LITTLE LEGEND
Little Legend is a 2D action-adventure game with high-quality 2D Art, and the most personnal art piece I had the chance to create.
On this project, I was in charge of the Art direction, Environment design, Character and monster Animation, as well as World-building within the Unity engine.
To put it simply, I created nearly all visual elements visible on screen.
We presented the Demo of Little Legend at Gamescom 2023.
FROM CONCEPT TO ANIMATION
I took on the responsibility of developing the visual style of the characters, starting with concept arts all the way to the final render and animation.
For our main character, I conceived the initial design and collaborated closely with several art outsourcing company to translate my vision into a "game ready" version.
After numerous iterations and tests, we opted to transition from animating the character within Spine 2D to employing a more conventional "frame-by-frame" approach, tweaking and refining the sprites for weeks until we got to a satisfying result.
For Non Playing Characters, I made the choice to keep using Spine 2D to animate them because their animations didn’t require as much detailed work as the main character's.
However, for some specific cases I kept animating frame by frame, especially for transitions and the blending animations.
For instance, the Crab Boss was designed as pixel art, utilizing a limited color palette to ensure consistency across its iterations. However, the crystal on its back (which serves as its weak point and fractures with each hit) was painted using a more conventional method, allowing for gradients to indicate its health status during the battle.
This principle also applies to creatures like the yellow and pink parrot or the orange flying monsters; employing a limited palette for its design would have diminished the vibrancy of its colors.
— Sometimes, rules are overshadowed by the importance of the final result —
My creative process typically begins with concept art or photobashing.
I don't adhere to a specific method for sketching my ideas; instead, I generally opt for the direction that I believe will most efficiently lead to results.
At times, I bypass the sketching phase and experiment directly within the game engine. For instance, in the scene where our hero encounters the Goddess, desiring a dramatic effect, I began tinkering with particles, ultimately producing the clouds and the lightning.
Why wasting time right?
For certain environments, I assemble in-game assets and quickly compose them in Photoshop to obtain a preview of the final result.
TECHNICAL WORLD BUILDING
As Little Legend is a 2D open-world game, the player explores vast and intricate environments. To optimize the production process, I developed techniques to streamline development.
In the following examples, I outline my vision for crafting the game world and demonstrate how I place the diferent components at different distances to achieve a compelling parallax effect.
In no particular order, here are some artworks I enjoyed working on :)
