Brian Maricle | Look-Dev: Gobsmax City

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A walk-through of the collaborative look-dev process I went through with my artist, Emilie Vaccarini, for the first stage in the Gobsmax City level progression.

After she absorbed the reference materials I sent, we discus — After she absorbed the reference materials I sent, we discussed the art direction and this task in detail. This was her first sketch. My feedback in a nutshell: very good artwork, and it conformed to the reference, yet it was more blocky, busy, and leaning too much toward steampunk for Gobsmax.

Her next sketch was really, really good, but it had lost the — Her next sketch was really, really good, but it had lost the sweeping lines I wanted to lead the player's eye, and was still more blocky than I envisioned. I felt she was nervous and that it was affecting her. It was our first time working together, so I asked her to focus on the boss battle stage and come back to this later as a way to loosen her up. It worked better than I expected.

Her initial boss battle was more in line with what I wanted — Her initial boss battle was more in line with what I wanted for the first stage. Progress. There were a few elements I definitely wanted to carry into the next iteration of Gobsmax City, so I pointed those out and asked for one more sketch of the first stage.

The next iteration was very in line with what I was looking — The next iteration was very in line with what I was looking for, but needed just a little tweaking.

I took a turn at reworking the image: paint-over here and th — I took a turn at reworking the image: paint-over here and there, scaled some items, moved things around for composition, then adjusted the values to strengthen separation of foreground, midground, and background. I presented this to the team as an AD-approved draft and asked for their input. We got all positive feedback, and moved to the next phase, color.

Emilie's first pass on the color comp was really great.

I only wanted a couple of minor tweaks, then asked her to ta — I only wanted a couple of minor tweaks, then asked her to take a stab at the final draft.

She knocked it out of the park.

I made a few minor tweaks myself and it was all done.

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