A FIRST FOR ME!
Grab a cuppa because this is a pretty long one, but it's also the first time my work has been animated and I haven't written a lengthy blog post about my process in a while so I thought that it was time for one!
A couple of weeks ago, the lovely guys over at Chrono.gg (I highly recommend checking them out if you like to play games) contacted me and asked if I'd be interested in working on some assets for their upcoming promotion 'Chronomicon'. The event revolved around unlocking a tome, which was the main element I was asked to create, along with a couple of other smaller assets.
So I started out by digitally sketching out some rough thumbnails (which is weird for me because I usually start everything traditionally but fancied a change), trying to completely vary each option so that there was a bigger chance that one of them would work or so that they would at least have plenty of different ideas to mix and match from. So some of them have teeth, some are pretty basic tomes with leather straps and a couple are made completely from bone or wood.
They really liked number 8, but wanted to try it with some creature/animal skulls before making a decision. So I refined the idea some more and drew up 3 more thumbnails all with a couple of variations, again just to give the client a little more to choose from! In the end they chose to go with number 2 mixed with the skulls from number 3.
The main element of the tome was the fact that each rune needed to be lit up individually every time a rune was unlocked, so you can see below what the tome looks like at the start, and then I've also included another image underneath to show how it looks when a couple of the runes are lit up. It wasn't very difficult to do at all but I think the end result works really well!
I was also asked if I would like to work on a couple of other smaller assets for the promotion, to which I obviously said yes! I thought this was a really cool idea from the the start so I was more than happy to be involved with as much as possible! The other assets I created consisted of a background and also two small clickable icons, a recipe book and a cauldron as seen below.
The background needed to be in keeping with the theme, but I also had to design it around the cauldron and recipe book icon. I knew that the recipe book was going to be placed in the top left corner, but the cauldron didn't really have a set place so there needed to be plenty of room for it, but I needed to make sure none of the background looked too bare depending on where the cauldron was placed. There were also some other assets to be added by the Chrono team on the right side which is why that looks so bare compared to the left side!
I always tell people that one of the absolute best parts of doing what I do is when everything comes together at the end, when you finally see your work out 'in the wild' or have that physical product in your hand. So I've also included some images below of the actual final product, including the animated version of the tome which the guys made, it might be simple but small things like this genuinely make me so happy!
Here's the background with my assets and the Chrono team's assets on top....
They also asked me to create an open version of the tome so that they had something relevant to use as a background when the tome was unlocked. It looks pretty basic on it's own, but once the deal is laid over the top I think it works so well!
Thanks for reading guys, and a big thank you for the guys over at Chrono.gg for having me on board! Keep an eye out on my youtube channel this week too as I'll be releasing a new process video!