Too much playing of video games on the weekend prompted me to look up some of the conceptual artwork behind a couple of my favorite games. They're both oddities to a certain extent; The 'Jak' series and the 'Ratchet and Clank' series. They've both got a really interesting cartoon look to them with a lot of exaggeration and stretch and squash (especially for games) but they're both also fairly violent, despite the cartoonish look. I was surprised by the amount of information I found out about the preproduction process for Ratchet.

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20030613/price_pfv.htm (This is a very good article written by one of the games' developers about the design process. It's also funny how the two games that I mentioned above actually have somewhat of an overlap in the design process, as the two studios behind the games - Naughty Dog and Insomniac, actually collaborated somewhat on some of the technology.)

The pictures on the left are some of the earliest designs for Ratchet. None of them are quite like how he turned out, but they're pretty close. And the one on the right is actually quite an annoying character, but I really like the sketchy line work.

But before you ask, the weekend wasn't all playing games. Since last Wednesday I have broken down my chosen section of script and created very quick, sketchy designs for most of the environments and the characters. I have to say though, that there is going to be a lot more storyboard panels than I thought. That might just be because I've chosen to do a lot of cuts though. I think it should be fairly good however, even if it will be a lot of work.