Grids.

The 4 x 6 modular grid I was working with was proving difficult to set type to, so back to the drawing board. :)

My initial 4 x 6 grid... there was little options so far as box size was concerned, and the text boxes felt too squashed. :(

My new 5x 5 grid feels much more comfortable for headings and text! I find it works really well with the baseline grid also.

I thought this 7 x 11 grid was really interesting and flexible, perhaps something I will revisit in future. Who knows. :)

I experimented with several different grid options, but in the end the 5 x 5 modular with a 14 baseline grid to match the leading was the most successful for me. Now the annoying part is adjusting all the stuff I already typed up into the new grid format.. ;)

Map Progress

So my previous idea for the map ended up being way too time consuming haha, I found there was no appealing way I could quickly do it in that style... again, I would have loved to manually pixel a beautiful pixel art map but alas, time constraints !

I kinda got this far, then realized... when I put in details of other buildings and stuff it will look busy and crap, so I went back to my original idea of a simpler, pac-man ish map.

I felt this one was far simpler and better designed, it also fitted my grid far better and conveyed the information in a clear manner.

Moods

Because of the game concept and layout for my spreads, this allows me to potentially include a "mood" bubble of the protagonist as part of a game-like user interface, and I thought it might be fun to have him portray an appropriate mood for each location -- the mood one might feel while engaging in each activity.

Lineart.

Colored version.

Very roughly done heh.. I used the unique color palette for each location as well so that they would fit the composition/mood of the overall spread. Anyways it's just a fun feature and having it included is a symbol that gamers would be very familiar with as a lot of games include a portrait of your character in the user interface along with other relevant information like experience, level and so on.

Game Map Research

I decided to do a bit of research into game maps to get an idea of the style I will do mine in. I kinda wanted to do mine like a minecraft-esque isometric 'chunk' view... this is a style that I have seen in a lot of game maps, or at least very similar perspectives. :P

Source: http://www.matriaxweb.com

So basically a view looking down similar to the image above. But showing buildings, and the essential street info of course (possibly a few well known landmarks too as a point of reference)

While doing this in pixel art would be more true to a retro gaming style, due to time constraints I will just be whipping it up using solid cell shading. lol

I gathered an assortment of cool looking maps/images that I really feel convey the style I am going for...

This map was used in the game Super Mario World. :) It uses a colorful and illustrative style and shows a map with great diversity in location and mood.

Source: http://www.pixeltemple.com/

Perfect example of isometric view, though I certainly wont be able to include quite this level of detailing haha. All the details and different colors in the scene really get across the active feel of this urban artwork.

This is a really good example by the same artist, it shows how buildings might look in an isometric style. The map I am going to make will be a rather compact chunk but I was thinking I would add more detail to the spots where the locations are.

Source: http://legacy0.deviantart.com

This artist has recreated a town from well known game series Pokemon in an isometric view. This is sorta like the size I am going for, although the scale of the objects in it will be smaller due to the amount of streets and buildings covered in the area.

Source: http://www.pixeljoint.com

This one is ideally what I am aiming for. Although I doubt mine will match this in skill or accuracy. :) I really like how they added depth by including underground carparks, fossils in the soil and making it look literally cut away like a slice of cake.

Funnily enough, the isometric chunky style reminds me a lot of MC Eschers work in that it shows an unrealistic amount of information due to the use of perspective... But I digress. :)

Relativity by M.C. Escher

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org

Artwork 3

The final spread illustration. Pulsar Max is a much more quiet environment, and the color palette was alot more subdued. The card games are also a much more intimate and "logical" experience so I tried to convey this in the elements of the illustration. In the other spreads the protagonist is visible but I decided for this spread, YOU are the protagonist (to convey that intimacy..) so I added cards in the bottom right, with a thumb in the area where you might typically hold the page when you turn it. :) The cards feature patterns of some of the abstract adjective patterns and cropped drawings I did during the research process.

The background is simple and muted, ordered and logical. It matches the repetition of cards, comic books, shelving in the store. I drew the ultimate nerd boss as having multiple heads to emphasize the sheer brainpower he possesses in a literal but fun manner. ;)

Artwork 2

Here's another of my spread illustrations, this time for laser tag. Continuing with my portraying each location as if it were a video game theme, I decided to make the area infested with evil laser shooting spiders that lurk in the shadows...

The dark color scheme came out so well ! the background has a starburst like pattern which I came up with during my abstract pattern phase, I feel it really represents the concept of the area well. I also used quite a few design concepts here.. the use of warm colors to create hierarchy, the diagonals to lead your eye right down to the protagonist and also pattern/repetition to lead the eye around the page, and I used scale to get across the frantic feeling of the game, you feel very small when you are running around that dark maze not even knowing where your foes are hiding. ;)

Artwork 1

One of my completed artworks for the Arcade spread. Kinda a lot different than the concept piece I had posted earlier. I worked a lot on getting the fun mood of the area into the art work, the colors were not too tricky to work with despite being limited to the palette I hand picked from the research photos. There are several of the abstract patterns used in this (the circles in the background, the grid pattern on the arcade machine etc.) I realize creating a fictional 'story' like portrayal for each area kind of stretches the reality of the spots a fair bit, almost abstracting it away from what it's reality is. But isn't that the point of games? And that is what I was trying to convey in my brochure. The sort of alternate reality people experience when playing these games, where things are not as they seem but rather a whole different world entirely. Only gamers can fully appreciate this concept. :)