Welcome aboard! Team Scallywags Studios and Captain Chinstrap are ready to embark on a new adventure with you! I, Cassandra, am one of the trusty travelers ready to introduce you to our production process. I’m also the head of the welcome committee, isn’t that exciting?   

            My area of expertise focuses on different areas of 2D art. Let’s start with Captain Chinstrap himself. 

            Drew McDowell, our project lead, envisioned our main character as “round, easy-to-animate, and pirate-like”. I took this prompt and developed four characters, each with their own charm and maintained round and simple body parts for easy animations. I experimented with hats, proportions, and silhouettes since our cooler-tone, sharp environments will contrast his softer appearance. We settled on my first draft, in which I later created the turn-around sheet for our animators. I performed color tests (still deciding between warmer colors) and changed the beak shape. Before, the mouth appeared to be “bell-like” and only looked like a beak in its side profile, so we pivoted and opted for a more accurate look to its real-life counterpart. 

            Having options allow for the team to be flexible and explore the choices given. Despite having predetermined decisions in what we want, there’s always a possibility it will change once we see it on paper or on the computer. I continued to explore the possibilities in art style for our game. We settled on the flat 2D environments with no outlines (outlines for our characters only), simple shading, and vibrant colors. Our cave area will have darker tones so Captain Chinstrap being brighter will allow our players to identify him easily. 

(Incomplete; plans to simplify leaves + vines)

            UI/UX Design is also an area of game development I took on. I began with an inventory layout as our other two team members developed the pickup items that will go inside of it. A simple rectangle shape with decorations surrounding it based on the island the player is on was decided upon. Simplicity is key, so I want to keep this decoration simple as much as possible so as not to distract the player too much— though, the inventory will be toggled on/off on the player’s will so this won’t be too much of an issue. In the future, I will be developing the Main and Pause menu for the player.

            Finally, I was tasked with drafting and developing the environment backgrounds for Cave Island. Our environment lead, Sam Vogel, drafted the first set of backgrounds. I continued to adjust as needed and currently this is the progress of one of the areas Captain Chinstrap explores.

I first broke the composition down into simple shapes. I went over the lines to appear a bit more natural and adjusted the composition by resizing some shapes and adding more in the foreground while maintaining the direction the player needs to go in. 

            During Weeks 7-9 I will be continuing working on the inventory, menus, and environment designs.