We are excited to reveal the all-new art style for Wreckout - injecting the game with more colour, more character, and more action!
In our previous update we walked you through the development of the new Pinball Dream Park arena, now we'd like to show you how the all-new Wreckout characters were created.
Party-time Character
For the new-look characters, we've dialled up the cuteness, the coolness and the colour to create a diverse cast who are ready to compete and primed to party. Here's how the first two character for this new look were developed:
The first stage was simple sketches of different character ideas. We pulled out a bunch of references images for the style we had in mind, and the above sketches were produced.
Next were some more sketches of male and female variants of the character which we found most appealing.
Then we tried out a few vehicle ideas for the characters. For gameplay reasons, the vehicles need to be square-shaped. This is because they can turn instantly in any direction for maximum manoeuvrability. A longer vehicle design looks awkward when turning on the spot, so the square shape had to be maintained. As a result, vehicle A was the style we moved forward with.
More detailed sketches of the characters were then produced. You can see the grid lines beneath the car to ensure the vehicle is square shaped.
Then it was on to the colour test stage, to determine the how the characters would look with a lick of paint.
Finally, the characters were rendered off and animated to give us a polished result.
Only after the final character renders were produced was attention turned to producing the in-game vehicles to match, complete with rotating wheels and characters who could lean into turns.