DevLog #2: Concept Art Blitz!

Hi, there! It's Kieran, the other half of the development team, and I'm taking over the Dev Logs this week! Lexi will be back next time, and we'll just keep switching back and forth from now on.
This week has been cracking down on more concept art, and fleshing out the world our cute little tykes are going to be living in! You've probably seen Lexi's amazing character designs she's created in the dev log from last week. Well, it's my duty to better understand the architecture of the world they live in. Most of what I have to show are still rough sketches, but many many many hours of research has been put into these designs. The entirety of the game will take place inside this small shop, shown at an isometric view. When sketching the exterior, I looked to Art Nouveau architecture, with it's natural shapes. It feels more like naturally eroded stones that have been sitting under the ocean floor for some time. I also wanted to pull organic shapes from aquatic plants and incorporate them!

The second floor was much easier to find an overall shape for, but now I had to fill up both floors with stuff. We plan on incorporating the wardrobe as the menu for selecting a character's clothing, so it's going to be something I know I need to go back to and iron out.

Next up I needed to fill these two floors, so I popped on The Sims' soundtrack and got to work on what sort of shelving units we could use. I would like to make them repeating, but art nouveau is very... swirly. It's also going to be a challenge to place these in an isometric view, much more challenging than boxy shapes, but once I start attempting to translate some of these designs into that view I feel confident the answer will become clear.

There really isn't a reason that an underwater building would need a traditional rooftop, like, are they worried the clothes are going to get wet? So looking at Italian coastal towns, I noticed many had structured wooden braces over alleyways that vines had grown over and created a natural cover. It's heckin' gorgeous and it's an element I want to include in the final design of the store.

This is the most fun I've had doing any sort of environment design, and I'm excited to see how it evolves down the line! As we both better understand Fungus and Unity, we will better understand what we are capable of creating. I just need to... get on that.... I'm not good at programs. But, my homework load seems lighter than average this weekend, so I'll be able to pencil in some more time goofing off in Fungus!

-Kieran

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Hi everyone, Lexi here! I just wanted to pop in and add to the lovely art above! We have 5 working characters with their own unique styles and levels of difficulty. The game follows a little Dumbo octopus' as he begins his first day at a clothing store. 

When it comes to the characters we've decided to opt out of creating clothing choices, but rather use accessories since they can be worn by each of them. We'll provide the player with context clues to hint at what each critter will be looking to wear for their party/event.

I had a ton of fun drawing all of theses guys and look forward to seeing them come alive in our game! Currently they are not colored but we are working towards their individual palettes as well as the overall game palette. Here's a few  swatches that Kieran provided