called Hugh Ferriss, and I was very impressed by his work, and it was very inspiring to me as well. So just the extent of his work. So he was a real influence for Metropolis, Gotham, so I was inspired by his work.
Chafe: I think one of the things we were interested in, just as artists and as creators, was to go for a color palette that can be very bright. And something that can really challenge us as artists as well, and go into a bit more of a painter’s work at hand, and really get our hands, into the clay, so to speak, and try to go for something bright and colorful .
IGN: That’s not the first time I’ve heard your team describe the art style as “painterly.” What does that mean?
They got: Painterly is just a word that can give so much room to different kinds of interpretation. I think Impressionist painters were where we started. So I really enjoy looking at a lot of painters, and they have different kinds of styles. But we wanted something fresh, colorful and unique.
And also, I remember when we started the project there was that word. “It’s going to be styled,” but style is just a word that gives so much room for different kinds of style. And since we’re a small team, we had to figure out a way to create those rough brush strokes. If it were painted very quickly by an artist, as Bob Ross would say, “Accident is normal.” So I think we want to embrace that. And because we’re all artists, it’s also hard, at some point, to disconnect from what you’re doing. It’s like, “Oh, maybe I can add more details over there.” But I was always- “Guys, oh, Steph, that’s enough. Let’s stop it right there. I think it looks cool.”
IGN: So, when you’re creating an asset for Eternal Strands, is someone actually painting something?
Chafe: I can talk more on the character side. For us, we do a lot of that hand painting, a lot of those hand strokes. And we try to embrace, not the mistakes, but the unrealistic part of it getting an extra splotch here and there.
We have brushes that we have made that can help us as artists get the texture we are looking for. It really is a texture that gives it. But very often it’s not just something that’s produced in a substance painter, or having these things that will layer these things for you, doing it quickly and procedurally. Sometimes we have those as assistants, but more often than not we go into painting.
IGN: Eternal Strands is a lot more colorful than many games today. Why was it important for the team to have lots of bright colours?
They got: You need to be careful, really, with colors. Because with too many colors you can create that kind of colored pizza.
We wanted to balance the color per level, because we are not making an open world game. I really wanted each level to have its own color palette identity. So we play a lot with the lights. The lighting is key for me. It is very important. You can have beautiful textures, props, characters, but if your lighting isn’t that great, it’s probably… So lighting is key. And especially with Unreal Five, we now have access to Lumen. It brought so much richness to the color, how the color balances with the whole level. It definitely changed the way we looked at the game.
We use the technology, but in a way to create something that feels like you’re looking at a painting. I think we have achieved that goal.
Chafe: I am very happy with it.
IGN: What were your inspirations from other games or other media when developing the art style?
They got: I have many. I start with graphic novels, European graphic novels. I really wanted to stay away from DC comics, Marvels comics, those kinds of classics.
Before I started Eternal Strand, I saw a video. It was one of the League of Legends short films for competition. It’s “RISE.” I don’t know if you remember that one, but it was made by Fortiche Studio who made Arcane, and I’m a huge fan of Arcane. When I saw that short film, it was way before Arcane was published, I was like, “oh gosh, this is freaking cool. This is so amazing. I wish I could work on a game that has that kind of look.”
Chafe: For me, when we started the project, one of the things I really wanted to challenge myself was concept and drawing and things like that and doing more, learning more about color as well, which is something really interesting to me and also . kicks my butt all the time because just color theory in general.
But with the [character] portraits specifically, I think, I mean, growing up I played a lot of games, a lot of JRPGs too. I played just seeing basic portraits in something like Golden Sun or eventually also Persona and of course Hades, which is a great game. I played way too much of that, including early access. But I really liked that part. Visual novels too, just that sort of thing. You can get emotion out of a 2D image too when it’s done well, especially if you have voices on top of it.
IGN: Were there any really influential pieces of concept art that acted as a guiding document that the team would refer to later on?
Chafe: I have a personal one: It’s really Maxime Desmettre stuff because it’s so saturated. Blue, blue, blue sky. Maxim Desmettre is our concept artist who works from Korea. When I joined the project, I saw that just as… and also saw that as a challenge, like ‘how are we going to get there?’
The one I’m thinking about hopefully we can find after, just in general with the work that always speaks to me so much is this blue, blue sky and the saturation of the grass. But also when it goes into its architecture and things like that, there’s a warmth to everything. The warmth to the stone that makes it look attractive and mysterious at the same time. And I think that really speaks volumes to him.
IGN: How did you go about designing Eternal Strand’s main character: Brynn?
They got: I think Mike also, when he introduced the character to me, he used Indiana Jones as an example. So brave, adventurer man, cool man. Also, when you look at Indiana Jones, he’s a cool guy. And we wanted to create that kind of coldness also out of our main character. And I remember it took a while. We did many repetitions.
Chafe: It was many iterations for sure. Well, I think I’ve done a bunch of sketches because that’s what’s going to be the player’s face, and also have her own personality in the story, and her history too. And the cloak was a really big one too. Which gives her one of her sets of powers and stuff, finding out that was actually one of the longest processes. It’s just a cloak, but at the same time, it makes sure that works with gameplay and all that stuff. But yeah, all of Brynn’s personality and tone really comes from a lot of good work by the narrative team. So, collaboration there mainly.
IGN: What’s the deal with Brynn’s mentor: Oria? How did you settle on a giant bird?
Chafe: Populating the cloister world was, “it’s free real estate.” You get to throw things at the wall and see what sticks. And, “Oh, that’s really cool. Oh, that’s nice.” At some point I had done a big sketch of big birds with a claymore, and Seb said, “That’s cool.” And then kind of run with it.
IGN: What’s the hardest part about the art style you’ve chosen for Eternal Strands?
They got: The hardest part was… A lot of people in the team have experience making games, so getting outside of that mold that we’ve been in.
For me, working on games that were more realistic in terms of look, I think it was very difficult to think differently, to change our mindset, especially that we knew we would be a small team, so we had to we did the art differently, found recipes, especially when we were talking about textures, for example. So get a good mix.
Chafe: One of the things is also because we’re all a bunch of artists, and each artist has their own style that they’re suddenly rooted in, and that’s what makes us all unique as artists too. But when you’re on a project, you have to pull together. You can’t kind of have one look different from the other. When you do something more realistic, you have your North Star, which is a huge load of directions that are real. And you can say “it has to look like that, as close to that as possible.”
When you have a style in mind and you’re developing at the same time, you look at it and you revise it and you have a feeling more than anything else.
You train each other with your styles as you kind of merge together in the end. And that’s how the style happened, as you mentioned, like finding easy recipes, by creating assets and seeing what comes out and, “Oh, that’s really cool. Okay, now we can use that as a kind of North Star.”
For more information on Eternal Strings, check out our preview of the Ark of the Forge boss battleor read our interview with the founders of Yellow Brick Games on going from AAA studios to their own indie shop, and for everything else stick to IGN.
Ad blocking test (Why?)
Source link
Related
