Sunday, 6 January 2013

Here is the 3 Aliens piece so far, I added a catwalk in the upper section of the doorway to fill out the space above the large aliens head.
During my last session I voiced my annoyance with the guy in the bottom left of the picture and it was agreed to give him a more dynamic and alert substance to his pose as he looked a little static and not really responding to the scene unfolding in the doorway.
The image is not completely done yet as I still have a fair few areas to refine but I am happy with it so far.


Here I did some quick colour roughs of a type of tram station, that utilises high speed transports for shipping the prisoners to the different sectors of the prison.
Although I liked the concept It was pointed out it focused to much on the environment and did not show much of anything regarding the prisoners.

My second idea borrowed from the first by having the aliens being roughly shunted through the main entrance to the prison.
The main changes consisted of making the doorway a much more interesting shape and allowing for a grate number of vastly different shaped aliens to pass through its foreboding archways.
I completely dropped the idea of the trams at least for this image, to better focus the attention on the aliens and guards in the scene.
In the background you can see I brought back an idea I drew up previously of the shuttle that had dropped off the prisoners which is now blasting off back to the space stations in orbit.


After going over my designs again I am beginning to have second thoughts about the Protagonist alien I'm not satisfied with my current design for him.
My vision of this character is a mysterious and shady character who is helping the human protagonist for unknown reasons after aiding him through the complex after the corruption has taken most of the Prison.

Upon finally meeting the mysterious alien the human is shocked to find out he was being aided by prisoner who has somehow escaped from his prison and taken over the control room on Deck A4050.

I am yet undecided if this should be the VIP prisoner instead the main threat I had originally planned.
The threat could possibly be a largely unknown entity developed within the bowls of the prison by the Head Warden's personal scientists.
Somehow this VIP prisoner is connected to with Head Warden and the strange experiments being conducted in the bowls of the Prisons inner sanctums.

Monday, 10 December 2012




During The feedback session a valuable point was mentioned about the lack of humanity or expression present in my would be alien protagonist.
In my future studies I shall re work my current design to try and add a seance of personality that is readable and recognisable to a human audience. As well as concept the abilities this alien will posses, I wanted this character to exhibit something akin to telekinesis as well as other psychic esc abilities such as telepathy and perhaps some type of healing.

Most importantly these abilities are fuelled by a type of energy that is harnessed in all living things. The connection between the protagonists power and the universal energy is noticed by the Head Warden, who just so happens to be a half insane, sadistic, madman currently living out a life long obsession with the discovery and harnessing of said energy.  

Sunday, 18 November 2012


(Bottom)
 this image was some concept sketches for the main protagonist of the story a telepathic semi aquatic native of the planet the prison is situated. His species is heavily despised by the local humans due to a wave of xenophobia that has swept throughout the colonies and as such his race suffer greatly at the hands of the prison guards especially when those hands happen to belong to the head warden.

(Top)
I created a more refined image of the top right concept in the previous image as it fitted best with what I was looking for in my protagonist alien.
It was very important that out of all my aliens this guy has to vaguely resemble a human at least emotionally more than any other alien character but still remain quite alien at the same time. I found that by removing his mouth and focusing on his eyes and brow line I can still give this guy some powerful emotional expressions to guide the viewer visually through this guys story.
I will develop this guy further to breath some life and character into him and to also refine the design to enhance the visual interest as I feel he is looking a bit plain at the moment.


Here are some more designs for the Behemoth esk alien who is apart of the trio that is lead into the prison along with the protagonist. I have ideas for this guy bursting free of his restraints and causing a big riot and almost stepping on the main protagonist alien who barley escapes the slaughter but who's abilities during the skirmish don't go unnoticed.
Here are my first sketches of some strange creatures mainly based on sea animals and bacteria I like the guy on the left as I wanted one of my alien trio to represent aggression and looking very sharp and deadly so I think I will run with him for that purpose.
As for the other two I can see these perhaps being characters already present in the prison at the time the protagonist arrives at the prison and they are inmates he meets during his captivity.
After Discussing my ideas and alien concepts in the lecture it was pointed out that my designs looked kinda like they could be costumes worn by ordinary humans due to there anatomical structure being very similar to a human as opposed to an alien being.

I not only want to experiment with new body shapes but to consider the design aspects of these creatures and to make them visually more interesting and impactfull on the viewer. 

Sunday, 21 October 2012

This is a concept for the power generators located within the prison's surface building. I based there design on ww2 turbine generators. I plan to add colour and lighting affects to the turbine to complete the image, as for the colour? I plan on using red to visually through the viewer off and put them in an uneasy state of mind as red naturally signifies to us the threat of danger which will help the viewer/player realise that this base and the people within are not what they appear.

Some Ideas i came up with while on the bus The first upper most designs were basically the prison's exterior. I liked the left design as to me it resembles a ww2 pillbox which matches my theme for the project.

The second set of designs focus on the idea that the planet has largely been mechanized or mechaformed into a synthetic world much to the dismay of the indigenous aliens. The core of the planet has been converted into a type of reactor which receives bursts of energy from satellite orbiting in space that convert all sorts of space matter into energy. The highest ranked alien threats are also held here, there restrains are powered by the reactor core of the planet itself! The image on the right depicts a shuttle transporting Alpha level alien prisoners to the planet's core to be held in the maximum security holding chambers located within.

Here are my early attempts at city designs one from street level and the other a view of the city.
I created these a test for environment painting for which I still feel a bit awkward, I feel I need to do more conceptual designs on the look and feel of the city and the prison's exterior as of right now I'm not quite satisfied.
After looking around the internet and talking with friends and family I liked the idea of the head warding offering strong resemblance to a German officer in affect I'm playing of stereo types to achieve a strong seance of association. I also wanted to give this guy a slight hint of mad scientist or doctor to suggest that this guy deals with experimentation and genetic research on the prisoners in order to endow himself with the mental capabilities of the alien species such as telepathy, pyrotechnics and other forms of physic powers. I really liked this idea as it draws a strong correlation with the occult research of the Nazi's in ww2 this in affect led to my decision to perhaps base my design and feel of the project on a ww2 theme injected with a Sci-Fi twist.
I took the rough sketches of the wardens body shapes and used it to flesh out some armour designs as I wanted the corporation that ran the prison to have dealings in other shady business and to be affectedly a private military force.
After discussing ideas with the group a number of problems were brought up about having an all alien cast might muddle the differentiation between the guards and the prisoners.
I also felt that this idea was not working and wanted to take it in a new direction by re designing the head warden as a human and fleshing out the story.