For the sword and shield project, the concepts I decided to go with were the Vulkan concepts that I drew. I knew from the offset I wanted to make a weapon and shield that could potentially be part of the ratchet and clank universe and as a way to celebrate in ways, the upcoming release of rift apart, the wrench and shield seemed to sit comfortably with me.
Although my 3D models and textures don’t quite capture the same fiery aspect of the concept art, This could be used as an effect for when the weapon is active, however I have designed a stationary weapon and shield and decided to present them in a different light.
In essence, I believe I have captured the shapes in my 3D models very accurately as opposed to my concept art. Using standard workflow of image plane’s in Maya, I was able to manipulate primitive shapes to my concept art. I then took it into Substance Painter and used smart materials to texture my models.
I was going to have both models together and doing a 3D rotation however, I have had some difficulty replicating the textures in Maya from Substance Painter and have tried numerous methods. I even tried to photoshop the wrench and shield onto a picture of Ratchet from Ratchet and Clank however, was not able to find any success in doing so. Nevertheless, I am happy overall with the outcomes of this project. I set myself a goal of not doing a traditional sword and shield and went for something a bit more complex and I’m happy about that.
To Evaluate my artwork, I have decided to go with the Drago set from my concept arts. The 4 questions I am mainly going to answer just from these concepts is.
Have I got a clear focal point or have multiple focal points?
Does the design make good use of dominant, sub dominant and subordinate shapes (Big, Medium and Small)?
Have I got clear colour choices? 2 Complimentary colours or a split complimentary colour scheme?
Do I make use of negative space?
In terms of the Drago Set, I tried to have one main focal point and that is the green shapes towards the middle of the objects. When it came to designing these concepts, I always had the idea of elemental damage or blocking in mind for these weapons and with this one, the matched elemental was a green. Imagine if in the video game, you can deal a poison or toxic damage or block incoming damage of the same type, that was the idea I was going for.
With the Shield the focal point is slap bang in the centre of the shield, whereas with the wrench, it is on the head of the object. I made these the dominant colour of green to draw the attention that way. The rest of the weapon is going to be made out of a metallic material so getting the colours to pop and stand out wasn’t an issue.
I believe that my concepts make good use of shapes. Firstly for the shield, it is a circular shape with an inner circle bevel. As I have used a symmetry function when drawing these concepts, the flow of the shapes sits nicely with one another. For the shield I tried to make good use of the space by adding some smaller details towards the centre.
The Wrench also makes good use of shapes and space. The weapon doesn’t look heavily weighted anywhere and does look as if it can offer the free flowing combat that it is designed to have. The handle has a large area to grip onto and features a bracket that would protect the knuckles. I suppose in terms of size, I could have made the actual weapon part a little bit bigger but at the moment, I think that it looks just fine.
In terms of colour choices, I have already mentioned the Green and metallic looks the concept art currently has, fact of the matter is, the materials I’m going to be using when it comes to 3D modelling these objects is going to be a metallic material followed by a neon Green transparent material. The colour doesn’t necessarily have to be green, I was also looking at Blue, Purple and Orange as anything will technically go with the metallic stylized look.
My concept art makes great use of negative space as I have used a black background and added some effects behind the objects to draw attention towards the weapon. Immediately my focus is turned towards the centre of the shield and the head of the wrench. For the shield I could have toned down the lens flares as they can be a little bit distracting.
For my Sword and Shield feedback, I teamed up with Owen Bates to get his input on my Sword and Shield concepts. At the time, I only had a sword available to show him and I shown him the Vulkan Wrench. This was his feedback.
“Your sword concept idea is great. You have used a variety of different colours and shading which makes it very appealing. I also love how unique it is because most people wil have just done a basic sword whereas you have taken advantage of that and made it into what seems to be a hammer/axe. It also shows that it can relate to maybe anger or fury due to the colours you have used such as yellow, orange, red etc. The fire effect is what makes it look even better because it shows to me that it looks like it has an ability to it where it can burn enemies. I like how you have edited it so that it goes over and under the handle like its wrapping it. Overall, I have nothing bad to say other than this may be a challenge to model in Maya but if you are very skilled at that then absolutely go for it because you will get a high grade for this”
– Owen Bates
you have made a concept art with your shields that match your swords. For example, your vulkan sword and shield both match the theme of fire and rage. The colours you have used are well used and the lighting is good. Your middle part of the shield is really nice and interesting to look at and since its in the middle, you will focus on that part first. Overall, the shields are really well designed and they match with your swords due to the colours and themes.
– Owen Bates
Owen then sent me a couple of his sword and shield designs as well and I critiqued.
Personally I’d make the handle a bit longer, maybe add some form of texture to it, when you are doing your presentation, I’d layer the effects behind the weapon itself as it takes focus away from the weapon. The lighting on the blade itself is pretty good, good use of shadows and highlights to indicate where the light is coming from. I’m not entirely sure whats going on with the blade, as it looks like a face on the blade? I’d say tidy up the presentation, make the handle a bit longer and add some texture to it as it doesn’t look comfy to wield.
For the second one, same about the presentation, put the fancy effects behind the weapon and try to use colours that match the weapon itself. obviously its upside down at the moment. The handle guards (things coming out from the handle) need to be a tiny bit thicker and the base of the handle needs to be a tad thinner. I like the texture you’ve used in this one but think about this when it comes to 3D as that may not be a viable option. I’d perhaps make the blade a bit longer. Other than that the rest is great!
I like the use of complex shapes in both of these, the top one is probably the better one, again with the presentation, make sure the fancy effects are completely behind the shield itself, when using a white outline, present on a darker contrast back ground and try and use the same main colour of the object for the effects aswell! With textures like these it can be hard to tell the shape of the shield from the front and where the light is going to hit, it’d be interesting to see these in a game!
Shields are a defensive utility, they are used to block incoming attacks, I can’t say I know of many shields outside of Vikings and a couple of video games I have played but I have a few ideas that I can draw inspiration from.
Cabal Shield
Destiny 2 Cabal Shields are easily one of the best shields I’ve seen in any video game. The Shield itself is a diamond shape with a focal point in the center. What is so great about these shields is their ability to expand. Its an almost glass like material they use for the shield itself with metal surrounding each corner of the shield. If I was to design a shield like this, I would pair it with the Omniwrench.
Captain America
Probably the most iconic on this list, Captain America’s shield is instantly recognisable but when it comes down to it, it’s a very basic design. The shield itself is a circle and funnily enough, is more of a weapon than a shield. It features a star on the front and red and white circles surrounding the star, to represent America. The Shield also has grooves between each band of colour.
Hylian Shield
The Hylian Shield belongs in The Legend of Zelda series. The shield is a metallic material and features some tribal patterns towards the the top of the shield. The three triangles in the middle represent tri-force which is lore from the Legend of Zelda series and the red bird symbol represents the Hylian Knights who were the ones who would weild the shield. The shield is bolted together by three screws. I think something like this could be paired with Bills Sword or the Black Talon.
Forcefield from Star Wars The Phantom Menace
Phantom Menace is regarded as one of the worst star wars films in the franchise, I personally think they’re all a bit boring however, I am going to take some inspiration from the forcefields as seen in the scene above. Technically speaking this is a shield but I was thinking something more sci-fi like where the shield comes out of a device on the users wrist. The shield would be a metal bar with hollow circles on one side for the user to put their hand through, then like a light sabre, the shield would come out of the top and bottom.
Protego
This one is a bit ambitious. This is the Protego spell from the Harry Potter series. Protego would generate an invisible overshield to the caster. If I had a staff like weapon, I could design something that would accompany the staff to act as a shield such as this, it would be a spell, but a visible one.
For inspiration for the sword and shield project, I have already expressed being inspired by the Ratchet from Ratchet and Clank and also some of the swords in Destiny 2. I don’t want to go for a traditional style sword. I want to go for something quirky, something that would make my design stand out from the rest. As for a shield, I want it to be the same, something unique that nobody else would have done.
Here are 5 sword – like weapons I am planning on taking inspiration from.
The Omniwrench
The Omniwrench in the sense of a weapon is an absolute machine, not only is it useful for close up attacks, but it can also act as a boomerang and has earth shattering power. The wrench itself comes in multiple designs however, they tend to do feature the same characteristics. The handle features an enclosure on one side and is normally thicker towards the top. The Omniwrench also features a centre-piece, an extended neck as well as two prongs coming from the centre-piece. The centre-piece can extend beyond the centre-piece as well as beneath the centre-piece. The colours of the Omniwrench don’t tend to feature effects that change the game, however in terms of presentation, there is no reason why you couldn’t match synonymous elements with the colours, as an example, the blue Omniwrench has lightning coming from it, the Orange one could have flames around it.
Falling Guillotine
The Falling Guillotine is regarded as one of the best swords in Destiny 2, a fireteam of three with Godroll Falling Guillotines can take down bosses within the click of a finger. This sword isn’t just a DPS monster, but its also a work of art. At first glance, this sword looks top heavy which makes doing the damage feel right, the handle is long enough to have both hands wrapped around and features dot-like indents on either side. The material it uses looks like chrome before we come up to the blade itself. The edges of the blade are a metallic design and towards the centre, there is a neon light running through it, the light represents the Void damage type in the game, this is accompanied by a runic // aztec design. Finally towards the bottom centre of the blade features a a figure 8 with some kind of whirlpool texture.
Night Terror
The Night Terror is a weapon that just simply looks terrifying, as the name suggests. The overall design looks as if a gardener has taped together some of his most sharpest tools. The base of the weapon has tape wrapped around the handle which is then covered in small beads. The top of the blade is a small knife, making the weapon look like a hammer. With this weapon, its more the features of the design that make it look like the terror that it is, as opposed to the blade. This is a good example of detail.
Blades of Olympus
The Blades of Olympus are an instantly recognisable weapon to any fan of the God of War Series. The weapon is mainly gold with a white handle. The handle and blade intersect each other and the blade itself features a tapered hole in the centre of it. The handle has some domineering pointy parts that make the weapon look threatening. When the weapon is active, it harness’s a blue hue that burns through the blade.
Bills Sword
Bills Sword from the Quentin Tarantino classic Kill Bill is one of the most iconic swords in film history. This sword is as simple as they come, although representing a traditional samurai sword look, the blade itself is the main feature. Towards the bottom of the blade is an imprint of the devil engraved into the blade. The Handle features a cloth like feel with diamonds going up the handle. The handle and blade are joined together by a disc connector with the blade coming from a gold base.
Magic Staff
Thinking outside of the box, the name of the project is Sword and Shield but what it really means is Weapon and Defense, an interesting concept of this would be a magical staff that can attack as well as defend. These staffs are all and feature different handle designs, different bases and different heads. This would be unique to say the least.
The next major project is the sword and shield project, we must design and produce a sword and a shield in both 2D and 3D so some 3D modelling will be required. For my idea, I am going to take the non-traditional approach to a sword and shield and take some inspiration from Ratchet and Clank.
In Ratchet and Clank, Ratchet uses a tool called the Omni-Wrench and it comes in many different variations which makes this even more of an interesting weapon choice, when I think of sword and shield, I think of the old traditional style swords, not of those used by Vikings and Knights from medievil times, but ones I’ve seen in various video games, Final Fantasy as an example and to me, its all too common to see and that is why I’m going for something that’s a bit more quirky.
Another good source of inspiration for Swords would be Destiny 2. The team over at Bungie introduced Swords a couple of years ago to the Destiny Franchise and they’ve made some pretty interesting concepts. As an example, something like the Falling Guillotine or Black Talon swords from the game, differ from each other so much and other games that may feature swords.
Falling Guillotine
Black Talon
The Lament
So for my designs I will be taking inspiration from these two games, starting with Ratchet and Clank and the Omni-Wrench. I’m going to aim to make 3-5 designs and see what I come up with. I also need to remember not to make it too complex because I would like to 3D model my chosen concept.
I completed my isometric level design using the Isometric Drawing Tool and then put some modular pieces together in photoshop to complete it, this is what I came up with. Of course, I had to make it fit the theme of brutalism and the deadly sins.
Following on from this, I made a black and white version so it was easier to draw over, and then I sent this to my iPad so I could add some style to it.
Once this was on my iPad, I reduced the opacity of it in my drawing app and started to draw over the top of it in sections, to create modular assets I could copy, paste and edit down the line, I started from left to right.
Module 1
I then copies this module and made the necessary changes to make it fit within my level design.
And then it was time to fill in the gaps, so once again I drew a modular piece that I could copy across, this piece featured two pillars and a pool of liquid at the bottom, the pillars are a key component for fitting the theme of the deadly sins. Looking back at the pillar I drew in a previous session.
The Pillars don’t seem as effective as I would have liked, maybe when the level is being played closer up, you might be able to see the finer details. I added a soft shadow on the closest wall to add some form of depth. With my basic sketch out of the way, it was time to start adding some colour.
I went for a base colour of blue, part of the reason for this was to give it that cold feeling that brutalism can deliver through pictures. In the next image, I filled in the holes with a red colour. The red colour is supposed to represent blood, and it filters into a river of water.
With the river of blood added, I turned my attention to some smaller details, I coloured in the pillars and added some shade to the alcoves in the walls. My original plan was to have faces on the floor of the bridge representing the deadly sins however, at this scale, and the size I have made the platform, it didn’t seem feasible to run with that idea, So I went with the idea below of having eyes and mouths on the outside of the bridge. My level is themed mainly around Greed and as the saying goes, your eyes are bigger than your belly.
Finally, it was time do some tidying up, I made the background black and added some candles in the alcoves, then I added another black layer on top, reduced the opacity and used a soft eraser tool to make it seem like the artefacts were emitting some kind of light. I made a title for presentation purposes and some red flairs to represent, the Souls of Greed.
And that is it, that is my level design, Overall, I have found the project quite frustrating but I think that is mainly down to lack of knowledge on the theme of Brutalism and The Deadly Sins, because whilst I understand what both are, it was hard to incorporate the Deadly Sins side into my overall design. I am fairly happy with the outcome but I feel with perhaps a better theme and better planning, I could have made a more complex level. For this I just wanted it to be almost like an end zone in a game, with the portal at the end taking you to a different level or world in the game.
I think when it comes to designing levels like this, or even in 3D, modular assets are the way forward. It is so easy to design pieces and put them together and even by randomising positions of light sources, the pieces can be made to look very different to a previous piece that it was copied from.
In todays session, we were learning about critiqing and giving feedback to each other, however it had to be some form of constructive criticism from an artful perspective. I paired with Owen Bates to do this. Owen submitted this piece of work to me:
And I fed this back:
Owen, you have a quality level design here, I like how the lighting is interacting with the level, I feel like you could add some more depth to the level by creating some shadows behind some of the walls because at the moment it almost looks like an infinite level. Also where the holes in the wall are just black, you could add some form of light source like a candle or something so the light isn’t coming from random places. So things to add for me would be some shadows behind walls to create some depth and fill in the black holes.
I submitted this blog post and this part level design to Owen and received this feedback:
Your blog post for the isometric is well written and how it talks about you are doing in each lesson. Your level design is looking good and one detail I like about the level is the fact you have some sort of crater or hole which shows it’s realism. I also like your colour shading on your level design as well as your own blog post. A little bit more shading to your level and it will look nice. So far, the level design is looking good as well as your blog post like with your seven deadly sins drawings. You could add more information to your blog post for each but overall your isometric level is looking good.
I have taken the feedback onboard and am currently in the process of making the changes to my level. I have completed the layout, I am now going to transfer the drawing to my iPad and draw over the top of it some of my ideas.
I drew some of my ideas out onto paper, albeit, not to great quality but they show what I am trying to achieve with this particular project. With every asset being modular, I started by creating an asset list, and then started to sketch out rough ideas. At a later date, I will be transferring them to digital and adding colour before attempting to make them into an isometric asset.
Having multiple variants of the walls, floors and pillars allows me to mix it up a little bit so everything doesn’t look the same and repeated, by far the easiest deadly sin to portray is greed. I am going to use some colours to incorporate some other deadly sins, as an example, green could represent envy.
Colour is something that we see everyday but might not appreciate its values or understand its meanings to the fullest. This is why colour theory was invented and needs to be discussed.
There are numerous ways to display colour theory, but the most common one is the colour wheel and how it is used. A colour wheel shows us millions of colours, although we might look at it and go red, green, blue, yellow, orange, purple, pink and so forth. Our mind recognizes these colours and as a result, when we try to think of a colour that we haven’t seen, you simply can’t.
Complementary Colours
Complementary Colours are two completely contrasting colours that actually accompany each other. As an example, Green is very different from purple, but we’ve seen it used in so many different ways, in particular film.
Suicide Squad or The Joker? These colours are very autonomous with these two films.
Monochromatic
Monochromatic is generally thought of as simple black and white, but it is so much more than that. I think of it as multiple shades of one colour. Shadow, Highlight and Base.
Analogous
Similar to my monochromatic explanation, Analogous gives us colours that surround the base colour, generally next to each other on a colour wheel. If we were to use this, one would need to be a dominant colour with the other two colours acting as accents.
Triadic
Triadic colours means three colours that are evenly spaced out from each other on the Colour Wheel. This generates a high contrasting colour palette. Similar to Anagolous, there should be one dominating colour with the other two as accents.
What do certain colours mean?
Colours don’t necessarily mean anything, but they can be perceived in many different ways. If we take the colour Red as an example, Red to me would mean something like Anger or Danger but to someone else, it might mean lust or love. Green is my favourite colour, to many it means Envy or Gross. Blue could be taken as Cold or Freedom because the Sky is infinite. So colours, don’t mean anything, it’s just how they are perceived and the context they are used in.
JORDAN | GLITCH ARCADE 