Art
Characters
This duck is the protagonist of Single Feather. His spirit is carefree, silly, and cute.
An early problem with his walky cycle was that the duck was moving across the screen much faster than his feet were carrying him. This was my dilemma: I didn't want to slow down his movement to match his feet, I didn't want his legs to move super fast to match his movement, and I didn't want his feet to slide on the ground. I solved this by adding bounce to the animation, keeping him in the air for most of his walk cycle.
His walk cycle is intentionally very different from how a real duck walks. It's a mix between a chicken's and a human's walk.
Krita was used to create the sprite sheets and the AnimationPlayer in Godot 3.6 was used to time and animate each frame.
My vision for this character is of a '90s urban hooligan.
I chose to base the player character on my Design instructor, Chris Pointon. He, to be clear, is no hooligan, but he does have a love for 90s hip-hop, so I used that for inspiration.
The character is composed of three pieces: a skateboard, legs, and upper body. Each piece can be moved independently, yet they work together. Procreate was used to draw each frame and the AnimationPlayer in Godot 3.6 was used to animate the character.
Dr. Agnes Shelley, the 2D, pixelated antagonist from Single Feather, is rendered here in 3D. Made in ZBrush.
The lighting and posing portray her as energetic, determined, and furious. The posing was based on the 2D art below on the left.
An untextured work-in-progress version is shown below on the right. I constructed the basic shapes of the figure first, sculpted them, and then merged them together.
These character drawings were also used for reference.
One shows her drawn from 8 different angles, in high resolution, made in Procreate.
The other shows her at varying pixel resolutions, made in Krita.
Environments
These are individual assets in Single Feather. The common objects each have several variations and when one is placed in a level, my level editor randomly picks one variation.
These assets are less common. They are much larger and made with fine detail so that they look more realistic when they take up much of the player's screen.
Springtime, midday, near the Northwestern coast of Turtle Island. The wind is gentle, the air is fresh, and the sun is warm. You are surrounded by a thick forest and a vast mountain range.
These are screenshots from Single Feather. The scene combines pixel art with painterly textures made of brush strokes. The colours are vibrant, with a cool dominant background and a warmer foreground.
When playing in multiplayer mode, the background becomes gradually more subdued as the camera zooms out, allowing players to stay easily visible even when far away.
A pot of water is boiling on the stove, onions are being chopped, and cans of tomatoes waits to be opened. You are making soup.
This was made for my 3D Fundamentals class. An empty, untextured room was provided. Using Maya, I modelled counters, a sink, and other kitchen elements.
I unwrapped UVs in Maya and created textures in Krita. I approximated the look of several materials, like glass, metal, rubber, and wood.
I used 1-point perspective to make all parallel lines in the floorboards and stairs lead towards a vanishing point.
This is the home of Dr. Agnes Shelley, from Single Feather. The grainy textures make it look almost like it's made from construction paper.
Animated Videos
This is a cutscene that introduces Dr. Agnes Shelley, before the first boss level in Single Feather. I animated this in Procreate.
This introduces the core conflict of the story: Both the duck and Dr. Shelley want the eggs, but for different reasons. The tone is light, welcoming, and cute.
My first (left) and second (right) drafts of this animation are below.
Graphic Design
A Ben Day dot pattern overlay was subtly used, which is reminiscent of mid 20th century comic books.
The Single Feather logo was used along side the Winnipeg Comiccon log and a neutral sans-serif font was chosen for everything else to avoid overwhelming the viewer with too many loud typefaces. A square aspect ratio was ideal for Instagram.
Made in Procreate.
The colour palette was derived from the colours found in the biryani dish.
The header emphasizes the words “cook” and “eat” because that describes, in the simplest possible terms, the night's activity.
The QR code, when scanned by a phone camera, took people to a form they could fill out. The link to that form was also provided in the accompanying invitation message that was shared with the graphic image, as an alternative to the QR code.
Made in Procreate.
This is a concept for a horror movie poster, based on the King of the Hill episode “Pigmalion”, from season seven. While it is one of my favourite episodes, it is also polarizing. Some find it too dark and disturbing, as it is unlike any other episode of King of the Hill.
An unnatural pink colour at the bottom of the poster fades into a desaturated pink, symbolizing decay.
Peggy, screaming in the foreground, looks down at the body of a body of a headless dead pig. That leads viewers' eyes down further to the title “Pigmalion.”
Trim Larson, the man in the centre, is the antagonist. He comes between Peggy and Luanne, in this episode, and that is reflected in the design of the poster.
I took screenshots from the episode and then traced over them in Procreate to create a higher resolution version of each character. Those assets were brought into Adobe Illustrator, where I composed all the other elements, including the text.