The title of a game is important. The image that accompanies it is even more important as it must convey the essence of the game in a single image. It is probably the most important image of the whole gaming experience that can define the success or failure of the project. For our game currently in development, Skool Days, we commissioned an art studio to design the cover of the game. Unicacabra is a studio based on the Canary Island of Fuerteventura, where they design art with personality but at the same time with classic old school lines.
In our case we wanted to make a cover or illustration that would transmit character and at the same time allow us to empathise with a possible character in the game who has to face a new challenge, a new adventure.
In the design, the first thing we asked ourselves was: what did we want to transmit? Here two words come into play that are key when approaching this question: Intentionality and Appealing.
Unicabra Studio was able to represent our idea and guide us through the process. We wanted to have the best artwork possible within our capabilities and time frame. The process of creating the image became a stable and constant flow of information, so we avoided misunderstandings and misunderstandings that could cause us to lose hours of work.
From sketch to delivery
When they received the initial indications they started to explore and imagine the best possible solution for what they wanted to express. At this stage they asked us thousands of questions that came up, so we were spared misunderstandings.
With ‘Skool Days’ we found ourselves with a pretty clear idea of what we were looking for, so the iterations were based more on the distribution of elements and how they would work in different dimensions.
When the final sketch was approved, it was time to structure the drawing better. We went from a free process to a more technical one. In this step we had to establish the perspective and composition of the image. At this point it was possible to work with a view to having to change things in the future, so keeping an order of layers and elements was crucial to save time and headaches in the future.
Although on a general level, the illustration must have a homogeneous quality, there are parts that must be given special attention, as they are the cornerstone of the image. In this cover all the attention will fall on the girl's face, and then the eye will go through the rest of the image. The girl's gaze is where we have had to deal with the most changes and corrections. But it is necessary in order to create something attractive to the viewer.
When the main elements were already delimited, we could move on to a blocking phase, which in this case was done with colour stain to speed up the process.
Here we can start to see the visual guide we were trying to do, and that is to get the first look to the girl's face, then to the boy and then to the school in the background. The girl's face is positioned exactly at the intersection of the top third and the right third of the image, which places her at a point of compositional interest, which are usually the first points you see in an image.
We continued to polish the image, giving details and correcting minor indications. At this point no more structural changes were made to the image, only minor tweaks that didn't interfere with the composition. We reached the stage of refining the details and lighting where we adjusted the tones and final details and finally it was time to give atmosphere to the scene. This helped to give depth to the image.
With the project completed we were given the artwork with clear nomenclature and as mentioned earlier in this article, with the ability for the documents to be easily editable. It was important to us that the image worked in different formats and the result is simply spectacular.
