John Clark

8 Days

 

 

The hero and his buddy

A selection of characterisations of the hero and his buddy. I was keen to avoid straps on the player character in favour of loose fitting shirts and jackets. We just had to get them to wrinkle well…

 

Let’s get the shirt to move

Painted takes on how the player character could look in game if we got the cloth and the lighting moving well. Anything to avoid straps.

 

Bosses with attitude

A set of concepts that hunt for the character of a Russian boss in the game: creepy, vain and cruel.

 

The Militia

Given the quantity of characters we were considering making, I developed a set of  2d  silhouettes/body types that would form the starting point for designs and would allow for quick exploration of character. They were simple black shapes which I’d then paint into or body out. It was like a game. This is a set that fleshed out a militia.

 

Biker Gang

One of the gangs in the game was a set of biker/skater/extreme sport enthusiasts. A bit cool and a bit weird. These concepts explore that group

 

For the animators: poses and attitudes

A set of reference drawings for the animators that explored poses when our duo hit cover

 

Costumes and poses

During 8 days development it occurred to me that clothes were more important than core body shape in determining character. So, I painted many line ups, often of the same characters  in different clothes. As well as  establishing costume they were, in part, done to make the case for a more flexible character pipeline.

 

8 Days

More Information

8 Days was conceived as a follow up to the Getaway, building on its realistic crime vibe with an added dash of aspirational American bling.

I came to it after years of working on various Looney Tunes capers and  if the goal here was realism the broad challenge in terms of characters and story was not so different. The aim remained the same; to find memorable and distinctive shapes and attitudes in the characters to help the story along. The fact that they were to be realistic just added some layers of visual nuance.

I was the Character Director and was keen not to sacrifice 2d animation’s focus on shape to the routines of a realistic character pipeline and so made a lot of work that looked for distinctive silhouettes within otherwise realistic characters, and so make it easy for the player to navigate the world.

With that in mind I approached the concepts here in much the same way as I had in previous Toon projects, as games with line and shape and colour from which a character would ultimately emerge.  So,  they were  painted on the back of , or on top of, drawings and doodles rather than with reference to photos, which I have often found to be imaginatively limiting.