VEMG200 - Haunted House Animated Still (WIN 2012)

GAD311 - Pirate Concepts, Round 4 (WIN 2011)

Navigation Captain - Portrait Sketch

Charisma Captain - Inked Portrait

Starting to experiment with various color choices for the Nav Captain. Far more subtle options this time around, as we all were pretty much in agreement that a blue/tan sort of color scheme made the most sense.

I originally designed him to have a blue coat and brown pants, but now that I'm looking at each option, I'm actually preferring the brown coat with the blue pants. However, this feels a bit like the focus is on the pants, since the other colors are pretty neutral overall, so I'm trying out a few collar options to try and draw some color up toward the face again. With the blues, I think orange works best for the tattoo color - it's not too jarring against his skin, but still stands out well as an accent color to the blues and browns.

Also, I originally drew him to have bracers instead of gloves, but with the sleeveless coat, I figured he might benefit from full gloves, so a few of the options reflect gloves vs. bracers.

I also tried out some black leathers instead of the brown, but overall, I feel the brown just flows better with the other colors since there's already quite a bit of brown in the design.

So far, I'm leaning toward the first at the top of this post: Brown coat, blue pants & collar, with brown leathers - I think the question now is... gloves vs. bracers?

 * Final decision for the Loyalty Captain *

Everyone unanimously voted on the red, and the tan sash and brown leathers were also agreed upon.

This meant the blonde hair option, and the orange was deemed to be a good accent overall for the leggings. A few other ideas were tossed around, such as green leggings - but I felt this might look a bit too peppermint striped with the red and white. We voted to change her pendant to a green stone instead of purple to give it that pop of color that's unique up near her face, and it looks like we're all set on this one!

GAD311 - Pirate Concepts, Round 3 (WIN 2012)

Various color options for the Loyalty Captain

Experimenting with reds vs. greens and a variety of possible accent colors

Personally, I'm leaning more toward the red. I feel the blonde hair works better than the red hair with the red coat rather than the green. Also, the brown leather instead of the black leather seems to add a warmness to the look. Continuing to experiment with the sash and legging colors - but I'm liking this last design the best.

Also, last week we felt the Nav Captain looked far more captain-like with the coat, however, we decided to try and keep the original bandana look instead of the captain hat. Initially, I agreed. I liked the idea of keeping some of the original, less-rigid look. But now that I see both designs put together - I actually prefer the one with the hat. I'll have to see how everyone else is feeling on this!

GAD311 - Pirate Concepts: Round 2 (WIN 2012)

Charisma Captain - Portrait

2nd Concept of Female Captain - Going for a more feminine look while still retaining spunkiness. Bringing in the feel of a dress without giving her an actual gown to trip over.

2nd Concept of Navigation Captain - Going for a more "Captain" look as opposed to the previous look that was deemed too "First Mate."

GAD405 - Adv 3D Animation (WIN 2012)

Low Poly & Smooth Preview

(original character)

Yay! Finally learned a few tricks to make organic humanoid modeling possible! I'm sure a seasoned modeling veteran would probably find all sorts of things wrong with it, but I don't think it's bad for a first shot! :) Kinda diggin' the power suit look of the low-poly.

GAD311 - Pirate Captain Concept Art (WIN 2012)

Charisma Captain - I wanted to go with a smarmy sort of "pretty-boy" who would be very clean cut and generally attractive. I went with more of a classic admiral / pirate captain look for him, tied his hair back, and gave him a quill since he will supposedly be a recruiting master and will need it for signing on all the extra crewmen!

Navigation Captain - Navigation on a ship brings to mind wind to me. Originally I toyed with the idea of giving him goggles and a scarf, but this looked a bit too Steampunk or Airship captain rather than the more classic sea pirate style we decided upon. I kept his pants loose to still have that "blowing in the wind look" and gave him a sleeveless shirt and clothing that reflected the ease of moving about through rigging unhindered.

Female Captain (she really needs a defined Captain's Perk...) - I wanted to go for someone who would be beautiful when you really stopped and looked at her, but wasn't the classic "Sexy Halloween Costume" pirate that so many female pirates seem to be. I tried to give her actual character in her look, instead of just making her a random half-dressed female. As the captain, she would need to be capable and charismatic and not just a pretty face. I decided to go with leggings under a modified sleeveless pirate jacket, rather than baggier pirate pants, or a skirt, as there's no way to climb about in rigging or move swiftly in any sort of multilayered gowns they had back in those days. I left her arms exposed, her shirt open a bit, and gave her jewelery and long hair to give her a feminine look, while keeping her overall design more on the spunky side.

Charisma Captain #2 (Defense Captain?) - As an alternate to the pretty-boy look, I figured maybe pirates would be drawn in to the sort of gung-ho charisma of a slightly crazy captain who's really been there and done it all. The kind that's so over the top, he somehow inspires people by sheer enthusiam alone.

- My thoughts:

* I really feel that giving the Female the perk of "attracts more recruits" is very reduntant when that is what the Charisma captain's feat already is. Yeah, okay... she's a girl, and guys might flock to her. We get it. But why not let the Charisma capt do his own thing and give her something else to do? How about, she inspires such loyalty amoung her loyal crew, that they fight extra hard on her behalf (you can tie this into the male need to protect the damsel, if that's really necessary). With that perk, she could boost the attack power of ships she commands - Sounds a heck of a lot more useful than stealing Mr. Charisma's thunder.

* The Nav Captain might look a bit too "First Mate" and not captain-like enough. Some revisions are probably in order.

* All in all, I think the pretty-boy look might be better for the Charisma captain. I like the idea of the little guy being the Defense Captain's look if we decide to add him into the game later. He seems to be built like a cannon ball.

GAD311 - Prototyping Journal (WIN 2012)

Trying to decide what sort of style the characters in the game are going to have. I'm leaning toward a hybrid of semi-realisitc human, but with a lot of stylized more cartoony elements to still give a lot of individuality to each captain.

If we decide we need to have full 3D models of the characters in-game, the more realistic style may be too much. We might want to go for something more simple - a super simple, sort of chibi type design might still give it character without making them too difficult to create within the time frame.

There was also talk of making all the characters different types of animals instead of humans. Would it be fun/cool or too cliche to have a more armored type animal for the Defense-heavy captain, or a speedy sleeker animal for the Speed-based captain? I think with animals you almost HAVE to use the stereotypes or it's just not going to feel right. Another good aspect might be that sometimes anthro-characters can show a lot of emotion with their ear, tail, facial expressions, however, then you get into needing to model more fur/hair and fur patterns. Personally, I'm still leaning toward the human style characters.

If we are picking three out of the five captains, I'm leaning toward the Charisma, Female, and Defense captains. The other two options seem a little more in-depth to me right now and might be better to introduce later in the game.

Some thoughts:

- Why are all the captains referred to by their Feat while the female captain is simply the "Female" - what is her actual trademark skill? There was talk of making her resistant toward magic-based attacks, but so far this hasn't been planned out. Perhaps she needs a more basic skill, and the magic resists can come later?

- Maybe we can merge a few captains if we aren't using them all? The female seems to have an incresed skill toward recruiting, but why is this not more the Charisma captain's feat, for example? Maybe make the female the Charisma captain, and give the Speed skills to the previously charismatic guy, or vice versa?

- If the Defense-based captain does not use small ships, does he automatically start out with something larger?

- If the Boarding-based captain has a higher "intimidation" to start with, and this is effected by his Reputation skill, what happens when we combine Rep with Exp? He shouldn't start out at a higher level than the other captains, obviously.

- I think each Captain needs a "Special Attack" - but also I feel that their starting "perks" need to better match up with the upgradable skills in-game.