The game design document ready and in
final draft mode, the next process, Art asset Pre Production and
Production was activated.
 |
|
Paradox
Studios Project Manager for Art & Animation, Anand
Rajwanshi |
"As per the brief, Andy (Anand Rajwanshi, Project Manager
- Art & Animation) was required to start ideating and creating
a one on one fighting game with "many" characters. The characters
in Van Damme Kickboxing needed to have their unique fighting
styles that fitted the storyline of the game.
Usually when a brief is given, the procedure involves the art team
to go through all the popular games of the genre so they can create
something different and new. With Van Damme Kickboxing there
was no benchmark; the team had to start from scratch without any
reference.
The tiny screen size of the wireless device notwithstanding, characters
and all other visuals are created at normal scale during pre production
stage.
The Characters
Prior
to designing the characters, Andy and his team sat with Ninad and
Chirag and brainstormed on how the characters could be more impactful
and be more compelling in the overall gameplay and experience.
They sat and created fictitious backstories for each of the
characters. This was done so as to create a context and better
characterization. Andy also
 |
|
Concept Artist
- Ratan Salwe |
needed to
know details about the screen backgrounds, and where the line of horizon
would occur in the screen. This helped in deciding the proportion of the
characters as well as the kind of shots (i.e close - mid- long).
This being
a celebrity game, the makers wanted to cash in on the celebrity quotient
and wanted a lot of close ups. However, extreme close ups made staging
moves and 2 player clashes impossible to display on the screen. It was
decided to go along with the mid shots.
Andy did 2-3 concept sketches for each character before the team
froze on one. Following are some rough sketches followed by the
character description chart.
