PANLESSS

We have decided for the cut scenes in the game to have them as comic book/graphic novel pages/strips and thats what i have been working on! We have decided to do a practice cut scene to see if this will work out.  Here i have written the cut scene and done rough panels for it.  At a later time i may alter the script and panels.  The colours represent the person talking and the numbers represent the units of action (this is just how i work and keep things organized!)  I am using a book to help me with this, How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way by Stan Lee and Josh Buscema.  Its a really good and helpful book!  I am also looking at ImagineFX Presents Comic Art, again very helpful!

SCRIPT

the two are in their car, a red Austin Metro 1993, The Brit is driving and the Yank in the passengers seat.

Yank : 1 Man, I'm so tired. My head's killing me, 2 Can feel it rattle against my skull.  Eeeeurghhh....

Brit : 3 See, shoulda gone easier on the drinks last night. It's your own fault.

Yank : 4 Hey! I was doin' just fine last night!  Going onto my new record of how many pints i can drink in a         minute-

Brit : 5 Except you didn't.  You choked on your second pink and almost vomited everywhere.

Yank : 6 Well it's your fault! You were staring me out!

Brit : 7 I was just watching you drink! And fail miserably.

Yank : 8 What ever man! I woulda had that in the bag...

*pause* *looks at watch*

9 8am? -sigh- 10 Man why can't people die at 1pm on a Wednesday or something?  Not having to be called out at 8am on a Sunday morning.

Brit : 11 Heh, yeah but what can you do? It's work. 12 Can't exactly tell murderers"Hey! Kill in the middle of the day, not early in the morning or on a weekend!"

Yank : 13 Haha! "or on Mondays or Friday night! As i wanna be getting every whore that comes through my door~!"

Brit : 14 WHEYYY!! Haha!!

Yank : 15 Especially that Jessica from the bar ... what she wouldn't get, i'm tellin' ya!

Brit : 16 Haha! Well good luck with that!!  17 If you're gettuing every whore that comes through your door she wont want to touch you, you dirty bastard! I think we're here now.

*starts to pull in*

Yank : 18 Tellin' ya man, gunna have her!  Gunna do her so hard not only her mother but her grand mother will feel it!

*parks car*

Brit : 19 Hahaha!! Geeze man! Thats disgusting! You really are a dirty bastard! Come on, we have work to do! Haha!

Yank : 20 Haha, yeah yeah.  Murder on a sweet Sunday morning. Oh the joy ~

*they get out of the car and go over towards the crime scene*

Police : 21 Morning Detectives!

Both : 22 Morning!

Brit : 23 So what we got here exactly?

Police : 24 Homicide by the looks of things.  Female Victim,  24.1 been stabbed,  24.2 The body hasn't been touched  24.3 and the areas been sectioned off for you Detectives.

Yank : 25 Thanks, good work.  26 Now time for us to do our job! Collect clues -

Brit : 27 Find evidence -

Both : 28 And catch the killer!  29 AWWHHHH YEAHHH!!!

*high 5/bro fist*


ROUGH PANELS

NEATER PANELS

here are the panel frames that are much neater.  these maybe adjusted before i start drawing.  When i do the final, i want to do it by hand with ink and then colour it on Painter 12.  I want this comic scene to look like it was from the 80s with the classic paneling layout and style, but jazzed up a little bit to fit the comedy and quirkyness of the story and characters.

character scruff scruffs and my creative process.

Here are the fist concept ideas for the main characters.  This is really rough work and just my way of coming up with ideas when drawing.  I kept in mind for Portopia that the characters had certain definable characteristics and i wanted that for the characters, they are very individual with completely different features.



I started off by doing some quick thumbnail-like sketches of potential costumes by doing some research (look at previous post).  Thrn i quickly started conducting some quick head sketches to get a feel for the character and play around with shapes that could work for this character.  The American character is on the left and the British character is on the right.  I then have a go at a bigger version of their head, more detailed but unfinished and not very accurate.  You can see that i play round with the nose sizes and shapes,hair, facial hair etc.  I went against giving the American facial hair because i wanted him to look like a cool, sharp, charming and clean, as he is all about charming women.

Here i am figuring out the physicality and costumes of the two characters, making notes around the drawings.  Again it is unfinished but gives me a idea of what they will end up looking like, it also lets me play around and add to areas if i wanted to when i do a final mock up of their physicality and costumes.

The British character is tall, broad, flat ears, larger nose, bigger build/more muscle, more tone/definition, stooped shoulders.

The American character is smaller, leaner, bigger ears, better posture, wonkey nose, not a lot of tone/definition.

Here i am playing around with lighting and style.  This is a less rough but still unfinished drawing of the characters.

Here i am again playing around with style and facial expressions.  For me, it gives me a better idea of how a character would look if they were to act or react to something, if they are a very emotional person or uptight.

Here is the final costume and head mock ups of the two characters done with a fine liner pen and copic markers, touched up on Painter 12.  The two bottom final heads were unfinished when i inked them.  I have a tendency to never finish my pencil drawings.

Character Concepts & Costume Ideas - Tonal

Here i have done character concepts and costume ideas for our project! done with a 0.3 inking pen and copic markers touched up slightly on Painter 12.

lecture time! 3/10/12

We had a lecture about Crating Coherent Worlds looking at the difference of genres of games and genres in games, narrative theory and trans media narrative.  After, we watched a lecture on Ted Talks - J J Abrams: The Mystery Box.  J J Abrams was a writer of lost and talked us through the Mystery box and his creative process. It was a very interesting talk!  We made notes on how he presents and what he talks about.  Here are my notes on how he delivers his presentation:

• In the Introduction his first line is a joke
• Uses lots of hand gestures - animated
• He is always in the center of the space if he moves to the side to his laptop he always moves back to the middle
• Eye contact with the whole audience, not just straight ahead
• Has jokes including family jokes- relate-able to the audience, audience connects with speaker and makes them feel more at ease
• Not up-tight professional but not casual either, he is very open
• Physical items to show his points, provides a visual for the audience to link with

Here are my notes on the content of his presentation:

• There are lots of layers in films e.e Jaws - A man in the middle of a divorce, finding himself, self struggle with a dangerous shark thrown in the mix
• What you don't tell people keeps them interested

                                               | |

                        

              Mystery box! - give your audience a running mystery box until the end?

• mystery box -> open it -> new mystery box -> another mystery box -> open one box -> another                                       mystery box
• social interaction = relate-able  e.g. aliens invade a town -> how people deal with it and interact with eachother and their struggle

some design/concept research

Here is a mix of art style ideas and 80's clothing research!

The majority of the images ar from the British and American version of Life On Mars which is a tv cop drama set in the 80's.  Not only is it a great show but it is accurate in almost every way and is a great point of reference for visuals and game content.  We can also see both british and American fashion styles as the two shows would have adapted to their own country.

<- here is a police uniform from the 80s

Here are some art styles that i think could work! i thought about keeping with the graphic quality of Portopia, and since comics were big in the 80's that style could work too.  One of my favorite artists who was famous in the 80's is Frank Frazetta and i think that his art style would be visually very interesting in the game. 

Here are some influences and points on the concepts of the characters:

The facial influences for the American character is Zachary Quinto.  He has a chizzled face with defined features, especially his ears.

The American also wears a rolex watch, a Vintage Mens Rolex Submariner 5513 Stainless Automatic Watch from the late 1970's which was given to him as a gift.

The British characters facial influences were that of a minor actor called James Bland.  I love his jaw line and facial structure, very different from the British character.

Here are some facials that i looked at that i rejected or took parts of to potentially use in the final design.  The reason why i rejected these was because i felt that maybe their features weren't strong enough.  I really wanted the main characters to stand out and be almost heroic looking, like Starsky and Hutch, but not be too "pretty" looking or too rough; they need to maintain a level of "coolness" and attractiveness to the audience..  They are meant to look rough, tough and a a charmer.

Links to all images:

http://www.cynical-c.com/archives2/bloggraphics/miamivice_2.JPG

http://popdose.com/wp-content/uploads/lifeonmars-uk.jpg

http://cdn.pastemagazine.com/www/high_gravity/Life_On_Mars_ABC.jpg

http://blogs.pioneerlocal.com/entertainment/113785_1063_pre.jpg

http://citypolice.tripod.com/fig.71.JPG

http://buffycomics.hellmouthcentral.com/harley/images/news/bermejo_harley.jpg

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090517181910/afrosamurai/images/5/55/Afro_samurai.jpg

http://www.oocities.org/thecyberkat/X-Men2006withoutdeadpool.jpg

http://www.ghostofaflea.com/archives/Frank_Frazetta_From_Dusk_Til_Dawn_1996.jpg

http://cdn1.sciencefiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/GLJohn-259x300.jpg

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Vintage-Mens-Rolex-Submariner-5513-Stainless-Automatic-Watch-Late-1970s-/00/s/OTYwWDEyODA=/$T2eC16ZHJIYE9qUcOuT9BQib-Ue,N!~~60_57.JPG

http://theblackmancan.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/James-B.-306-web.jpg

http://multithousandaires.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/James-Bland.jpg

http://bajan.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/black-man-angry.jpg

http://ionenewsone.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/steve_harvey.jpg

http://myblacktravel.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Black-Man-In-Suit.jpg

http://beautyandtheblackwoman.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/black-male-model.jpg

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/11_01/powellL0411_468x825.jpg

http://img.izismile.com/img/img3/20100426/640/this_man_was_640_01.jpg

http://www.faceresearch.org/uploads/base/white_male

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ll0gq1sJT51qhgmxh.jpg

POINTS OF 80's RESEARCH

We have decided to have a comedy duo as the main characters.  Both are male but one is British the other is American.  We feel that this would spice things up a little bit in terms of narrative and story and we could incorporate American elements into a British environment. We are also setting the game in Manchester as besides from the obvious choice London, Manchester is just as interesting and has a high crime rate in the UK at that time.  We are still undecided about that year(s) to set the game in.  Here are some points of research we need to cover:

• UK Crime
• UK Police
• Ferenzics
• Music
• Art/Artists
• Cartoons
• Fads
• Styles
• Films
• Tv
• Pulp Fiction
• Foods
• Transport
• Public figures/celebrities
• Technology
• Education/knowledge
• Politics/government
• School/Work/Family life/values
• Look at how society looked at gays, marriage, race, religion etc.
• Look at main religion and % of religions in Britain
• Interiors and exteriors
• Part times for families, elders and youths
• Popular/Main jobs
• Look at what influenced Britain from around the world
• For our characters look at what they grew up on and into

For the game visually we need to look at different art styles; we could so something realistic or something cartoon-like.  We also need to look at comedy duo's for our characters; that will be the strongest part of our game, their characterization and how they interact/react with each other, their environment and the situations they are placed in.

The research into 1983 is so important for this game; we need to make it historically accurate to maximize the players experience and for the game to seem believable.  For older players who grew up in the 80's it's extremely important that for them they see and play the game and go "Yes that happened and it was like that.    People used to look and dress like that.  We used to watch and listen to this and that." because they actually lived in that time period and we have to do it justice.

Here are some links to various bits of research:

Top Hits in 83
80's cartoons

LETS GET STARTED

We have started our first project of year 2 BA4! Our task it to choose one of the following games and reinvent it; take the main aspects of the game and turn create a new game out of it:

Medal of Honor - it's episodic in series, it is historically accurate, realistic, was written by Stephen         Spielberg  it's cinematic.

The Portopia Serial Murder Case - has puzzles to solve and clues to find, graphic novel quality, narrative/story

FlOw - abstract art based, no need for narrative

Fatal Frame 2 : Crimson Butterfly - survival horror, quirky narrative, an item used as a focal point in the game

Moshi Monsters - cute/appealing, a mashing of current games such as pokemon, neopets, tamogotchi and pets society.

For this project we are working in groups and i am currently working with Ross, Ty and Kai who i haven't worked with before but i like the change! Over some discussion we decided to roughly explore all the games and see what we game we felt more excited/engaged in doing. We settled on doing The Portopia Serial Murder Case.  It was released in 1983, designed by Yuji Harii and published by Enix.  It is an investigtion adventure first person perspective/narrative game and was sophisticated for its time. We decided to watch or play the game and make notes on it.  I watched the game being played on YouTube by 9esferas1.  Here are the notes i made:

• Multiple choice in decision making
• block colours/pixleated quality
• Always the option to close the case even if the case hasnt been fully solved = gives power to the player, makes them decide when its over as opposed to being led in a certain direction
• Forced to search everywhere, can't see all the evidence/clues when playing
• Can go to the Police Station at any time to look at evidence, get new information/clues and to interrogate suspects/get eyewitness accounts 
• can arrest people for other felonies, not just the main case
• casual comedy
• there's a massive twist at the end
• defined characteristic of suspects
• decision-ception = have to make a decision within a decision

After some discussion over the notes we made about the game, we decided to do a British cop 80's comedy themed game where you would play as a comic duo, like Starsky and Hutch.  We feel that this idea is potentially avlot of fun from both a narrative and artistic point of view.  This idea is something different but it wont be totally alone in the market as there are games out there such as Proffesor Layton, LA Noir and Condemed each with their own theme and period setting.  There are also plenty of TV shows, books and films out that people are interested in.

We chose the 80's as it was a colourfull time period (in the good and bad way) and that time period has not been seen in current games, it is an area in the market that has yet to be exposed.  We chose to make it a comedy as not only in current games but with other groups in the project, people are doing serious games that are hard hitting and have to have some sort of emotional impact on the player.  But life is not all doom and gloom!  In fact, comedy is a lot harder to achieve than trauma.  It also makes our group stand out, shows we are thinking outside the box and show off our creativity.  I used to do A Level Drama and for our final piece we had to write our own script and perform it.  We thought that doing something serious and hard hitting would show our selfs off the best as it would involve a lot of emotion etc.  But our teacher said that that's what everyone does, that's all the examiners see so do something different, do a comedy!  And so we did and it was very well received!  And we hope that this work will also be well received  that we will stand out from everyone elses work!