"Bluebeard" Week 1 - William Marshall - Main Idea and Concepts

"Bluebeard" - William Marshall

Week 1 - The Idea, Concept and Design Phase

Intro

2D Digital Art PF2 is currently focused on an assignment - one where I have been asked to develop a 2D Pixel Game based around a common fairytale or fable. I settled on the fable of Bluebeard, due to it's originality and the fact that no one that I knew was doing the same concept, allowing my game to be unique. It will be produced as a 2D sidescroller, where the perspective will be face-on and focused on the main character - which will be Bluebeard's fleeing wife.

The Bluebeard fable can be found here:

http://childhoodreading.com/bluebeard/

Mood Boards & Idea Crafting

First steps when designing any sort of project (regardless of size, length, etc) will require mood boards and some clearly-defined rules for the intended product. In order to get a better understanding of what I was working with, I came up with two individual mood boards that focused on different areas to influence my ideas - characters and environments

Mood Board 1 - Environments

This mood board contains several examples of rooms that would stereotypically be found within a Mid-Medieval European Castle, which is where Bluebeard would have lived due to his background as a nobleman and the time period that the fable is set. I used this research due to the fact that I needed to define my colour palette and get an idea for the sort of backgrounds I would need to produce.

I really liked the colours that managed to shine through, here. There are some clear colour examples of yellow, orange, green and grey being used for the majority of these images. They will prove to be invaluable when I move into making some conceptual art for my level designs. Another thing I like is the sheer variety of environmental pieces that are presented here, giving me some good reference for asset design.

Mood Board 2 - Characters & Idea

My second mood board was responsible for giving me ideas for the two main characters in my game - Bluebeard and his wife. Bluebeard has been represented in many different styles over the years and his appearance can vary. This gives me a lot of leeway when I choose to create my own take on Bluebeard. Bluebeard's wives are simply noblewomen from the medieval period in which the tale was set. Makes creating my player rather simple.

To be honest, I much preferred (and look forward to) getting examples for Bluebeard and creating him. Due to the fact that there is a lot of creative freedom with how he can look, I don't feel constrained to any particular rules, other than the fact that he is male and has a signature blue beard. Creating designs for Bluebeard's wife will be harder due to the fact that there isn't a signature look for her and will need to be created from scratch, which is a pain, but also incredibly free.

Concept Sketches & Planning

After I had developed a few mood boards to get a better idea of what I was working with, it became clear that I would need to develop sketches for a few key topics, so that I had some idea of what to specifically develop when I was asked to create assets.

• Characters (Player, Enemy)
• Environments (Level Design, Location)
• Pickups/Collectibles
• User Interface & Menus

However, during this week I was only able to develop the two examples that are below, the rest will come in the next two weeks.

Characters 1 - Player Clothing

As I mentioned previously, my player character is going to be Bluebeard's Wife as she attempts to escape from her murderous husband. As such, I decided to sketch a few examples of what a Noblewoman would be wearing during this period. When I begin working on a more pixelated version at a later date, I will need to compress the dress down into the more stylised look that I will be going for.

It proved to be quite odd to draw these, as I've never really looked at women's clothing (due to my lack of interest/requirement to). However, I was quite proud of some of these as they did look quite distinctive and accurate to the time period. They were also very varied, rather than the same design being used over and over with a few subtle changes.

Environments 1 - Castle Planning

While there isn't much to say about how happy I am with these sketches due to them being incredibly rough, I will say that the dungeon walls (top middle) have inspired me the most with my potential level designs, as I could make my entire game an endless dungeon - like Bluebeard's wife has descended down and will eventually be cornered and defeated.

Plans For Next Week:

Now that I have developed my idea during this week, I will begin focusing on specifics. This list I intend to follow for the next few weeks:

• Main Menu Designs
• Character Designs (Bluebeard, Wife)
• Level Designs