Project 3 - Art Bible

I guess when i first attempted an Art Bible for a project way back in my first Project of this Trimester i didn’t fully understand what needed to go into it and how helpful they could really be. Boy did that change in my current project Lock ‘n’ Loaf, quite early into the project we had nailed down an idea. This was aided by have a preset art style given to us in the brief, which was to make use of Voxel based art and the MagicaVoxel tool.

As soon as our food based idea was locked it i got hard to work on some models for our pitch. This was really helpful to give a visual representation of the game we were trying to make. However when i looked at the models i had made there was no consistency. This is where our art bible really started to shine. Designing a specific rule-set for how the models would look made the creation process smooth and simple. It gave a sense of polish and consistency to the work even though it was simple to make in voxels. Below you can see some of the rules i worked from.

Some of the most influential rules were to do with the eyes of the foods. The foods that are healthier we decided to give cute eyes, after playing around with different sizes we went with the 2 X 6 all black voxels except the top left voxel being white. I believed this conveyed cute eyes as the white voxel in the top left mimicked a light source shining towards the foods. The cute foods were also brighter colours than their unhealthier counterparts to make them stand out more on a pastel coloured background in the game. The Eyes for the Treats however were 3 X 3 all white voxels except the centre being black acting as the iris. These eyes were made wider as it makes them look as though they are popping out of the foods heads and bulging at the thought of eating unhealthier foods. Another interesting rule i worked off was that the foods could have mouths but only if they were naturally formed, like the avocado pit for example.

Following these specific rules made the modelling process extremely fast and focused meaning i was able to create all of the models for the game in the first week of the project giving us plenty of time to work on the other documentation and the game itself. Working from an art bible as a designer is incredibly helpful it gives you the opportunity to use your design skills to actually make the rules and then you're creative skills when implementing them. I am looking forward to working on more art bibles now that I've had the opportunity to work on this one.