Research: The World Ends With You

Another video game, again on Creative Uncut.
This one is from Japan, and you can really tell. Not just from the location (yup, the game is set in that famous city of Shibuya), but the art style too.
It's a pretty bold art style too, really bold, heavy line work. However, in contrast the colour work on the characters is quite muted and dull. Let's have an example:

So the character do wear particularly bright, vibrant colours; reds, pinks, purples. But the colours have been toned down and muted. Perhaps this is just an effect of the lack of colour in the backgrounds? And some characters seem to be lack colour all together. It makes a pretty interesting juxtaposition with that bold linart. And the lack of colour in the background adds more to this juxtaposition.

It's a pretty bold style, and it's not quite as "generic" as most Japanese video games look.Still, it is intentionally designed to look like Japanese street art. Artist, Tetsuya Nomura stated that he took particular influence from Japanese street art and the culture of Shibuya. I've no doubt most people will look at this and think "Harajuku." It's a lot tamer than that...

Research: All Points Bulletin

First off, you should head over to this amazing website called Creative Uncut. It's full of concept art, and whilst it's all video games, that doesn't make the art any less stunning.
So anyway, the other day I was scrolling through Creative Uncut and came across some character art for All Points Bulletin. All Point Bulletin is a video game, as I mentioned this site is just concept for video games, that's pretty much a multiplayer version of Grand Theft Auto. I'm sure most of you are familiar with that. So, it has a particularly urban, grungy style to it, which is the perfect sort of inspiration for my series.

Here's just a few examples of character art from APB:

See, urban, grungy and pretty damn cool right? I'm loving some of the weird combinations, like the chaps that work quite well with the urban attire. Like an urban cowgirl. And then the guy below... Well, he's pretty scary, but he has studded belts and a cool "skater" look. 

The look of the characters is almost fetishistic, which is particularly evident in the above design with all the piercings and body modification. But even in the slightly tamer design below. See that school girl tie around the exposed cleavage? And the stiletto, knee-high, reflective leather (maybe even PVC) boots? 

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be trying this game out for myself to see some of these designs in action. Looks like the company responsible for it has gone in to administration, although the game was supposedly re-launched last year. Still, rumour has it that the servers are unreliable... I will become enraged, so...

Series synopsis

I've decided it would be best to keep my film and series blogs separate, so here's the blog for my series; Wonderland. And here's the brief synopsis for those of you that missed it in the other blog!

 Alex is a young boy who has been institutionalised after the death of his father and his mother’s disappearance. Alex’s suffers from delusions, seeing the world as a Wonderland, but a twisted Wonderland. One night, he manages to escape from the asylum and escapes in to the city; a dark, dangerous slum filled with all kinds of perils. Alice, one of the best doctors at the asylum, sets out to find Alex. She has been sent to bring him in, however she believes that by helping Alex see his delusions through to the end, he can be cured without returning to the asylum. Using a device to see what Alex sees, Alice follows Alex through the city, ensuring that he brings no harm to himself and others.

Expect concept art to follow!