Below is some footage of the character Ululu newly rigged by Paul…
She’ll look great animated, and Pauls been working hard to make her as well rigged as he can to get the best movement we can from her… here’s Paul talking ponytails… who’d have thought that would happen?
Special thanks to Sammy for the authentic Ululu voice sounds in the background as she was being animated…
New developments have been happening over the summer with the addition of Paul Starkey ( http://www.paulstarkeygames.co.uk/ ) to the project in a more significant role… bringing his excellent skills to bear on the development of the characters and environments into 3D, and the animation thereafter.
So first up was the lead character of Ululu… the games young protagonist.
If you remember my design sheets looked like this…
Here you can see that I used the three views and removed arm convention that many games concept artists use, it allows a model builder to see as much of the characters design as possible, added to that I threw in various poses and sketches that show something of her personality and additional accessories… some in alternate styles as I tried to get a handle on her design.
…to take her a little further towards a playable character Paul had to take these flat images and model the girl using 3DS max… and Blender…
He then (using Blender) proceeded to break the model up into individual parts taking into consideration how it might be animated, and created the texture maps in order that I might colour them… Below you can see me doping just that… Using Photoshop and with the wire frame on a separate layer I work up the textures and colours… all barring any textures that need to look more 3D, which would be created as a bmp map.
(see the UV map of Ululu’s hair below)
Oh… and talk about pointless detail… yeah, something that no one will ever notice… the multi-coloured frogs on Ululu’s knee plaster (above) … and the original frogs (below)…
The frogs I’d drawn years ago… nice to use them at last.
Above is some footage looking around the character as Paul works on her on screen…
Below some of the images of Ululu finished and being worked on onscreen.
On these finished screen shots (below) you can see the bmp mapping of the creases in her clothes…
I love the fact we kept the one rolled down sock… It would be nice to have an idling animation where she bends to sort it out, only for it to roll down again, dontchya think?
Okay… so here she is… part of a work in progress to finally nail down the look of the characters for this thing…
Oh and she now has a name to…
Ululu…
Lulu means Rabbit apparently (Native American)… I added another U… because it amused me to do so… and I like the sound of it.
Here’s a back story sketch too…
The final version of Rabbit Heart and Ninja Bunny lost in the Poppy Field… What’s she seen off camera?
Okay so while rooting around in my sketchbooks I found a quick thumbnail of Rabbit Heart and her Robo-sidekick lost in a field of poppies, and thought it might be time to up my game regards concept visualisation…
So starting here…
…and ending up here.
S’bin a fun day… more to come…
Okay so that’s a fair amount about the lead characters or protagonists… what about antagonists… bad guys?
Very early on… even in the original of this reworking (above) I had wanted the bad guys to be Lovcraftian “tentacled horrors” due to my love of everything Cthulhu (Hellboy, Conan, etc)
…as you can see from my general sketchbook work.
These giant tentacled horrors generally aren’t that mobile…
These kinds of monsters tending towards a slow, creeping decimation of worlds rather than surprising sneak attacks, so I began toying with the idea of smaller, rolling (nautilus-esque) creatures, that would roll in to attack (I guess like the Star Wars attack robots, but organic) and then unfurl there appendages… (see below).
Beyond that, I also pulled together some quick thoughts and sketches for “Big Boss” characters to puctuate levels etc…
Giant warriors, with tentacled arms… Big Robots… and then I thought, what if I developed something as a direct nemisis for the Big Exo-Suit? …A fully organic, twisted, Cthulhu version of our guardian Rabbit?
I started to play with how the tentacles might work here too… I particularly liked the idea that they could become disjointed and severed and by growing teeth still be dangerous.
And as a final twisted reflection of Ninja Bunny I added the idea of a transparent dome, half drivers pod, half liquid filled womb, containing some vile, malevolent intelligence no doubt (multiple, goat pupilled eyes on the creatures head, and randomly place demonic mouths are also a must obviously).
Just some scuttling, crab footed drones to sort out now… back to the drawing board.
So, first of all I dedicated a new sketchbook to the project. And started doodling very rough character designs, looking at costume and comparative scale between the characters etc…
As you can see… these early sketches of the Rabbit exo-suit show it with the giant japanese war banners on it’s back…
I’m also beginning to make notes on the connection and relation ship between the two lead characters (see notes directly above).
Looking at scenarios, potential lanscapes and creatures, as well as developing that costume a little more… oh, and a vehicle… I was wondering how she might keep up with her giant robot friend… Motor unicycle? Well, I don’t think so, not any more.
Here I’m looking at the feet of the rabbit and considering giving him metal versions of those strange raised sandals you always see in Samuria comics…
This obviously was the original ink sketch for the image at the top of the site… I was really pleased with general proportions of both characters in this visual too…
If you look at the rabbits chest in this and the sketch two images down you can see the canopy for the seat area into which Rabbit Heart (the girl) would jump back to when in full-on monster fighting mode… I imagined that such a connection would build up over time between the two characters that eventually a single move would have the girl (or you the player) back flip into the seat within the armoured suit.
Of course you would have to be out of the suit if you wanted to explore… some of the areas within the game you would need to explore would be way to small for the suit to fit into and yo would need to leave them outside… This could add to tension in the game-play as perhaps The exo-suit if left on its own too long or severed by to great a distance would shut down (needing time to power back up) or simply wander off (again like the character in “Ico”).
Above some thoughts on how those giant rabbit legs might look.
Even touches of logo design starting to come through here… but mostly developing that steam-punk Rabbit Suit.
Back to Rabbit Heart herself… trying out different styles and ages for the girl… the flying helmet seems like a keeper at this stage.
I even consider some game play in which the character ages and turns into a warrior woman in times of stress… My ideas are all over at this point.
More of the same… I really loved the one based on Suzie from Bill Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbes on his sheet… but in there was also…
..this little gem, looking more like something drawn by Schultz… but just about the right proportions for what I was originally looking for.
More work on those proportions.
Finally thinking about pulling it all together in a more finished visual… the thumbnail above…
To see a full size version of this visit it in my Deviant Art gallery at http://hesir.deviantart.com/art/Rabbit-Heart-Visual-002-112189381
Rabbit Heart is a game concept based around the player/character of a young girl, called Ululu who finds herself lost in a strange world of flying galleons, tentacled monsters and abandoned cities and whose only ally is a semi sentient Exo-Suit that reminds her of the toy rabbit she had lost. Our plan is to use this site to host all the artwork we (and our growing team of collaborators) produce as we work out the details of the overall visual concept and game content.
We hope to include everything from very rough and scrappy sketches through to fully finished colour renders and maybe even some 3D models and level maps.
We also as part of this research project hope to include our use of the project within our role as Games Design lecturers (at HSAD, UK), and look towards publishing our findings as a “How to…” style book.
Below is a short video showing Ululu walking and climbing we will update this clip every time we make a leap forward in game playability…
Rabbit Heart 
