Background Blitz: ALIEN (Vote until november 4th)

[Creamy]

Theme: ALIEN


etc...

As discussed in the last background Blitz, the theme for this month is a tie-in to the last MAGS competition which you can still join since this month will see you finish your MAGS game (jeez, that's a lot of links).

Basically, what it means is that your background must feature something alien. Whether it be little green men, flying saucers or alienation more figuratively, there must be something of the extra-terrestrial in this month's entries.

Shall you decide to take part in the MAGS competition, you may use this background in your game too.

Deadline: October 27th (edited)

As usual the entries will be judged on:
- Concept: your background should tell us something about the kind of patrons that regularly visit the bar.
- Playability: does it have clear walkable areas, things to interact with, etc?
- Artistic Execution: what's the feeling of the place? Does the image convey the wanted atmosphere?

To your pencils!

[ildu]

Yessirree, will do !

[jfrisby]

Not sure if I'm allowed to submit, since this was completed between sept 7th-21st for AGC/MAGS, but this was my attempt at biological-alien-spaceship   (That's a partial draw over of the bottle feeder from S&M: Hit the Road)

[jwalt]

An entry. Blue cups and green men...




Image analysis:

Spoiler

Initially I was thinking something along the line of the Nighthawks painting, only with aliens.

Figured I'd need an alien looking expresso machine. Then concluded the basic shape of the expresso lent itself to reuse, with modifications, as my aliens. The theremin seemed to fit, and also, sort of, looks like a robot. That's the truth, and I'm sticking to it.

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Modeled and rendered in Anim8or.

[jwalt]

First an apology for sequential posting. Second, I'm working on something alien for the current MAGS. My submitted background hasn't quite made it into my MAGS game, but I'm playing around with using it as an animated background in the game:



Now, I need to come up with a way to actually use this background in my MAGS game, since it doesn't quite match with what I've got going on in that game.

[Misj']

I hate to ask...but could I get a small extension? - It would be great if I could get the weekend, because I've been quite busy (and on top of that, I'm not the fastest when drawing backgrounds). It's getting close, but having a few more days would really help.

[Creamy]

Nice entries.

@jfrisby : I've yet to play your game. Considering it was made for the MAGS competition that inspired this topic, I think we can accept it.

@jwalt : I was baffled when I first saw your picture, but after reading your illuminating analysis, it all makes sense. Expresso and theremin, yep 

@Misj' : weekend granted.

[Misj']

....

< writing the post >

[Misj']

So here's my entry.




For those interested...my design process:

Spoiler

For the Background Blitzes I like to come up with at least a rudimentary background-story in which the scene takes place. And for me that means I like to sketch out some characters first; just to get a feel of the world they inhabit.



More on the character-design can be found here:

Spoiler

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While unexpected at first, this lead to a bit of a Loony Tunes-esque world.

 So I decided to embrace that and at several background and started looking at several Loony Tunes shorts and backgrounds and began sketching out some ideas. The characters also turned the story into a bit of a Western (or maybe that's because I've been listening a lot to the music of Ennio Morricone recently).



Initially I wanted to draw a sheriff's office but eventually felt the spaceship interior was more fun (and also fitted the theme better).

Spoiler

As a colour-scheme I decided to base in on some of Flexa's Colour Locale as I felt they fit well with what I wanted to create:

[close]

[close]

Also...if anyone uses any of my stuff (including but not limited to the work in this post) to train or otherwise be used by or in (their or any) A.I. model(s), they owe me 52% of any and all of their current and future companies or companies they are directly or indirectly involved. Just so we're clear.

[Creamy]

Glad you could make it on time. A jolly curvy flying saucer.

It's time to vote!

Entries:

@jfrisby


@jwalt


 and @Misj'


As usual, please choose 1 entry for each of the following criteria:
-Concept
-Playability
-Artistic Execution

Votes are open until November 4th.

[jwalt]

I think Misj' gets my vote in all three categories. There certainly are a bunch of things to interact with. Nothing wrong with jfrisby's entry, I just liked the other one a bit more.

[jfrisby]

Misj', wow! That's crazy beautiful. I like how the three entries are from distinct eras of gaming

jwalt, I love these Gumby-esque aliens, I haven't played the game yet but will.

Misj' gets my votes. The playability feels like it'd be a lot of animation... but I can imagine it (and never dream of doing it myself ).

[ildu]

Concept: Misj'. It's kinda difficult not to pick Misj' for this, as he had so much concepting done as groundwork .
Playability: jfrisby. I like the atmosphere here and would definitely want to see what players would be up to. Looks classic!
Artistic Execution: Misj'. Really professional work, with loads of areas to explore and backstories to infer.

[Misj']

- Concept: JWalt. Basically I have no idea what I'm seeing and it's definitely alien and weird. But I think it absolutely works (also, I like the additional animation).
- Artistic Execution: JFrisby. While not exactly the same style, it does evoke the same emotion as LucasArt's the Dig. And while it's a little bit creepy for my personal taste, it works well at what it's trying to achieve.
- Playability: JFrisby. This was a hard one. I think they both work within a game. But in the end I just felt JFrisby's entry simply had a few more points of interaction over JWalt's piece.

[Creamy]

- Concept: jfrisby I'm not sure what I'm looking at, but this feels very alien and atmospheric.
- Artistic Execution: Misj' I didn't notice the spoiler with your design process last time. Mind blown! It feels like someone found a stash of unreleased Hanna Barbera material.
- Playability: jwalt. I've yet to play the Theremin in a point-and-click.



Thus ends the Alien Blitz.

Congratulations Misj', the next round is yours.

[ildu]

Congrats, Misj'! Great work . Looking forward to the next Blitz.

[Misj']

Thanks for the votes. It was fun drawing the piece (and the characters)