A new world
Early tentative steps into a new world.
Anyone who knows me or who has ever worked with me, will know that I'm like an excitable six year old at the best of times and I've been itching to share with the world what the Spectarium art team have secretly been working on for months now. “Write a blog” they said, “it's easy they said”, I can’t lie, ChatGPT was looking pretty attractive, but what we're working on right now is far too exciting to trust in an AI to, so let's crack on.
So the team have been furiously busying ourselves behind the scenes in recent months building a world class art team and producing visual targets for our new crossplatform IP in partnership with some truly inspirational visual development teams from around Europe, in fact it's so new we’re still sorting out an official name..
I’m desperately trying not to give away too many spoilers this early on and want to leave that to our great design teams, so without further ado, I'd like to reveal the first of many key images produced in conjunction with the incredible talent at Umeshu Lovers.
Nordic mythology has always been a rich source of inspiration for artists, writers, and filmmakers. From the gods and goddesses to mystic giants and hard nosed dwarves, the stories of Norse folklore have captivated audiences and gamers alike, I personally have spent far too many hours inside Assassin's Creed Valhalla when I probably should have been doing jobs around the house, that tap in the downstairs loo still drips… “I’ll just finish one more side quest, just one, honest”.
Our first image below, and one of many to come, showcases the first of our beautifully handcrafted painted worlds in our Nordic universe, elegantly torn apart by a cataclysmic disaster and revealing all manner of long hidden secrets within. Opening in our Nordic landscape our narrative see’s the hero exploring a wide range of distinctive other realms, some would say a smorgasbord of beautiful worlds, all with an underlying theme of epic destruction running through them.
Above: Nordic plateau, visual target and final lighting pass.
One of the key elements of our Nordic fantasy world is the sense of mystery that permeates just about everything. From the whispers of ancient spells to ancient abstract designs and intricate knot-work patterns that would weave their way into our ambient storytelling and lore.
It was surprisingly quite challenging producing these early concepts, we knew from initial story treatments that the world had been ripped apart and pockets of life still existed floating around inside this turmoil. At least twelve months would have passed before our hero would return to this world, but we didn’t want to fall down that post apocalyptic rabbit hole and create a dull lifeless grey world. Despite being torn apart, to quote Jeff Goldblum “Nature finds a way”, and potentially these lush pockets of life would contrast well against the rest of the destruction around you.
We were trying not to get too hung up with the technical details at this point (sorry tech team) and the “how on earth are we going to build this”, focusing on providing visuals for a game that we all wanted to play and was going to challenge us creatively as an art team.
Below: Nordic plateau sketches and colour rough. Above: zoomed out version showing more of the terrain but less detail.
In fact it became a bit of a mantra within the art team when reviewing concept art, if anyone said “Yep, I know how we’re going to build this, easy-peasy mate!” we’re not pushing ourselves enough and it was back to the virtual drawing boards. Which i’d also love to share with you all one day, some of the ideas on these huge virtual white boards are proper crazy and about the size of Nebraska!
Above: Boss fight final lighting pass. Below: Early sketches and layout ideas.
In contrast to our beautiful torn lush world we have some early visual development work for something a little more brutal and intimate. We join our hero inside a dilapidated and snow drifted temple. His weapon fully charged, and about to strike a devastating god like electrical blow to fire giant pulling itself from a volcanic sinkhole below.
Once again when you extract the content the subject matter here is also quite dark, we wanted to find a solution in which this doesn’t become a torch lit dark and dingy dungeon but naturally lit and, like the other images we’ve shared, it had to have the energy and richness of a hand painted world, a joy to explore but also not be so busy that it felt cluttered and noisy.
It's so easy to get wrapped up in your own cleverness and end up with a scene that feels more like a page out of a Where's Wally book (or Waldo if you’re state side). Keep it simple, Hollywood moonlight, volcanic up light and a nice cool bounce.
Translating these images into the 3D world and keeping the feeling that your seamlessly walking through a well crafted, and i’m going to say it again, hand painted and beautifully lit world (lighting has been the key element to nail down) has really stretched the 3D teams both artistically and creatively, I can’t wait to share some of our results a little further down the line with you all IF they let me lose in the blog space ever again.
I can’t share everything all at once or we’re not going to have anything left for later. “You can’t have your pudding, if you don’t eat your dinner” but I hope whether you're a fan of Norse mythology or just appreciate some beautiful artwork, our hand-painted art style captivates, even possibly inspires you and leaves you thirsty to check back in later for more.
So was it a good idea to get a dyslexic art director to write Spectariums first blog to the world…? I’ll let you all be the judge of that. Stay tuned for more updates, insights and just good old purdy pictures, we’ve got lots more to share if they let me.
Martin Severn
Art Director
Spectarium Games
