(Work In Progress)
Senior Thesis: Forest of Crystals
Artist Statement
I’m influenced by the media I grew up consuming with a large majority of said media being from Japan with stuff like anime, manga, video games; Especially series such as Log Horizon or Nier which focuses greatly on the characters and world building. As such my art style is influenced by said Japanese media as well as aesthetic elements and themes. My works focus largely on characters and character illustrations, drawing the characters in an appealing and aesthetic fashion.
Forest of Crystals/Description:
There have been a surge of monsters appearing throughout the forest, some are mutated wildlife with crystals like structures protruding from their body while others are completely made up of those crystals. While exploring the different villages near the forest in hopes of figuring out the source of the creatures, you meet hunters who fend off said creatures as well as researchers who also hope to figure out the truth behind the crystals.
Some hunters will join you in your journey to figure out and remove the crystals for the safety of their village while others opt to go on their own journeys to figure out the problem.
Original Characters
Character reaction/expression drawings were made alongside the quarter view drawings. They were meant to show the characters personalities as well as a variety of expressions they would make.
Over winter, I wanted to modify the existing 2 characters already designed while also create a couple new characters to fill in the world. Sketches and designs were made in the sketchbook for each of the characters and different variations of the sizes of the characters were drawn. The new characters followed the ideas of Long, Painter, and Tengu and were designed with those themes in mind.
The project initially started in middle of 2024 with me drawing the characters of the imagined world. The characters were drawn following a general overarching theme with one of them being a bull and the other being a ram. Besides the characters, not much of the project was thought of and little of the world was developed.
Redraws
Chibi Versions & 3D Models
Smaller turnaround versions of all the characters were made for the purpose of being used as reference to make 3D models in Blender. I imagine the smaller versions of the characters to be the versions you play as when running around the world while the larger versions would appear during pop-up dialogues and cutscenes.
I imagined for the supposed game to be in lower poly style as I believed it would best create the intended atmosphere I wanted for the world. The turnarounds were brought into blender as reference as low-poly models of the characters were made.
After playing around in Blender, I figured out shadows smoothing allowing for the planes to blend in more and create illusion of rounder shapes.
World Building
Rough world layout planning was done using the software RPGMaker MZ to allow for easy designing of the world. The main focus of the story takes place within the forest while outside of the forest would be largely barren with villages and towns scattered throughout. The scale of the villages and towns are not accurate due to limitations within RPGMaker’s block based world creation.
Physical Items
Character stand-alone illustrations to be made into acrylic standee.
The Dragon girl was chosen as she was the first character I made at the very beginning of the project while the Painter I chose as they were my favorite. As such I thought it fitting that they were the ones to be made into standees.
Business cards were made inspired by one of the characters from the project. The goal was to create a variety of business card designs, each one being a different color and character from the project.