WRECKLESS RALLY Art Process | Part 1: Getting Started
Art Process Part 1: Getting Started
Frame of Reference & Image Dump
So we've settled on an idea. We're going to make a top-down racing game mixed with colour matching. My frame of reference is pretty clear from the start: 1990's Nitro (my dad and I both played this game a lot on our trusty then new Amiga 500s) and 2010's Bejeweled. These are the games I have most experienced with in each genre. At this stage I have to think to myself, is my frame of reference sufficient? Maybe I need to do some further research into games I have never played. The colour matching aspect is pretty clear, and the plan is to make this game look more like a racing game than like Bejeweled, so let's quickly collect an image dump of racing games. The Micro Machines series comes up in conversation with @daanvanyperen and @meatmachine a lot, so let's take that and Nitro into a Google image search and see what comes up, including toys and more modern games.
This image dump, or mood board if you will, is mostly there to get me in the right visual mind space. This all sounds a little ethereal, but I find it helps me a lot to get the aesthetic fluids going. Hmm, that still sounds weird. Let's move on!
Colour Scheme
We pretty quickly decide that a cute style will work well for the format. So small cars and bright colours are the way to go here. This then leads to a colour scheme to use. There are a bunch of 16, 32 and 64 colour schemes I have collected over the years, but this image from my dump draws me in the most:
I begin picking colours I like, avoiding tones that are too similar. This leads to the set marked 1. on the right side of the image, which I fine-tuned to the set marked 2, primarily by scrapping the more desaturated tones. This colour scheme is my starting point, though. They are more a guideline than a rule. I will add more as needed, and potentially alter some colours as I see fit along the way.
Next up: Art Process Part 2: Actor Sprites
