Thursday 4 April 2013

The insides...

To make this game a little less.. erm... gross... and more under the category joy, I am hoping to 'cuteify' it up.

The first way I am hoping to do this is to use a hand-made feel for my game with the texturing. As mentioned before I love the hand-drawn texturing of games, failing that a soft fabic or cardboard effect used in games such as Little Big Planet or Ilomilo. For the organs of the dinosaur I wanted to use glitter, making it more magical.

I tried to see if any artists had combined meat like substances or organs with glitter, and unsurprisingly it is an area that to my knowledge hasn't been explored in the art world. I did however find one thing which made me giggle and feel slightly sickened, which was a can of 'unicorn meat' which you can buy  online. Although it isn't quite the effect I want to use, it is good as research as I had not previously thought of mixing the two to make that sort of texture and had only planned to have a solid glitter effect.
I then went on to explore how to make the concept of organs appealing and joyful, which is no easy task. I have managed to find a few illustrators which have successfully done this, using simple shapes, lots of colours and humour to create such well loved and cute drawings, of an otherwise grim theme.

Yōkai Daizukai, although not 'cute' looks into Japanese folk lore monsters, and their insides.
http://pinktentacle.com/2009/10/anatomy-of-japanese-folk-monsters/

I also found this unknown artist which does a similar thing with other Japanese folk lore creatures.
http://anewhype.com/2011/05/23/illustrated-anatomy-of-gamera-and-foes-from-1972/



Lim Heng Swee, has probably produced one of the most well known 'cute' anatomical drawings, depicting internal organs hugging. This style is one way that I can keep my game in a joyful style, rather than edging towards a darker tone.


Daniel Goffin has looked into a made up dinosaur type character, with a more surreal approach to it's insides, which could also be a way to make my game more friendly aesthetically.

Peter Spam has chosen to condence the structure of his character to one tiny section of the illustration, making it look more squishy and podgey, adding to his cuteness. Like the previous two images, this is another technique I could use.


In recent years more and more illustrators are choosing to draw cut-out images of famous film/animation/cartoon characters or toys, showing their imagined internal organs and skeletal structure. Below are a few artists and their examples, showing the different styles and takes on this subject matter.

Ryan Mauskopf 

Dr Romanelli

Jason Freeny



Although similar, Mads Peitersen focuses on looking at the imagined anatomy of household objects and technology, often gaming platforms and their controllers.


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