I had the privilege to work on some early UI concepts for Kynseed, a 2D sandbox RPG by PixelCount Studios.
The concepts I created explored a Celtic / Nature inspired theme to try and compliment the games design. Figuring out how Celtic patterns can be repeated and adapted to suit a user interface was a good learning project, something I have not had the opportunity to attempt before.
The layout of the HUD and design of some elements varied based on which control system was being used, gamepad or keyboard and mouse. The HUD would also allow dynamic control switching, immediately switching to the correct layout when input was detected.
I played around with the idea of having a changing UI which adapts along with the seasons in the game. Ensuring the framework and foliage details would suit each season really helped make it clear to the player. I envisioned the foliage growing, blossoming and then dying back for each season, making the passing of time feel natural and organic.
I worked as a graphic artist on the Drop Dead VR project at Pixel Toys. I was tasked with creating a UI system from scratch for a high quality mobile VR experience.
The idea behind the UI styling was that the player is wearing a high-tech headset which they are given in game, this was to help justify the sensation of wearing the Samsung Gear VR headset in real life. The UI makes use of a lot of digital style effects while still trying to maintain clear readability in a VR environment.
My work pictured below is how the game launched in October 2016.
I also created the game logo and marketing art which was used as part of the product launch in October 2016. The artwork was created by using 3D in-game assets and posing them to suit. There was a lot of positioning work to get a composition I was happy with and using Photoshop for layering different assets as well as some digital paint work to really make the image and logo pop!
I worked as a lead graphic artist on the Fable Fortune project at Lionhead Studios. I was tasked with directing the UI layout and visuals while also communicating the Fable art style to an external development team.
Card design plays a massive part for a Collectable Card Game, especially a digital one. The cards need to look valuable and pleasing while still maintaining clear readability.
The first step to solve this problem was to treat the cards as their own UI. I drew up a number of wireframes to quickly explore different options.
The more successful wireframes were picked out and I started doing some rough concepts for how the card image and text could be framed. I kept this stage as quick shapes to allow fast iteration and discussions with the team.
The designs went through a lot of iteration and discussion as to what the patterns and visuals could be. But eventually we ended up with the result you can see at the top of this article! In the images, my work was focused around the frame, card backing pattern and information elements only, the concept art placed behind the UI elements was provided by the concept artists on the project.
Sadly Lionhead Studios came to a close before I could finish my work on the project, but the cards looked as pictured in April 2016.
The project continues to live on as some of my colleagues were able to continue development working as a new independent studio. You can follow the progress of the game on its website : www.fable-fortune.com
I worked as a lead graphic artist on the Fable Fortune project at Lionhead Studios. I was tasked with directing the UI layout and visuals while also communicating the Fable art style to an external development team.
The deck building menu was an interesting task to tackle as I wanted the ability to sort cards and decks to feel as natural as if doing it by hand on a table top. First step to trying to solve this problem was to get some physical cards and start arranging them on my desk, taking note of how I would sort the cards and arrange them.
I created a test scene in Autodesk Maya and created some test animations for how the cards could magically move. This was really useful when communicating to the rest of the team my ideas.
Next step was to draw up some wireframes to start planning what features we will need and where is best to place them.
I did some concept tests with basic UI elements in place. There was a lot of iteration at this stage to try and find the best combination of elements and layouts.
Once a layout was agreed on within the team, I communicated my ideas to the external developer and created a polished 3D scene with fluid card animations.
Sadly Lionhead Studios came to a close before I could finish my work on the project, but the menu looked as pictured on the left in April 2016.
The project continues to live on as some of my colleagues were able to continue development working as a new independent studio. You can follow the progress of the game on its website : www.fable-fortune.com
I worked as a lead graphic artist on the Fable Fortune project at Lionhead Studios. I was tasked with directing the UI layout and visuals while also communicating the Fable art style to an external development team.
This example illustrates the first rough planning stages for an idea of what the frontend menu could be. I was keen to make the menu a 3D scene as this would allow us to establish a suitable atmosphere in one of the first screens to greet players.
I created some initial rough sketches followed by some 3D white boxes using Autodesk Maya to prototype my ideas. These tests along with the planning sketches were invaluable when communicating what I would like to achieve with both the internal and external development team. We went through a series of iterations and feedback sessions to create a very atmospheric frontend menu.
Sadly Lionhead Studios came to a close before I could finish my work on the project. This is how the frontend menu looked around that time (April 2016)…
The menu set the mood of a fortune tellers table top very well, I worked up the scene to create some key art which was used in online marketing for the game.
The project continues to live on as some of my colleagues were able to continue development working as a new independent studio. You can follow the progress of the game on its website : www.fable-fortune.com
Having a passion for icons and design, I just had to turn my own wedding in to a graphic design project! I created this logo based from our nicknames, Panda Jen and Polar Ber, to help symbolise our marriage; two becoming one. I used the logo as much as I could for the day, it was part of the stationary, table plans, decorations and wedding favours. We had a music visual theme to the day, vinyl records and guitar plectrums being a core focus for the decorations and gifts for our guests.
I was asked to create a logo for Tiny Fragment Studios. The brief was to create a logo which was simple in design and made use of geometric shapes. I started playing around with a number of different ideas. I really wanted to try and get the letters T and F from the studio name in to the design, some ideas were more abstract than others.
Once the favourites were chosen, I did another round of refinement along with some different layouts. These new options were then narrowed down and the final logo shape was selected. I created a number of colour options following guidelines from the client, purple and blue hues were the favourite.
The final logo makes use of soft gradients in its abstracted T and F shapes. Black and white versions were also provided.
I worked as a GUI and 2D Artist on Fable Anniversary by Lionhead Studios. Fable Anniversary is a remastering of the Fable The Lost Chapters, which is now 10 years old! I was tasked with creating a remastered user interface which would honour the original game while still achieving a freshness which suits the current generation of consoles.
The inventory screen was one of the biggest changes to the UI. The original game had many levels of options which you had to go back and forth through to find what you were after. I have tried to simplify it by creating a new layout which allows for quicker navigation. The Xbox 360 Controllers trigger and bumper buttons control which section you are viewing and their sub-sections. The two thumb sticks and D-pad are put in control of filtering the content and reading item descriptions. Using this new layout players can quickly flick from choosing their equipment to reading about their current quest with minimal button presses.
The Region Map screen now has more space to show the map and text for each location, making it easier to see region information at a glance such as which shops a town has or if any houses are for sale. Players can also filter the location list so only regions that have active quests are displayed. The world map itself has had a big visual style update so it looks more hand drawn and compliments the updated mini maps. I referred to the original Albion map heavily and was keen to try and keep a familiarity between the old and new. By keeping the colours similar I hope that, at a glance, players still recognise it as the iconic Albion map. A new full screen world map view has been added, allowing players to zoom in and pan around to explore every fine detail as well as utilising it for loading screens. It was important to me that the map should become more of a feature, animations and a few hidden surprises have been added for the keen eyed adventurer.
More information about creating the Albion map can be found here.
I worked as a GUI and 2D Artist on Fable Anniversary by Lionhead Studios. Fable Anniversary is a remastering of the Fable The Lost Chapters, which is now 10 years old! I was tasked with creating a remastered user interface which would honour the original game while still achieving a freshness which suits the current generation of consoles.
I love working on achievement icons for games! The ones for Fable Anniversary were particularly fun to work on. They follow a visual theme of postage stamps, with their value being the gamerscore earned by completing that achievement. There are also a number of achievements which have three versions of icon, which image gets unlocked is based on the choices you made in completing that achievement. For example, to unlock the achievement called What Are Ya Sellin?, you can either make a profit from selling to a trader, or steal an item using the “Steal” expression from a trader. If you make a profit the icon with the money bag is shown, if you steal an item the icon with a thief is shown, and if you do both actions an icon with both of the images is shown.
The achievements are displayed in the book themed game menus, presenting them as a stamp collection album. Ted Timmins, the game design on Fable Anniversary talks more about designing the achievements over on the Lionhead Blog.
I worked as a GUI and 2D Artist on Fable Anniversary by Lionhead Studios. Fable Anniversary is a remastering of the Fable The Lost Chapters, which is now 10 years old! I was tasked with creating a remastered user interface which would honour the original game while still achieving a freshness which suits the current generation of consoles.
One of the first screens players are greeted with in Fable Anniversary is the Press Start screen. I have made 4 versions of this screen which are randomly displayed each time you load the game. The key thing I wanted to do with these screens was to make them interesting and showcase a range of different environments you can explore in the world of Albion.
Once you have pressed start, you are taken to the frontend menu which takes the shape of a book. While designing what the frontend should look like with lead designer Ted Timmins, we went through a number of different layouts and ideas. When we sat down to review all the concepts we noticed there were a few things that were still not quite working. Ted randomly commented “Can it be a book?” and the more we thought about it, the more it made sense. Each player is starting their own story as a new hero, as they progress through the game every action is being documented and their own story book is made.
It makes use of simple navigation to enable the player to quickly start or continue a game, manage their saves (all 18 of them!), and make a new hero as well as featuring a special achievements page!
The UI menus are placed on top of a 3D model of the book using render targets, this allowed us to create some nice page turning animations as the player navigates through different pages.
I created a new set of concept images and worked on the visual design of this Fable book. This has also inspired the design of our strategy guide. The book theme is used for both the frontend and the pause menu, and strengthens the paper theme which runs through the Inventory as well as other UI features.
I worked as a GUI and 2D Artist on Fable Anniversary by Lionhead Studios. Fable Anniversary is a remastering of the Fable The Lost Chapters, which is now 10 years old! I was tasked with creating a remastered user interface which would honour the original game while still achieving a freshness which suits the current generation of consoles.
I was given the opportunity to redraw the map of Albion, I was thrilled by this as I often loved drawing maps when I was younger! I started this task by tracing the original low resolution artwork and creating vector outlines for the land masses and details in Adobe Illustrator. Once I had a good outline I then started experimenting with colour and textures, I wanted to create a hand drawn feel while maintaining a familiarity to the original design and colours. A comparison of the original design and my new version can be seen in the image to the left.
The map is used in multiple in-game menus and loading screens, as well as a new full screen map menu which allows players to zoom in and pan around to explore every fine detail. It was important to me that the map should become more of a feature. I added animated elements to the map such as creatures, ocean waves and boats, these would appear as the player progresses through the game and act as a reminded of what happened in those locations.
I worked as a GUI and 2D Artist on Fable Anniversary by Lionhead Studios. Fable Anniversary is a remastering of the Fable The Lost Chapters, which is now 10 years old! I was tasked with creating a remastered user interface which would honour the original game while still achieving a freshness which suits the current generation of consoles.
The original game was very icon heavy and I really wanted to keep that feature in place, this meant I have redraw over 400 icons. I made a few adjustments there and there as well as creating brand new ones to fit in with the updated UI. I recreated them as vector shapes which has allowed me to easily scale them for many different purposes during the project. Some icons even made it as promotional badges for E3 2013!
Some extra icons were required for the PC release of the game, these chicken themed icons were used as badges on the Steam platform.
I worked as a GUI and 2D Artist on Fable Anniversary by Lionhead Studios. Fable Anniversary is a remastering of the Fable The Lost Chapters, which is now 10 years old! I was tasked with creating a remastered user interface which would honour the original game while still achieving a freshness which suits the current generation of consoles and PC systems.
While designing the HUD, I wanted to create something that remained familiar to players who have played the original game while still creating a fresh and refined UI. The visual treatment I decided on uses golden framed elements to help celebrate Fable Anniversary and give a bit of elegance. The HUD uses over 400 unique icons for displaying objects including items, characters and spells. I recreated all icons as vector shapes which has allowed them to be resized quickly and easily for multiple uses. The Mini Maps have been restyled to have a more hand drawn look and the map container can be easily resized or completely hidden for the more advanced player. As you play the game, elements of the HUD fade in and out as and when they are needed, minimising the amount of information on screen at any one time. Players also have complete control over the HUD opacity. If you want to raise the difficulty of your game, try setting it to 0%!!!
I also took the opportunity to rework the Quest screens in to something that felt more physical. I went with the idea of using a paper card that would get stamped by the Heroes Guild once a quest was completed successfully. Any rewards gained are shown clearly along with the option of flipping the card over to view a more detailed breakdown.
While working as a GUI artist at Lionhead Studios I was given the opportunity to provide work for Microsoft’s sister studio, Rare, for their project called Kinect Gems. I created a series of achievement icons, in-game score banners for Kinect Gems Ski Race and layout and positioning of xbox dashboard assets such as game cover images and title banners for the other series of Kinect Gems titles.
I was able to work from within Lionhead Studios, communicating with the Rare team via email and conference calls.
I recently got inspired by the video game Dishonored and set myself a logo design challenge.
The design was created as a vector graphic in Adobe Illustrator. I chose a colour scheme of brown, blue and orange to emphasise the vintage feel I wanted to create. I added some final details in Adobe Photoshop to give it an aged appearance.
I worked as a GUI Artist on the Fable The Journey project at Lionhead Studios. I created a series of Xbox dashboard themes to coincide with the games release.
This is the first chance I have ever had to learn how to make a dashboard theme. It involved lots of planning as well as trial and error while testing the best placements for each asset. I collected the visuals from existing project material or taking my own screenshots from within the Unreal 3 Engine.
I worked as a GUI Artist on the Fable The Journey project at Lionhead Studios. I was thrilled when I was asked to create the achievement icons for the game. The initial concept was to given them a rough hand-made feel, suggesting that they were ‘Hobbe’ made medals. The final design mimicked a watercolour masking effect with use of colour to categorise the achievements, for example light blue is story related.
All designs were concepted on paper then drawn as vectors in Adobe Illustrator. Some final touches were applied in Adobe Photoshop. I also made some Xbox Gamer Pictures to match a similar style to the achievement icons above.
I worked as a GUI Artist on the Fable The Journey project at Lionhead Studios. I was tasked with creating an unique user interface style that would complement the game and its franchise. I created a series of patterns and jagged swirl motifs which were used to frame menu elements as well as in the HUD during gameplay.
The Map screen shows your progress through the story of the game and is filled with little animations such as previous story reminders, parting clouds, growing trees and hidden sea monsters. I created a parallax effect using the land and sea which helped bring the map to life.
I spent a lot of time working on the collectables menu. This acts as a place to browse and read more about the collectable items you can find on your journey. It starts off with a Hub screen giving the player a quick overview of what they have found so far. The player can then dive deeper and browse the the items in more detail, finding out more about their significance in the Fable franchise.
I worked closely with other artists and programmers on the team, delivering new concepts and progress updates regularly.
The project was powered by the Unreal Engine 3 and Scaleform.
I worked as a GUI Artist on the Fable The Journey project at Lionhead Studios. I was tasked with creating an unique user interface style that would complement the game and its franchise. I created a series of patterns and jagged swirl motifs which were used to frame HUD elements as well as in both the front end and pause menu screens.
The layout of elements was carefully considered and placed using Adobe Flash and Actionscript. I am particularly proud of the health bar animations which change based on the health status. The hearts shatter as the players character takes damage. When the health is very low, the remaining hearts get larger and a pulse animations kicks in getting more violent as the health decreases. The idea behind this is to attract the players attention and alert them that they need to take defensive action to recharge their health bar.
I worked closely with other artists and programmers on the team, delivering new concepts and progress updates regularly.
The project was powered by the Unreal Engine 3 and Scaleform.
Thread Bear is the project I created as part of my final year at University.
Thread Bear is visually heavy on fabric and stitching, it was important that I continued the theme in to the menu and HUD. This was the first time I had ever created a game menu or used Scaleform and Unreal. It was a great learning curve and I really enjoyed the challenge.
Help Bobby, the panda spirit, travel through each level and sew up the rips that are threatening the balance of this colourful and fragile world. Navigate through each level collecting sewing equipment as you go, the needles, thread and bobbins will be required to stitch up the rips that are appearing in the world. The balance of the fabric world hangs by a thread! Only Bobby can repair the rips and restore peace among the fabric creatures.
Thread Bear was also the winner of the Interactive Design category in the 2011 Cardiff Design Festival.
