Pirate Story

As I wrote yesterday, the Pirates Online website now has Desktop Galleon available for download (PC only). I thought it would be fun to show some of the process that led to the final imagery. Read on!

First of all, I need to thank Gio over at Yummy for giving me a shot at this. It was my first experience doing th is kind of work, and I’m very grateful to him for trusting me with such an important project despite my lack of prior work in this field. It was a blast!

This drawing from Disney is how it began. This, along with several other images were provided along with a detailed description of where the islands should be placed relative to one another, et cetera.

There were also dozens of inspiration images like these, largely assembled by Yummy. They wanted it to have a very old-map theme, but also to have a fun, catchy video game look.

So here’s where I started. I wadded up a piece of printer paper and flattened it back out on my kitchen counter. I think the red in the corner is from my camera’s focus light. Anyway, it didn’t matter in this case. I just needed a starting point.

By the end of the evening, my Photoshop screen looked something like this. It was just a quick style-guide to see what the Yummy guys thought of it. They thought it looked too rough and hand-drawn, and wanted something more detailed.

As I continued adding props and layout elements I’d send over comps like this one for placement. I use the full power of Photoshop to make this process as fast and flexible as possible. Smart Objects are a life-saver in this kind of composite work.

I tried to develop a style that was both detailed and hand-drawn. I did the line-work first on top of a bed of water, just to get placement and composition.

Next I filled in the colors and started some of the GUI elements, like the HUD you see in the corner.

The icons started out like th is and evolved from there. We needed to keep the download light, so we were definitely trying to keep it simple (no animations, etc). The icons needed to be very obvious, but also in-character for the game. This was a little tricky for some icons, as there aren’t necessarily real-world items to easily represent the desired concept. For example, we needed extra “armor” for the ship, but it’s hard to create a totally obvious literal icon for that. So you end up with a shield; even though a shield isn’t really appropriate, it’s the best thing to describe the function.

I also developed a transparent logo for use in the game. Needed to keep it quick and simple, but wanted some of the gaudy ornate elements that signify “pirate.” This is just two overlapping fonts, a layer mask, a drop shadow, a gradient overlay, and a bevel/emboss with some color-dodge on top. Not bad for a quicky, eh?

With our first round of feedback it was decided that the map was too “young.” We needed it to be darker, more mysterious, and the view should be more over-head. So I erased the islands and started again.

A few revisions later, and here’s the final map. Notice the sea monster and treasure chest. I just threw those in for fun, and everybody liked them!

This was a super fun little project for me, and I hope to do more like it in the future. It’s a nice rest to get away from the heavy restrictions of product design and engineering and just draw some fun, fanciful cartoons for a while!