next »

[wzl]

Hey people,

I am currently working on a shmup (see this devlog) and as i try to add more content and gameplay i need to add assets and models for new ships and surroundings.

If there just wasn't this problem with me being not exactly good at doing arts. I only have a basic understanding of making concepts/drawings and my modeling skills are adequate for lowpoly models at best.

My current undertaking is creating more ships for use as enemies. I soing ok'ish coming up with some basic ship shapes for use as placeholders, but it is something different when using a lot of placeholders instead of properly designed objects, as it helps the credibility of the whole project.

I understand the current workflow is concept art -> modeling -> texture -> awesome. Since i'm really not that good at drawing, i skip the first step and model ships from scratch without any guidelines. The shapes i come up with are not necessarily bad, but.. let's say purposeless.

See these for example:




This doesn't look too bad to me (not even talking about the texture). But if you look at it from a design perspective a lot of places don't make sense, in addition to not really looking all that awesome after all.

This is why i am looking into creating concept arts for ships prior to modeling them. I  tried it for a while and ended up with a bunch of terrible stuff.
I was trying a few techniques like dropping basic, single colored shapes to get some interesting results (i think it's called thumbnailing), and i was looking at references i found at google and deviant art and found some really great concepts, but they mostly left me hating my own works even more.  

Making a long story short:
I need some pointers at making concepts (mainly for space ship kind of things, but generally too), iterating on them, coming up with good shapes and designs.
Are there any methods i could do, like the thumbnailing i mentioned?
Some basic advise?

Finally, heres some concepts i made earlier so you know what kind of skill i have at drawing, and for public amusement  .



Thanks  

[rivon]

The concepts look great.
You should read something about the plane physics (if the shmup is Earth/ground based, in space the physics part is different). That will really give you a lot of hints. What are the essential parts on the plane. What it needs to be able to fly etc.

[wzl]

The concepts look great.

Thanks!
I think however they're very uninteresting and bland. If you'd scroll through a list of pictures, those wouldn't exactly capture your attention. Neither in design, nor in execution.

I took your advise to heart, and was thinking about what my ships should be made of. The integral parts required by both my game, and physics (to a degree). That, and also what kind of style i want to go, and how i can visualize that in the drawings.

Having a rock/metal theme in the game i was looking at motorbikes for inspiration, and i tried to implement the pistons, tubes and other mechanical things for the engine parts, so they're not hidden but exposed, and looking all nice and shiny and interesting.

After deciding that i started sketching some shapes and it just started to flow.

Around 4 hours later i had this piece done.



It could definately be improved in a lot of ways, but keeping in mind that this won't be the only artwork i need to do i will consider this finished.

What are your thoughts on this?
Do you have any suggestions what i could improve in the next piece?