Development Update #6: Honing in on our Art style
For this month’s dev update, we have a huge and exciting update for you all. You might have noticed a change in the assets we have been posting across our social media channels. That’s because we are upgrading the overall art style and direction for Starkeepers. Establishing our own unique and amazing style, so expect us to really be taking our art up a notch!
Making changes to the art direction of a game is a huge decision that will affect the look and feel of everything that you see and do in-game. We wanted to make sure that we were making the right decisions and that these changes are something for everyone to be excited about!
A large reason for these changes is so we can establish a stronger identity. Something unique and fantastical to make Starkeepers truly stand out.
Up until now and being in the earlier stages of development, we have had to use placeholder assets in a few key areas. This is so we can focus on building out system mechanics and core gameplay features, while our art team have been hard at work behind the scenes.
Main fortress concept art
Our Art Director, Zazen Zhang joined us earlier this year and took up the role of being the art mastermind behind Starkeepers. We approached him to find out what he is most excited about the game, as well as what light he can shed on the new art direction.
[h2]When did you join Wolfpack Games and what is your main role in the project?[/h2]
I officially joined Wolfpack Studios in August as the Art Director. The overall art style of the game and everything that requires artistic inputs, from characters, to landscape, to VFX and animation falls within my purview. It's definitely a great responsibility!
[h2]What are you most excited about Starkeepers?[/h2]
What I’m really looking forward to is the fact that there will be a range of different game environments as well as hero characters, each with different backgrounds and personalities! We get to design everything from their features to their skills and really bring them to life. There is also the sandbox-building aspect of the Starkeep involving many different buildings and structures which means that I get to be imaginative with my work.
Main fortress indoors concept art
[h2]What are some of your favorite projects from before Starkeepers?[/h2]
I’ve worked on a large number of games and movie projects in the past. For games, I worked on ‘Reworld’ as well as some outsourced design work for Dota 2 and Sword Art Online 3. I have also worked on film projects such as ‘Rampage’ and ‘The Great Wall'.
My experience in game projects helped me to understand different game engines and how different tools impact the art output. My experience in film projects made me pay much more attention to how art and design best fit into the plot of a project and how they can elevate storytelling. How a character’s outfit shows off their personality or how the overall scene design will work best for in-game cinematics.
[h2]How are we upgrading the art style for Starkeepers? What changes will we see?[/h2]
All of the art assets in Starkeepers will be upgraded following the new art style, including character and environment designs. The main change is going from a simplistic low-poly art style to a more refined, stylistic art style. We will pay more attention to how an art asset can contribute to the overall atmosphere and theming in Starkeepers, ensuring that every element in the game is able to exist together in a holistic world.
Open world environment concept art
[h2]What are you most excited about with the new art direction?[/h2]
I’m most excited to see the new art assets for our characters being implemented in-game. We are still in the process of further refining our character models and material assets, but I believe that the new characters will bring more flare to our game world.
[h2]What sort of look and feel do you want our heroes to have?[/h2]
The redesign of characters will focus more on their overall cohesiveness, bringing together their appearances, backgrounds, and personalities. We want to show off the uniqueness of each hero, and make them feel like an integral part of the living, breathing game world. We will also be adding some details, such as VFX and animation within character gears as finishing touches.
Heroes concept art
[h2]Some of our characters, such as Utsi, looks different in the new art style. How different do we expect our characters to look?[/h2]
The redesign of Utsi will effectively transform him into quite a different hero compared to the previous version. The changes in design will reasonably reduce the number of unnecessary details, and place the design focus on the overall look and feel of the character, rather than individual intricacies. What a character wears will be cleaner, and unique features of the hero will be made more pronounced, but not through excessively exaggerating shapes and forms, or depicting copious amounts of details.
Utsi 3D model
[h2]Will there be a range of characters with different appeals and aesthetics?[/h2]
There will be many heroes added to our character roster, each with different traits, skills, stories and backgrounds. One of my favorite characters based on their character stories is Encore. I am currently working on their character redesign, which has been a lot of fun.
[h2]What would best describe our building mechanics?[/h2]
Our building mechanics follow a blueprint system and is designed as building blocks, with elements being more simple and geometric. This will give more flexibility to players when they are building up their Starkeeps. The exterior design of our Starkeep buildings will look more "battle-ready" with more attention put into the design and use of wooden and masonry structures that these Starkeep buildings will be comprised of.
---
We hope you are as excited as we are after hearing from Zazen about our art direction and what that means for Starkeepers! We cannot wait to share with you an in-game look at how all of these elements and upgraded assets will come together.
Keep an eye on our social media channels for more updates, concept art and assets that we will be sharing! We are also gearing up for our future playtests, so join our discord for the most updated information on that! You can find all of our links below this update.
Hope you enjoyed the insight into our new art direction. Have a wonderful new year and we shall be back with the next one in 2023.
Drew & Angela
Community & Marketing
...
Wishlist Starkeepers on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2015760/Starkeepers/
Discord: https://discord.gg/starkeepers
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PlayStarkeepers
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@playstarkeepers
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/playstarkeepers
Website (sign up for future playtests!): https://starkeepers.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtmRqaLdiusy5FKg4dk2New
Making changes to the art direction of a game is a huge decision that will affect the look and feel of everything that you see and do in-game. We wanted to make sure that we were making the right decisions and that these changes are something for everyone to be excited about!
A large reason for these changes is so we can establish a stronger identity. Something unique and fantastical to make Starkeepers truly stand out.
Up until now and being in the earlier stages of development, we have had to use placeholder assets in a few key areas. This is so we can focus on building out system mechanics and core gameplay features, while our art team have been hard at work behind the scenes.
Main fortress concept artOur Art Director, Zazen Zhang joined us earlier this year and took up the role of being the art mastermind behind Starkeepers. We approached him to find out what he is most excited about the game, as well as what light he can shed on the new art direction.
[h2]When did you join Wolfpack Games and what is your main role in the project?[/h2]
I officially joined Wolfpack Studios in August as the Art Director. The overall art style of the game and everything that requires artistic inputs, from characters, to landscape, to VFX and animation falls within my purview. It's definitely a great responsibility!
[h2]What are you most excited about Starkeepers?[/h2]
What I’m really looking forward to is the fact that there will be a range of different game environments as well as hero characters, each with different backgrounds and personalities! We get to design everything from their features to their skills and really bring them to life. There is also the sandbox-building aspect of the Starkeep involving many different buildings and structures which means that I get to be imaginative with my work.
Main fortress indoors concept art[h2]What are some of your favorite projects from before Starkeepers?[/h2]
I’ve worked on a large number of games and movie projects in the past. For games, I worked on ‘Reworld’ as well as some outsourced design work for Dota 2 and Sword Art Online 3. I have also worked on film projects such as ‘Rampage’ and ‘The Great Wall'.
My experience in game projects helped me to understand different game engines and how different tools impact the art output. My experience in film projects made me pay much more attention to how art and design best fit into the plot of a project and how they can elevate storytelling. How a character’s outfit shows off their personality or how the overall scene design will work best for in-game cinematics.
[h2]How are we upgrading the art style for Starkeepers? What changes will we see?[/h2]
All of the art assets in Starkeepers will be upgraded following the new art style, including character and environment designs. The main change is going from a simplistic low-poly art style to a more refined, stylistic art style. We will pay more attention to how an art asset can contribute to the overall atmosphere and theming in Starkeepers, ensuring that every element in the game is able to exist together in a holistic world.
Open world environment concept art[h2]What are you most excited about with the new art direction?[/h2]
I’m most excited to see the new art assets for our characters being implemented in-game. We are still in the process of further refining our character models and material assets, but I believe that the new characters will bring more flare to our game world.
[h2]What sort of look and feel do you want our heroes to have?[/h2]
The redesign of characters will focus more on their overall cohesiveness, bringing together their appearances, backgrounds, and personalities. We want to show off the uniqueness of each hero, and make them feel like an integral part of the living, breathing game world. We will also be adding some details, such as VFX and animation within character gears as finishing touches.
Heroes concept art[h2]Some of our characters, such as Utsi, looks different in the new art style. How different do we expect our characters to look?[/h2]
The redesign of Utsi will effectively transform him into quite a different hero compared to the previous version. The changes in design will reasonably reduce the number of unnecessary details, and place the design focus on the overall look and feel of the character, rather than individual intricacies. What a character wears will be cleaner, and unique features of the hero will be made more pronounced, but not through excessively exaggerating shapes and forms, or depicting copious amounts of details.
Utsi 3D model[h2]Will there be a range of characters with different appeals and aesthetics?[/h2]
There will be many heroes added to our character roster, each with different traits, skills, stories and backgrounds. One of my favorite characters based on their character stories is Encore. I am currently working on their character redesign, which has been a lot of fun.
[h2]What would best describe our building mechanics?[/h2]
Our building mechanics follow a blueprint system and is designed as building blocks, with elements being more simple and geometric. This will give more flexibility to players when they are building up their Starkeeps. The exterior design of our Starkeep buildings will look more "battle-ready" with more attention put into the design and use of wooden and masonry structures that these Starkeep buildings will be comprised of.
---
We hope you are as excited as we are after hearing from Zazen about our art direction and what that means for Starkeepers! We cannot wait to share with you an in-game look at how all of these elements and upgraded assets will come together.
Keep an eye on our social media channels for more updates, concept art and assets that we will be sharing! We are also gearing up for our future playtests, so join our discord for the most updated information on that! You can find all of our links below this update.
Hope you enjoyed the insight into our new art direction. Have a wonderful new year and we shall be back with the next one in 2023.
Drew & Angela
Community & Marketing
...
Wishlist Starkeepers on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2015760/Starkeepers/
Discord: https://discord.gg/starkeepers
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PlayStarkeepers
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@playstarkeepers
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/playstarkeepers
Website (sign up for future playtests!): https://starkeepers.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtmRqaLdiusy5FKg4dk2New