Augmented Reality game "Mythos"
Character design – Lead artist – Concept art
“Mythos” is a Augmented Reality hero-based tower defense game developed for the Almelo based football team Heracles. The game is based on the ancient Greek pantheon, featuring stylized versions of gods like “Hercules” and “Aphrodite”.
Original brainstorming idea
The client football team “Heracles” proposed a request to create an Augmented Reality game to pass the time during the half-time break during the football matches. Our team came up with 8 different game concepts and after discussing with the client we decided to proceed with the tower defence idea. While the original idea was to make a stereotypical tower defence game, it eventually evolved where instead of towers the main center piece of the game would be heroes with active abilities.
Artstyle
The artstyle is based on the stereotypical stylized phone game – simplified shapes with no reflections, very limited use of pure black and pure white colors and hand painted textures with top down lighting. The architecture, general look and the color pallete is based on the game’s premise, which is the battles happening on Mount Olympus from the ancient Greek pantheon.
Game aesthetics
The game’s general look is created with the intention of emulating a battle taking place on Mount Olympus between gods from the ancient Greece pantheon. The architecture is based on the well known greek structures like the aquaducts and sculpted pillairs. While I had the control of game aesthetics, the scene buildings were modelled and textured by another artist.
Character design
The characters are based on the stylized version of the ancient Greek pantheon. While each character has their unique color that is prevalent across their design, all characters share the color of gold to tie in the characters together thematically. Their body shapes are stylized – the upper body is enlarged while having a small waist, utilizing the shape theory with upside down triangles to make the characters appear dynamic, fast and threatening.
Character creation process
1. "Heracles" first concept art
Heracles was first created using the iconic character details that are present in Hercules mythos - the lion head, the overly muscular body and an oversized weapon. After those details are added, the body shape is created using shape theory - using triangles to make Herakles seem threatening.
2. "Heracles" final concept art
After the clients critique, the concept art gets updated to meet the preferred requirements - clothes are changed to match the client's colors and the weapon made bigger to make Herakles as a character and as a team mascot to appear more threatening and powerful.
3. "Heracles" final concept art
The character is sculpted in ZBrush, fixing some of the details that would make sense in concept art, but not in a 3D environment. The model is then retopologized using Maya, after which it is then rigged, UV unwrapped before being textured using Substance Painter.
4. "Heracles" finalized 3D model
Substance Painter is used to bake in the high-poly details. The skin and details are hand painted in a stylized art-style. The only part of the texture that is at all metallic and smooth is the gold ornaments, which tie in with the rest of the level.
Character concept art & their in-game 3D counterparts
