2019-2020
In early 2019, I was asked by my long time friend, Chris Lincoln, to create the artwork for his upcoming Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) video game called Rollie. I agreed and immediately began interpreting his sprite artwork to real characters. I was tasked with creating the cover artwork & Layout, marketing materials, and booklet artwork & layout. The game has been well received within its niche, featuring some fun bouncy ball mechanics. Below are some concepts and final production artwork produced for the game. You can also find links to learn more about the game or buy it below.
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Step I: Concept Art
Prior to starting the full size rendering of all of the characters, I had to nail down our protagonist. I wanted to take a more cartoony approach to the character design to give the game a more fun feeling. Below are some sketches of the character design of Rollie, and below that are some concepts for the other woodland creatures. The snakes look very similar to the final product.
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Part II: Art Production
Once I honed in on the cartoony style I was aiming for, I got started applying it to all of the characters in the game. I chose to sketch everything with a red pencil, then ink it with a brush, and clean up my line work with white ink. It worked alright, but I would have used Procreate for everything if I had it during this stage of production.
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Part III: Polish
Now that I have completed the character ink, I brought them all into Adobe Photoshop where I colored and shaded them. I also used Procreate on the iPad to to generate a few more action shots.
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Part IV: Marketing Materials
The final piece to this project is the front facing marketing materials and graphic design. This includes the game cover artwork, the graphic design of the box, and finally the layout of the booklet. I started with producing the cover artwork, which had the goal of drawing the buyer in and encouraging them to pick up and look at the box. I sketched the cover artwork with pencil and paper, then transferred it to Photoshop where I finished up the painting.
