Hello everyone,
I am Sari, the lead concept artist for The House of Tesla. Just like my colleagues before me, I am here to unveil a bit behind the magic that is creating the visuals for our game.
As was mentioned in the previous dev log, the era of Nikola Tesla is rich in visual inspiration. While The House of Da Vinci had good old, stylish Renaissance coat, with Tesla we can build on that, add new, cool materials and processes of the industrial architecture, then work with the huge leaps in science fields and finally sprinkle it all with the glamour of branching decorative art styles... and electricity!
And we sure do draw (pun very much intended) from this vast pool of visual inspiration. It is proving to be quite helpful any time our game designers come to us with their ideas neatly written down... or with some charming scribbles of a complex puzzle or mysterious device.
Our task is then both simple and difficult. Make it pretty, believable, and functional.
Sometimes we are given strict instructions about the looks or function. That means it is time for thorough research and inspiration hunting! It can range from photos and drawings of contemporary buildings, interiors, furniture, fashion, and decorative items which may lead us to obscure places of abandoned factories, heavy machinery, pictures of first cabling, and light switches and make us wonder how people even survived the first experiments with electricity.
There are other times when no one is really sure what is an item, room, or whole scene supposed to look like. Then... we vibe. Did you find an interesting photo of some old machinery? Use the lovely color scheme of rusty metals. A dramatic environmental shot? The lighting is neat. Wouldn't it look nice if applied to this room?
As you can see, our creative job can take us on many different and unexpected adventures.
And now, since words are not my first weapon of choice and I've already used too many of them... let me part with you by offering you a picture of Nikola Tesla in his natural environment.
Sarianne
Lead Concept Artist
Blue Brain Games
