Unleashing the Imagination
Developing Stylized Mythological Creatures
Before we kick off I would like to say a big old thank you to all the people who read our last blog, we had some fantastic feedback, so please keep it coming, and I hope you enjoy reading through part two and taking a look at some of the great artwork the Spectarium team have been producing these last few months.
So… I love my job. No, really! I don’t care what anyone else says, working in the games industry and even more so having the privilege of being an art director, well, there’s nothing on Earth quite like it. Sure, there’s good days and bad days, like any job, but WE MAKE GAMES! How amazing is that? Plus, I count myself very lucky to have a great team to work alongside with.
There’s a load of great information out there on the web about the psychology of shape language, primitive emotive silhouettes, using colour to define your characters persona, etc., so i’m going to try and offer up a different slant and talk a little about the who and not so much on the how.
As any art director will tell you, being involved at the very start of a project, opposed to joining mid-way through development, and having the privilege of building a new team is a rare occurrence these days. You for sure head down a lot of dead ends with the team when working on a new project but surrounding yourself, as you do, with amazing people, stories and historic myths is such a great and unique learning experience and you pick up so much ambient knowledge along the way, you just never know what's going to come in handy. For example, did you know:
Thor dressed up as a blushing bride, and Loki was his bridesmaid.
The Nordic ship Naglfar, which carried the army of the dead, was made from fingernails.
If you squint a bit at the sky, clouds look a little like brains because they really are, there’s bits of giant brains floating up there, apparently.
See, told ya, this is my day job!
Many mythological stories are based around human or at least human-like characters. My personal perspective on this is that hominid characters offer more of a relatable connection to an audience, us. By personifying abstract concepts or natural phenomena, the most memorable fables use characters to communicate complex ideas and moral lessons in a way that resonates with the listener. These characters become vessels for human emotions, desires, and real world struggles, allowing audiences to see themselves reflected in the stories and identify with them on a personal level. All the best movies and TV shows have characters you can relate to, sympathise with or at least all jointly hate in one way or another. Who doesn't like a good scar faced antagonist and an equally evil cat sidekick? A narrator will engage audiences through storytelling, embodying symbolic meanings, jointly exploring and exploiting universal themes.
“What the heck has this all got to do with developing stylized mythological creatures?” I hear you ask. Well, those same rules apply, we're trying to accomplish (in a roundabout kind of way) the same thing.
In our case we wanted to embrace some of the fantastical but relatable heroes and creatures from Norse and other mythologies, not just cherry pick the most aesthetically pleasing or popular ones.
So forward winding a bit, through extensive (and fun) research we have a smashboard of characters and creatures established, tick! These creatures also have to align to our combat designers' needs, there’s little point in making fantastical creatures that look awesome (and they do look awesome), if they don’t serve a purpose and offer contrasting combat opportunities. Playing a game where you only have undead archers relentlessly firing arrows into your face is going to get pretty dull very quickly, and your head is going to end up looking like an oversized porcupine, which no one wants.The giant Nordic Jötunn had long been on our list as a firm favourite, they tick a lot of our boxes. Do they look awesome? Yep. Do they give us an interesting combat mechanic? Yep. Do you want to take on a huge tree wielding giant? Of course you do, what hero wouldn’t.
Above: Some early exploratory design sketches and ideas for various versions of the Jötunn before we committed on our final style
The two headed, three armed version of the Jötunn, despite being a tech artist's nightmare and an animator's dream, is still a firm favourite with the team but ultimately only one of them really fitted our brief.
Above: Shortlisted sketches and potential game camera perspective version
Including a bit of humour in certain characters was our aim.. Being a giant, we wanted an easy show of his strength, so what could be better than effortlessly ripping a indigenous tree from the ground and using it as a brute force club.
Above: Final concept art rendered from a game camera perspective
It was only later down the line when our in-house concept artist took these designs and realised them inside our world that the Jötunn felt more at home in our universe and his true character emerged. Pot belly, petulant faced and his mighty arrogance on full show.
All our characteristics have to be readable on a mobile device and their silhouettes instantly recognisable by our players so they can adjust their combat stance accordingly, so finding a diverse balance of sizes, shapes and movement types to keep our world interesting and feel less repetitive is key.
Above: Jötunn in-game 3d model and final texture
At some point we'll also share some material from the last step in character development, animation, and that moment when I was sent the Jotunn’s walk cycle for the very first time to review and I actually laughed out loud (and scared the bejesus out of my dog).
So we have our heavy in the bag and he’s worked out pretty well, but a game is not built on one enemy alone and the designers were already asking for more creatures to support our combat. We needed a grunt, a creature that could work well in a horde and give us melee and ranged combat. Luckily at this point we are Nordic creatures experts and it's not too difficult to whittle it down: the Draugr… Da-Dan-Dahhhh!
The Draugr is a ghost with a physical body, a corporeal ghost with similar physical abilities as they possessed in life. They refuse to follow the prescribed path of death, selfishly staying in the physical realm when they are supposed to move on. Apparently selfishness is an important attribute of a ghost… excluding Casper.
Above: Draugr design sketches before they were given the in-game treatment
This is perfect for us, we can arm the Draugr hordes with melee and ranged weaponry, they can share the same rig (the in-game skeleton that we use to animate them with) and there’s a great opportunity here for some great stylised animation.
Thus, our Nordic army of the dead were brought screaming to life, same rules apply here as to our Jötunn, low detail, easily recognisable silhouette but this time around we have the same basic creature with two very distinct combat mechanics.
Above Left: Melee Draugr concept art
Above Right: In game final 3d model and texture
Our undead friends' combat traits work in our favour here. When they were alive, our close combat warriors would have had some form of armour about their person, but we didn’t want to cover them head to toe in metal plating and lose their undead characteristics, so we used this sparingly, enough to tell a backstory but not so much as to look like you’re in combat with a generic warrior. I’m sure the rest of their rotting armour would have fallen from their corpses as they crawled from their graves.
We use the same lens for Draugr archers, the hood is a call back to their previous life, nimble and mobile, they would have been lightly armoured. Keeping the quiver on the back is a great way of telegraphing their intent, and we have enough uncluttered space to show off their nasty undead-ness. That's a word, right?
Above Left: Ranged Draugr concept art
Above Right: In game final 3d model and texture
Now, there’s always exceptions to any rule... The design team asked us for a small flying creature that can act in a swarm and have the potential to overwhelm the player. Great stuff, a flying creature gives us some diversity when it comes to combat and, from the art side, something radically different when it comes to animation.
Off we jolly well trot then, with our research goggles on to see what we can find! Ah… erm. While there’s plenty of big epic flying bonkers creatures, there’s really no timeless stories of mighty nordic warriors bravely fighting small flappy creatures, it's just not, well, heroic enough.
Our principal artist came up with the cracking idea that we could have tunnelling worms (pin that one for later, love it) but the design team had their hearts set on something flapping and flying so we turned away from the mythical world and focused our gaze to the real one.
After trying a few ideas, deformed birds, fat bloated bees, etc., an oversized bat seemed to fit the bill nicely and once our creature concept artist worked his magic, we had something that the art team and design team were both happy with, and we had our first combat triangle of creatures.
Above: Final concept art for the bat and elite version should we need it.
My point here is, don’t get comfortable with a process, there’s always those edge cases that test you, keep you on your toes and make your day that much more interesting.
So wrapping up this episode and something I recommend to anyone producing creatures that are going to inhabit the same space with in your world, regularly check them all in a jolly line up, it's a surefire way to see if things are drifting stylistically but more importantly for me: could these creatures exist in the same world?
If your line-up has a cute, wide eyed post-Impressionist Momonga squirrel sitting next to an art deco robot space mermaid then you’d have to question “What happened to these two to bring them together?” and if this is what you really do want, well then I’d ask the same question. Even if this is never explained to your audience, setting these rules helps you define your world and gives you helpful boundaries to work in. If it's a stylistically eclectic mess you're after then make sure your line up reflects that, it's those edge cases again, but then that's art for ya.
Above: Character line-up so far with our hero in the centre to ground them
I hope you enjoyed this one and it wasn’t too rambly for you (I’m like this in real life), let us know what you think and what you’d like to see next.
Martin Severn
Art Director
Spectarium Games
