helloWorld

role: isometric 2d pixel artist, sound designer

helloWorld is a cosy, room-centric simulation of O-week at the Queensland University of Technology. it was created to show future students what moving away from a regional area and into dorms near campus may look like.

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view helloWorld on itch.io

onerous.

role: 2d pixel artist

onerous. is a game about the monotony of those who consistently overwork themselves, and the mental health issues that may arise from such behaviour.

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view onerous. on itch.io

Second String

role: concept artist, character designer, author

Second String is a written pitch for a movie of the same name. it follows two fantasy princes and their discovery of magical instruments that, when played, can summon powerful beasts to fight by their side.

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view Second String's pitch document

Mandjet — 1.0

role: artist, character designer, graphic designer

this booklet is the first of two created for an original table-top roleplaying game called Mandjet, developed by my team of five over the span of seven weeks.

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view the 'Mandjet 2.0' booklet

Mandjet — 2.0

role: 2d artist, booklet designer, author

this booklet is the second of two created for an original table-top roleplaying game called Mandjet, developed by my team of five over the span of six weeks.this specific booklet features an original campaign individually created by myself based on our group's overarching worldbuilding.

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view the 'Mandjet 1.0' booklet

Backseat Burnouts

role: 3d artist, level designer

Backseat Burnouts is an online multiplayer kart racing game featuring voice proximity.

more information coming soon

resume

interested in learning more about me?

view my resume here

alternatively, keep scrolling to see a snapshot of my experience.

deciding on the art style

upon meeting the rest of my group and deciding what our general game premise was going to be, i advised my team that although i could create 3d assets, i would be able to create something of a much higher quality if we did 2d instead.after demonstrating some of my artwork, they agreed. this allowed me to majorly play to my strengths to ensure that our project had an extremely high level of polish at the conclusion of our game cycle.

quantity of work

to date, this project features the largest quantity of assets i have ever created over the course of a 13-week period. this includes over 540 assets in the character customisation menu alone, over 250 room decorations, and a variety of other UI and minigame visuals.although it certainly made for a busy semester, i thrived off the challenge and am proud of how visually polished our game's final product ended up looking.

retrospective consistency

looking back on this project a few years on, one thing i find prominent now is some pixel size inconsistencies between the UI and room customisation assets.since at the time i was so focused on creating a large quantity of assets, it meant that certain visual components of our game did not receive as much attention as they deserved. in future projects, i aim to be more mindful of ensuring that the quality of the project overall receives just as much finesse as the quantity of assets it includes.

colour symbolism

due to the nature of this game handling more serious and depressing topics, one important aspect of the visuals i created for onerous. (and discussed thoroughly with the team) was restricting the colour palette to primarily subdued and muted colours.working with these muted colours was an insightful experience, as it forced me to be a lot more selective, particular, and intentional with my artistic representations to ensure the message the game aimed to portray was being visually reinforced. at the same time, it taught me how to balance and contrast shades well against each other, as i had to ensure that i wasn't selecting colours that were too dark or too bright that might have otherwise been detrimental to the visual atmosphere of onerous.the only exception to the "muted colour rule" was when the player is confronted with "memories", which instead use a heavily saturated palette to visually contrast the monotony of the player's day-to-day life with the happier memories of their childhood. thanks to my prior focus on a muted palette, these vibrant colours were very effective in being as eye-catching and emotionally "warm" as we were hoping to convey.

top-down perspective

after forming a team with Mark and Sienna, i was quick to let them know that while i could work with 3d assets, i would be able to work a lot faster (and achieve a higher level of polish) with 2d pixel illustrations. after seeing examples of my work, they agreed to let this guide the visual style of our game.we debated between isometric and top-down briefly, but ultimately we decided that top-down pixel assets would be a lot easier for our players to control, and would contribute better towards our player's immersion.this was the first time i had generated so many top-down pixel assets in such a brief period of time, so it was quite insightful to experience the production pipeline whilst finding ways to speed up my ability to create assets quickly and efficiently. it gave me a much greater depth of knowledge surrounding the precision that good pixel art demands.

pixel tiling & sprite sheets

onerous. was my first experience creating both accurate pixel tiling and sprite sheets.due to the more modular nature in which pixel tiling works, it was imperative that the assets i created adhered to the correct canvas sizes to ensure they could be correctly and easily placed throughout the game's environments. this facet of creating the visuals for onerous. helped me become a lot more precise and mindful of how even a single pixel out of place in a 2d asset could drastically change its readability.additionally, prior to working on this game my only experience with pixel animation was exporting individual frames and combining them into .gif files. throughout my work on onerous., however, our programmer Mark helped guide me towards understanding the importance and ease of use that sprite sheets provided. it has allowed me to become more professional in my animated workflow, as it means that small changes to the pixel character's animation can be made a lot faster and more efficiently.

the intent behind colour

one of the most prominent visual skills i honed whilst working on Second String was the importance of colour theory and conveying atmospheric intent via precise colour usage. i utilised this knowledge both in creating the four main character's designs, and illustrating the rough thumbnails that convey key moments throughout the proposed movie.

visually effective marketing

one aspect of Second String that i decided to experiment with was creating faux "promotional material" to visualise how this proposed movie would be marketed to audiences.i found this helped reinforce my attention to detail and develop my creative out-of-the-box thinking, as it required me to come up with visually striking posters that would convey the most important facets of the movie's premise whilst capturing and retaining viewer's attention. i especially enjoyed experimenting with silhouettes and layers, as can be seen in the example to the right.

the devil's in the detail

another important visual skill i honed throughout Second String's creation was the importance of tiny details in conveying the temperament and personality of characters on-screen. the most intricate example of this can be found in the decoration of Basilius' cello.given that Second String's magical instruments reflect the truth of the beasts they summon, studying the details of Basilius' cello can provide the viewer with insight into the beast's true intent before it is ever revealed on-screen.although at face value Basilius seems friendly and concerned for the welfare of the kingdom's people and the prince who wields his instrument, taking a closer look at his cello reveals depictions of wolfsbane, ornithogalum, and hemlock; three plants well-reknown for their gorgeous appearance, yet deadly nature.

time constraints

given that we were a team of 5 and the others in my group were primarily focused on completing the written content of our booklet, it was a challenge to balance personal deadlines with the overall deadline of the finalised booklet.whilst everyone was completing their written work, i drew up a series of environmental illustrations and character/item designs that would appear throughout the book as important places, people, and objects.considering my graphic designer status in the group, i ended up becoming somewhat of a pseudo-producer to ensure the team sent their completed written work my way as soon as possible. this was so i had ample time to get everything formatted, with adequate additional time spent on revisions as needed.although i am happy with how many aspects of this booklet turned out, i believe that the time i spent working on the booklet's visuals meant somewhat of a detriment to its overall formatting. i kept this in mind when moving into my second Mandjet project, and learnt, overall, that it was important to balance both aesthetics and readability to contribute towards a quality viewing experience.

character design

given that Mandjet combines ancient Egyptian aesthetics within a science fiction premise, it was quite fun working out how to incorporate the traditional appearance of Egyptian gods into somewhat futuristic suit designs.i ultimately ended up researching each of the gods and browsing many depictions of them to determine the most distinguishing traits that should be kept concurrent in each design. i then worked to make them look more streamlined, with colours reflecting their traditional appearance in a way that looked regal, intimidating, and somewhat "larger than life".

art style

one important visual trend i stuck with throughout the duration of creating art for our Mandjet booklet was ensuring every character was somewhat "flat" in appearance, and strictly looked left or right — never front-on. this was done to mimic the style of Egyptian hieroglyphs, and helped contribute towards our booklet's visual aesthetic (which was additionally reinforced via our primarily black and gold colour scheme).experimenting with mimicking art styles throughout this project was beneficial as it let me work out how to break down other artworks in a way that would let me copy their most prominent features. although this may not always be applicable in the projects i work on, being able to effectively incorporate my art with pre-existing artwork is an invaluable skill as it means i can match the appearance of others i may work with, on projects i may need to join part-way through. this helps with visual consistency and cohesion in team creations.

keeping it simple

after reviewing the finalised version of Mandjet 1.0, i wasn't quite happy with how the overall formatting of the book ended up looking. that's why in this booklet, i worked on keeping things much simpler, more compact, and visually clean. ultimately, this resulted in a more succinct colour palette with less detailed visuals and slight structural changes.

colour prominence

although many of the visuals in this booklet are much less visually complex than those i created for Mandjet 1.0, one visual component i tried to enhance was the striking effectiveness of using colour sparingly and only in important sections meant to draw the viewer's eye.i think this experimentation resulted in some incredibly effective visuals. it helped me develop a better eye for how more details don't always result in more visually distinct illustrations.the most obvious example of this is on page 8, as depicted to the right.

formatting

compared to Mandjet 1.0, i focused on making Mandjet 2.0 much more succint and to the point in its formatting. this meant allowing for more space between paragraphs, more compact text, and much less colour usage to ensure the booklet looked a lot more sleek and straightforward.the various images i included throughout the booklet helped give the pages character, and related to the content on the page in a way that added to the reader's visual experience.