Game Artwork
On this page you will find art related to games:
Character Design & Worldbuilding
Creature Design
Environments & Concept Art
UI
Character designs & worldbuilding
Character designing is my favorite thing to do when it comes to art. It's important to make your character look recognisable and original by using their colour pallet, sillhouette, shape language, personality and more and I always try to keep this in mind when creating characters. Below are some character designs I have created over the years being fore game projects, design challenges and concepts based on inspiration I find.
Sunseeker: A worldbuilding/game Project
Aki - Protagonist
I always wanted to make my narrative driven adventure game, since there's so much room for creativity and imagination. For a long time I've had an idea about creating a fantasy exploration game set in a world based on stories & myhtology from cultures around the world. This is my game, Sunseeker.
Here you find the main character Aki, who must explore the world to complete her mission to restore the suns power. The game takes place in a world filled with mystical environments and cultural cities & towns. While exploring in the wild, Aki and her brother Tauke will encounter many strange large beasts and ancient spirits some of which will be hostile. Fight your way through giant crabs, corrupted monsters or possesed armor with the help of the different characters in the party, each with unique playstyles.
2021
2022
^ Cultural influence
Aki's first design, 2019
Concept art of an early game battle scene. Later on you can find a sheet with information about the crab enemy.
2022
Taoke
While creating characters I usually design them around a specific theme or concept, especially for Project Aki. The character here is Tauke, the protagonists younger brother, a young, shy and sickly boy and the opposite of the bright and energetic Aki. While Aki is themed around gold and dragons, he is themed around sea creatures and the ocean. His character is connected to nature, and he carries that over in the art and tattoo's he makes.
In game his abilities are based around this. Being more of a spellcaster than a fighter, he summons animals from the ink which help your other characters. This way the sibling's personality and story also affects their gameplay.
Taro
Gameplay example of freezing water
His clothes are based on the Ainu and Mongolian people
Other characters that they will come across through the story might come along with their travels. This character, Taro hails from a snowy mountain in the north where he lives alone in the wild. The local village hunts the spirits on the mountain, but he tries to protect them and keep a balance to nature. Because he spends most of his time alone, he barely talks but has a kind soul despite his intimidating appearance. I tried to show that through his design by combining wild and rough shapes, but with softer/rounded edges and a muted colour pallet. These elements impact the way he dresses but also the abilities used in gameplay.
When theres a large body of water, use this character with ice magic to freeze or for a short while, and run across.
Danika
This character is a Harpy, so I incorporated a lot of bird (specifically sparrow) elements in her design
Since she has (retractable) wings, she would be able to fly, but to balance it it should be more like gliding, or a double jump. Otherwise, you ould be able to go anywhere and skip parts of the world.
weapon of choice is a bow. In game you would be best to use her during situations where an enemy or object you have to hit is far away. In gameplay she has the ability to control the arrow in real time using her own feathers, meaning you're able to find solutions to problems in game that you wouldn't be able to normally. You would be extra vulnerable while controlling an arrow, but be able to .
Ying Xing is another character innSunseeker, who actually starts off as an enemy. Being an assassin from a hidden organisation, he's extremely fast and nimble and uses his flute to create weapons. He and Aki have similar goals but different methods, and will often clash. After progressing through the story, he eventually ends up reluctantly joining the party, becoming a playable character.
With his design I wanted to express the regality and elegance with a combination of south and east Asian inspiration. He cares about his appearance, wearing decorated clothes and having lucious hair. A big motif in his design is the Gingko leaf, a specific type of tree. He uses these leaves in combat, and the shape language is sprinkled throughout the design in his outfit, hair and details.
Examples of gameplay, 2022
Yinxing throws a gingko leaf at a target, wether that be an object or enemy and dashes to it instantly. The player can use his mobile techniques both in combat and exploration.
First weapon/ character sheet 2019
Action pose, 2021
Other Characters in Sunseeker
An aspect of character design I find important and have studied is shape language. The shape and silhouette of a character can tell a lot about what they are like. Not just in recognisability, but also in personality and even how the character would feel in gameplay. Some characters may have slow hits, but will hit like a truck. Others may have a lot of swift rapid attacks, but lower damage per attack.
Having varied body shapes and attributes helps the character stand out and makes them recognisable from eachother instead of everyone having the same conventional body. You should quickly be able to tell what that character's role will be, both in the story and gameplay.
Main party line-up
VFX concepts of main party
Gold dragon fire: Aki - Ink Manta: Tauke - Sword slashes through leaves: Yinxing - Feathered windstorm : Danika - Ice burst: Taro
Scarfy
A character sketch I made for a platformer like game. The alien creature uses their "scarf" to crab on to ledges, swing over ravines or attack enemies.
2022
The game takes place on a desert planet, after your spaceship crashed down by a mysterious force. Surrounded by sandy cliffs and mountains, you must explore the world and find a way to fix your ship. Old abandoned tech can be found hidden everywhere, which can be used to your advantage during gameplay, but can also lead to dangerous traps.
Thumbnailing
While thumbnailing I try to focus less on details and more on the larger shapes in the sillhouette. Afterward I add values to the sketches trying to find where contrast could be used to make a clear and cohesive design. Below are variations of a "crazed reseacher that wants control over time" for a theater project.
Designing a character within an IP
Below are fan characters for an existing game. Splatoon is a series made by Nintendo, where the characters are squid/octopus and human hybrids, and most things are ocean-themed. Music and bands are also a big part of the world Nintendo made, and many fans often make their own bands and characters, as did I.
Finding inspiration
Moonpath
Moonpath is a game idea I made where you play as a little traingular robot on a post apocalyptic earth. You are a robot called K-0 (zero) designed for helping humans, but you are the last of its line still running. You must find out a way to travel to the backside of the moon, where the rest of humanity supposedly is. Conveniantly, when the earth teared apart a path of rubble and old cities floatinf in zero gravity provide a path to the moon.
In Moonpath you must parkour from one rock to another floating in space. This means the gravity will also funtion differently in certain places, making it so you have to think about eavh jump; can you bounce off this wall, can you walk upside down here, etc.
K-0's "eye" will glow a different colour depending on the action it is performing. This makes it so the player can tell what theyre doing easily.
Boss design
This character was made for a design challenge where I had to create a boss and world design based on a specific word. The word I chose was bursting or cracking.
This boss is a mechanical emperor made from crystals and minerals.
Keyframe, start of boss fight
Keyframe, the emperor breaking open and revealing a final more wild form
Thumbnails
Thumbnails for the boss, based on the word 'Bursting".
Inspiration
This character was made for a design challenge where I had to make a character from an object on me. I had an eraser in the shape of an ear, which I used as basis for inspiration for this character. They are a bat living in a giant cave, and use their spectacular hearing to search for fallen objects by explorers. They enjoy collecting trinkets and other dropped items.
These characters are made for a worldbuilding class assignment. You can read more details about this story and world in the document, where the assignment was to create a world and confine it down to a short document.
When creating a character, I usually lay out a rough sketch of what the character will look like and how they will act. Underneath you can see an example of how I turn a sketch into a final product, starting with line art, then colouring and finally rendering.
Visual concept for a small rpg/visual novel game me and friends wanted to make for a school project.
These characters are based on Russian and Slavic fairytales for a group project; an interactive board game about Baba Yaga.
Creature design
Aki's fighting style. During powered up attacks, she'll summon the sun dragon spirit, doing extra damage specifically to certain enemies/terrain. The dragon is the god of her island, but the one in her attacks is not the real one, just an embodiment. Additionally, her tattoos and weapon will glow during these attacks, making it obvious to the player if it is active or not.
Protagonist of a more dark and gritty game, where you play as an assasin having to take down giants. I thought that maybe the world could actually be in greyscale, or at least have very desaturated colours. This gives the atmosphere of a broken or decaying world. Everything is dark and grey, but you, the player, have bright coloured special affects whenever you perform certain attacks or summoning spirits. This makes those colours pop and stand out, when they do appear.
The crab enemy from Sunseeker. Based on a coconut crab.
Environments and concepts
Aki and Taoke come from an island based mainly on Samoa and other Polynesian islands. Their boat is also inspired by their seacrafts, and would be usable in game to explore large bodies of water and sail from island to island trying to find their way back home. In their journey they come across many locations based on cultures and myhtology.
A house on Aki's island
To the left is a concept of the ingame map for Project Aki. Some landscapes are based on real world places with a fantasical twist.
Puzzle area in a top down 2D game. 2022
Props
UI
This is prototype made in Figma, where the assignment was to create a class and skill selection system. I chose a theme based on celestial bodies and the associations with them, where each is a different class. Since this is a prototype, only the Earth route is currently available. I wanted to create a user interface that is thematically connected to the class they chose.
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