Katie DeJarlais
Tear of the Sea
Tear of the Sea is a short video game made in a production class with a small group over ten weeks.. I was primarily responsible for the creature designs and cinematic illustrations.
The game is set in an underwater environment, and I was tasked with designing creatures to fit.
The Protagonist
Designing the protagonist was a bit of an undertaking. Despite a push for story focus, what the character actually was never came up. My only instruction was 'lives underwater and is bipedal'. The group had previously expressed interest in sea angels, so most of the initial sketches tried to adapt them to a character.
Most feedback came from the rigger, who expressed a preference for legs over a tail. After the general shape was nailed down, I tried different head and body variations. We eventually settled on the final design you see to the right.
The Antagonist
The antagonist ended up being a bit rushed due to a lapse in communication. It was not made clear to me if it would ever be visible in gameplay, and in the end it kind of wasn't. It did make an appearance in the cinematics, though, so after confirming it did in fact need to be done I rushed out some designs.
The only guidance I had for this creature was 'leviathan', so I had a pretty wide range to work with. After four iterations (due to lack of time) we settled on the more jagged, crystalline one. I had chosen to go down this path because crystals featured heavily in the game. I wasn't sure it would be chosen due to the creature being inside a crystal as well potentially being a bit much, but the team liked it.
Other Creatures
Cinematic Illustration
