Hi everyone, Alex here with a break from our regular programming in American’s stead.
For those new here, I’m the Project Manager, Narrative Co-Writer, and Design Bible Lead Designer for Alice: Asylum. LIVE STREAM UPDATES
Firstly, there will be NO LIVE STREAM this week. The next Livestream will most likely be the 7th of October 10:00am (GMT+8). We’ll keep you posted as the confirmed date rolls closer.
The reason being, things are chaotic in the Mysterious camp this week. Between American taking care of Lucky, Yan’s pregnancy, juggling back-to-back negotiations with more than one of the world’s largest video game publishers, all during tax-time, and simultaneously preparing for the leadup to one of the busiest national holidays in China, our captain’s plate is understandably full.
When chaos rains on our little madhouse, it pours.
Please join me in wishing American and his family all the best as they take care of business and then some.
Speaking of chaos, here’s some new artwork from the team.
1. The Jabberwock Boss Fight
The incredible image in the title section of this post comes from our concept artist Adam Narozanski. For those who have read the Alice: Asylum script, you’ll know the Jabberwock isn’t here to play around in Asylum.
From the choices previously presented in his initial sketches, Adam has also flexed on his speed-painting skills at the request of our lead artist Omri Koresh.
The sketchier, looser styling is great for capturing motion and action, so we’ll most likely be seeing more like this as we go. It’s a cool showcase of Alice using the scenery to hide here too.
2. Chaos Infected Enemies // Update
Joey Zeng has been working on an updated pass on each of the Chaos Infected enemy concepts. These are twisted manifestations of Alice’s time in London, roaming around Alice’s memories of a fractured “Flooding and Burning London”.
This broken level we’ve since come to call “The Cataclysm”.
All enemy designs are looking wild here. We might dedicate time to exploring further depths of varying Chaos consumption on these enemies, but at this stage, we feel this captures the themes of the enemies sufficiently. Moving on.
(!) SPOILER WARNING!
The following concept art shows scenes we would consider major spoilers in the Asylum Narrative. Don’t want to see it? Don’t scroll. This is the last artwork sample in this Patreon post. Some project management stuff, (also full of spoilers) follows afterwards.
Still here? Let’s go.
3. The Demise of the Scientist – Hatter’s Fate
Adam has once again submitted some concept artwork for key scenes leading up to Alice’s encounter with the Jabberwock.
Pictured here, is the moment Hatter buys Alice more time to escape. He initiates a rising platform moments before the Chaos unleashed by the Shadow consumes them all in his laboratory.
Alice and her rabbit escape.
Hatter does not. Adam’s early concept work is phenomenal in capturing these dynamic scenes as always.
Our Creative Process and Your Feedback:
To me, it’s always fascinating seeing the creative process come to life for these scenes.
The process that allows us to make these decisions as a team, also allows us to utilize your feedback actively while we work via the Patreon.
American and I first wrote this scene with Hatter’s demise in the Narrative Outline. Once the narrative ideas we write are locked and approved by American, I’ll then brief a specific request to illustrate key scenes for usage in the Design Bible.
Initial art direction and art-task briefings are created by me, then once greenlit by American, Omri will allocate any available artist to create the artwork, and provide additional art direction and notes before the work is undertaken. This happens all within our project management software. Each art task follows the same process and conversation.
When the first sketches rolls back around from the artist (in this case Adam), we all review the sketches, float the ideas and choices with the team and with the Patreon, (like we’ve done here) and proceed accordingly based on feedback.
The final say always rests with American, (we’ve built the process that way) but in his stead this week, Omri and I have agreed that (C.) best captures Hatter’s demise, frames the characters well, and represents the narrative best.
Here’s a sample of an art brief, team conversation, and process direct from our project management software.
Do you agree with our choices? If yes or no, why? Let us know.
Adam will be proceeding on this again shortly, so let us know your thoughts if you want to lend your voice to the design discussion.
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TONS more artwork and updates are incoming.
We’ll chat again soon!
Cheers,
Alex