Dev Diary #2 — Art and symbolism in Songs of Silence
Hello from the Chimera team!
In the previous article, we talked about cards in Songs of Silence: why we decided to implement them instead of a more traditional icon-driven UI solution, and how playing certain card combinations can change the outcome of a battle. If you missed that article, please click here to learn more.
Today, we’re super excited to take you on a journey to explore a different side of game creation – the captivating art world of Songs of Silence.
We’ll start by sharing the main artistic principles we applied to bring the unique art style of this game to life. Then we’ll walk you through the step-by-step process of creating our beautiful illustrations of Lorelai and reveal some of the fascinating meanings behind the symbols and icons in the world of Songs of Silence.
Before we continue - have you followed and wishlisted Songs of Silence yet? We’d love to bask in the warm glow of your support! Also, don’t forget to join our official Discord server if you don’t want to miss weekly news, WIP drips, F.A.Q. sessions and more!
Now…let’s dive in.
[h2]INTRO[/h2]
Songs of Silence is a labor of love for us at Chimera - we really put our hearts and souls into it. Our goal is not just to develop an amazing strategy video game, but also to craft an entirely new and captivating fantasy world - complete with its own compelling storyline and stunning, high-quality art style.
From UI elements to hero portraits - all elements are hand-drawn and created from scratch by our art team. Sometimes it takes 10 concept variations to create a single unit, sometimes we spent hours on Slack viciously discussing if the hero should have a mustache or not :)
It’s ok to have different opinions and we respect all your comments and suggestions. Hope you enjoy this art drop as much as we enjoyed creating it!
[h2]ART PRINCIPLES[/h2]
Songs of Silence’s striking and unique visuals derive directly from the grand Belle Époque, strongly influenced by Czech painter Alphonse Mucha and other amazing artists like Gustav Klimt or Toulouse-Lautrec. Songs of Silence visuals are based on Mucha’s techniques to establish a great visual narrative, with our own interpretation of his visual language to adapt to the needs of a modern video game.
When creating art style, we followed 4 main principles:
1) Zeitgeist. Zeitgeist is literally translated as ‘spirit of the age’ from German. It refers to the general trend, outlook, and feel of a particular period. For us, it means that the game’s art style needs to be consistent and contemporary, yet recognizable and unique.
2) Clarity. We strive to create a clear visual hierarchy and differentiation between background, armies, units, and landscape features.
3) Visual excellence. Songs of Silence is a highly stylized video game with exceptional attention to details, objects, and landmarks. For us, it’s important to assure exceptional artistic quality in every single illustration.
4) Authenticity. The Songs of Silence world and its war-weary inhabitants are marked by conflict and territorial claims. All people and factions in the game have a distinct historical origin. Hence, all materials, fabrics, tools, heraldry, and beliefs or religions need to look convincing and authentic.
Although we absolutely adore iconic strategy games, graphics aren’t always their strongest feature. We have an ambitious goal for Songs of Silence to marry quality game design and development with pristine art and creativity.
Every unit and location in the game has its unique story and beautiful visuals to match. If you look closer at the game art, cards, and UI elements, you might notice small details and symbols that tell the story of the game world. Every cape, sword, emblem, plant, or creature is well thought-out and in place for a reason.
Let’s look at the Lorelai illustration creation process and how her look helps to reflect her unique storyline in the game.
[h2]STEP-BY-STEP ART PROCESS - LORELAI[/h2]
The art process for each character and location illustration starts with concept creation. Then we work on a thumbnail and create a full illustration, including lineart, coloring, polishing, and post adjustments.
The art process requires close collaboration between game designers and artists, starting from a detailed briefing and finishing with a number of iterations and final tweaks. As there are various factions in the game, each of the heroes or units' portraits has unique story features coded in the illustrations.
Let’s look at the process of creating the iconic look for one of the Songs of Silence heroines: Lorelai. She’s a noble leader and the last survivor of her high house’s ruling family on a journey to find a new realm for her people. We wanted to portray a strong, slightly tomboyish female heroine with a realistic figure and confident posture together with one of her companions - falcon or war bull.
Our original idea was transformed into the sketches below, and after many iterations, we decided to choose a bull for the final portrait.
Lorelai is on a journey to find her new home, thus her outfit is light, practical, and well-suited for traveling, with leather elements and a light armor plate. Two keys locked over a closed crest on one of her sleeves symbolize her home banner. We also decided to add a pipe as a signature element representing her free spirit.
Here are some more iterations and the final result:
[h2]SYMBOLISM AND HIDDEN MEANING IN SONGS OF SILENCE[/h2]
Songs of Silence is a highly stylized strategy game. All units and locations boast stunning artworks meant to depict their stories and support our visual storytelling approach. Each of the factions in the game has its own distinctive iconography, symbols, and hidden meanings.
Starborn factions populated the Light World. They are a family-based hierarchical society consisting of Noble Houses that are engaged in a never-ending war with each other. This is a human faction of warriors and high priests guided by Celestial gods. The star symbol on their clothes and armor represents one of the gods - the Guiding Star. Thus this symbol is presented on their mantles, armors, buildings, and ornaments.
Our goal is to use environmental and visual storytelling as much as possible.
All heroes, units, and locations can be inspected to bring up more detailed artwork. Instead of showing the units in typical battle scenes, we chose to put them in different contexts, which really allow a glimpse into the lives of the people inhabiting our world.
Character gestures, the items, and gear they are carrying have been carefully designed to let players discover hidden stories.
To this end, we also use a lot of crests, symbols, and icons, as well as our own alphabet to add even more “secret” content to be discovered by the community. For example, Lorelai has two keys locked over a closed crest on one of her sleeves to symbolize her home banner, while a High Lord has a very different crest meaning that this character can be (and spoiler-spoiler IS) a potential rival.
________________________
We hope you enjoyed this journey with us! If you have more questions or perhaps would like to throw a few ideas our way, then join Songs of Silence on Discord, and follow us on Twitter and Reddit!
Thank you,
Chimera team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2195410/Songs_Of_Silence/
In the previous article, we talked about cards in Songs of Silence: why we decided to implement them instead of a more traditional icon-driven UI solution, and how playing certain card combinations can change the outcome of a battle. If you missed that article, please click here to learn more.
Today, we’re super excited to take you on a journey to explore a different side of game creation – the captivating art world of Songs of Silence.
We’ll start by sharing the main artistic principles we applied to bring the unique art style of this game to life. Then we’ll walk you through the step-by-step process of creating our beautiful illustrations of Lorelai and reveal some of the fascinating meanings behind the symbols and icons in the world of Songs of Silence.
Before we continue - have you followed and wishlisted Songs of Silence yet? We’d love to bask in the warm glow of your support! Also, don’t forget to join our official Discord server if you don’t want to miss weekly news, WIP drips, F.A.Q. sessions and more!
Now…let’s dive in.
[h2]INTRO[/h2]
Songs of Silence is a labor of love for us at Chimera - we really put our hearts and souls into it. Our goal is not just to develop an amazing strategy video game, but also to craft an entirely new and captivating fantasy world - complete with its own compelling storyline and stunning, high-quality art style.
From UI elements to hero portraits - all elements are hand-drawn and created from scratch by our art team. Sometimes it takes 10 concept variations to create a single unit, sometimes we spent hours on Slack viciously discussing if the hero should have a mustache or not :)
It’s ok to have different opinions and we respect all your comments and suggestions. Hope you enjoy this art drop as much as we enjoyed creating it!
[h2]ART PRINCIPLES[/h2]
Songs of Silence’s striking and unique visuals derive directly from the grand Belle Époque, strongly influenced by Czech painter Alphonse Mucha and other amazing artists like Gustav Klimt or Toulouse-Lautrec. Songs of Silence visuals are based on Mucha’s techniques to establish a great visual narrative, with our own interpretation of his visual language to adapt to the needs of a modern video game.
When creating art style, we followed 4 main principles:
1) Zeitgeist. Zeitgeist is literally translated as ‘spirit of the age’ from German. It refers to the general trend, outlook, and feel of a particular period. For us, it means that the game’s art style needs to be consistent and contemporary, yet recognizable and unique.
2) Clarity. We strive to create a clear visual hierarchy and differentiation between background, armies, units, and landscape features.
3) Visual excellence. Songs of Silence is a highly stylized video game with exceptional attention to details, objects, and landmarks. For us, it’s important to assure exceptional artistic quality in every single illustration.
4) Authenticity. The Songs of Silence world and its war-weary inhabitants are marked by conflict and territorial claims. All people and factions in the game have a distinct historical origin. Hence, all materials, fabrics, tools, heraldry, and beliefs or religions need to look convincing and authentic.
Although we absolutely adore iconic strategy games, graphics aren’t always their strongest feature. We have an ambitious goal for Songs of Silence to marry quality game design and development with pristine art and creativity.
Every unit and location in the game has its unique story and beautiful visuals to match. If you look closer at the game art, cards, and UI elements, you might notice small details and symbols that tell the story of the game world. Every cape, sword, emblem, plant, or creature is well thought-out and in place for a reason.
Let’s look at the Lorelai illustration creation process and how her look helps to reflect her unique storyline in the game.
[h2]STEP-BY-STEP ART PROCESS - LORELAI[/h2]
The art process for each character and location illustration starts with concept creation. Then we work on a thumbnail and create a full illustration, including lineart, coloring, polishing, and post adjustments.
The art process requires close collaboration between game designers and artists, starting from a detailed briefing and finishing with a number of iterations and final tweaks. As there are various factions in the game, each of the heroes or units' portraits has unique story features coded in the illustrations.
Let’s look at the process of creating the iconic look for one of the Songs of Silence heroines: Lorelai. She’s a noble leader and the last survivor of her high house’s ruling family on a journey to find a new realm for her people. We wanted to portray a strong, slightly tomboyish female heroine with a realistic figure and confident posture together with one of her companions - falcon or war bull.
Our original idea was transformed into the sketches below, and after many iterations, we decided to choose a bull for the final portrait.
Lorelai is on a journey to find her new home, thus her outfit is light, practical, and well-suited for traveling, with leather elements and a light armor plate. Two keys locked over a closed crest on one of her sleeves symbolize her home banner. We also decided to add a pipe as a signature element representing her free spirit.
Here are some more iterations and the final result:
[h2]SYMBOLISM AND HIDDEN MEANING IN SONGS OF SILENCE[/h2]
Songs of Silence is a highly stylized strategy game. All units and locations boast stunning artworks meant to depict their stories and support our visual storytelling approach. Each of the factions in the game has its own distinctive iconography, symbols, and hidden meanings.
Starborn factions populated the Light World. They are a family-based hierarchical society consisting of Noble Houses that are engaged in a never-ending war with each other. This is a human faction of warriors and high priests guided by Celestial gods. The star symbol on their clothes and armor represents one of the gods - the Guiding Star. Thus this symbol is presented on their mantles, armors, buildings, and ornaments.
Our goal is to use environmental and visual storytelling as much as possible.
All heroes, units, and locations can be inspected to bring up more detailed artwork. Instead of showing the units in typical battle scenes, we chose to put them in different contexts, which really allow a glimpse into the lives of the people inhabiting our world.
Character gestures, the items, and gear they are carrying have been carefully designed to let players discover hidden stories.
To this end, we also use a lot of crests, symbols, and icons, as well as our own alphabet to add even more “secret” content to be discovered by the community. For example, Lorelai has two keys locked over a closed crest on one of her sleeves to symbolize her home banner, while a High Lord has a very different crest meaning that this character can be (and spoiler-spoiler IS) a potential rival.
________________________
We hope you enjoyed this journey with us! If you have more questions or perhaps would like to throw a few ideas our way, then join Songs of Silence on Discord, and follow us on Twitter and Reddit!
Thank you,
Chimera team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2195410/Songs_Of_Silence/