Here is that concept for first of the two main sides. The Peacock. Much like I did earlier on with the hawk concept I kept to the royal nobility feeling, with the plated armour and elaborate design. These connotations of pride and honour carry through through the same aspects. The vice arrogance will be shown through the characteristics, explained in the miscellaneous narrative assets (art book/story book).

The Owl

Here is the initial concept for the people of the owl. I wanted to have something with the look of a monk with neutral and gentle colours. Confining this to a silhouette of an owl I was able to strongly connote the bird species combined with the monk look.

The links to its virtue and vie and more subtle. The blacked out hood relates to deceit whereas the posture and physique of the figure relate to wisdom.

The Vulture

I thought I would start with a concept that had very simple symbolic imagery. Referring to imagery of a vulture, its quite obvious to see they have quite defining features that can be used quite efficiently in a concept


Taking these features into consideration it didn't take me too long to piece together this quick pencil sketch. As you can see in the image, I have tried to capture the physique and posture of a vulture whilst retaining the humanoid look that I want to keep consistently throughout the different races.


Above you can see that I worked from a colour pallet to deduce the hue that would work the most concurrently with the connotations that the a vulture produces.

The narrative concept

Taking into account the context of Infinite Strategy, we have begun to piece together an in game narrative that can will be played out in the scenario of the game. The time period that the player is immersed in the narrative is during a war. The war is between the Peacocks (pride) and the Magpies (ambition). The Owls (insight) and Vultures (Calm), both wielders of magic, joined separate sides. The Vultures support the Magpie's and the Owl's joined the Peacock's. This consequentially makes the game a two player game, with a separate deck for each "army".

Now that the general direction of the narrative has been asserted, it can be built upon with assets. The nest few post will be re-concepts of the four different races.

The new legend

“In the beginning there was a whisper in the dark, an Echo of what had passed before.
Through time this whisper became a voice. A voice of virtue and vice, infinite and incomparable.
Though within its balance it found only loneliness. The Echo began to fade for it had no peer to reflect upon.
In its last moments, to save its self from eternal silence, the Echo siphoned four pieces of its essence into Entities unto themselves.
We know these Entities as:
Pride the Peacock,
Ambition the Magpie,
Calm the Vulture,
Insight the Owl.
The Entities surrounded the Echo, resonating its essence, halting its fade.
However the Echo was not eternally safe, for it had made a grave mistake.
The Entities’ virtues and vices were balanced individually.
Pride came with honor and arrogance.
Ambition came with affluence and greed.
Calm came with patience and lethargy.
Insight came with wisdom and deceit.
Together, within the Echo, the Entities’ essences were an equilibrium but when separated, they clashed.
A battle between the Entities ensued for a time we cannot conceive, in the end however, the Echo had no other choice but to destroy the Entities and in doing so dispersed their essence.
From the ashes of this tragedy the fragments of their essence formed our world and its four nations, the walls of the prison that now incarcerate the weakened Echo.
It is inevitable however, for we are not eternal, that the Echo shall once again take back the essence that gives us life, devouring us all.”

Big step backwards and a huge step forwards

After some insightful discussion, before I could even finish the last of my concepts, IOUKA and I have decided that the initial creatures we have used for our Entities (gods) are too cliche and we need to tighten the context a bit more. We decided that perhaps birds would be a better idea. Keep the same vice's and virtues as before just match them to different bird species.

As we veered off on this creative tangent everything seemed to fall into place, even to the extent of our initial planet design (This will be explained in a later post).

For pride we chose the Peacock, for insight we chose the Owl, for ambition we chose the Magpie and for calm we chose the Vulture. So like before with this fresh in my mind, I rewrote the legend/prophecy and did some mood sketches. I also fleshed out these illustrations a little further by adding some colour.

Initial mood designs

Resonating straight off the inspirational flow that IOUKA and I began with I moved swiftly onto some quick pencil design whilst the ideas were still fresh in my mind. Because each nation of people were designated an Entity (God) that had their own virtues and vices I was able to draw from direct connotations using symbolic imagery.

The first of the people are of the Entity "Pride, the Hawk". The virtue and vice of Pride is honor and arrogance. These aspects, to me, instantly connote nobility and aristocracy. A people who dress elaborately and believe they live in a higher place in society (Note: Perhaps literally, a thought for future concepts.) asserting themselves arrogantly above everyone else. From these initial thoughts I illustrated a soldier of these people, armour that has a sleek style with symbolic shapes and features that refer to birds of prey. As You can also see their physicality is light and slim, another connotation to their animal Entity.

The second people are of the Entity "Calm, the Bear". The virtue and vice of Calm is patience and lethargy. When relating these aspects to a fantasy world it brings up images of mages and shamans, beings who take time in what they do. Then relating that to a roaming bear I find my mind turns to nomads. So in a simple process I have decided the "People of Calm" to be Nomadic Shamans. As you can see in the image the physique of these people is large and lumbering. This is a direct connotation to the likes of bears. The connotation to the virtue of patience lies in the appearance. The intricate woven robe that would have obviously taken a long time to wrap and the detailed time consuming tattoos, do this. The vice of lethargy however will be shown through the charcteristics of these people, in the their heavy eating, drinking and sleeping.

The third people are of the entity "Ambition, the Pig". These people thrive on their affluence, and are renowned for their advanced technologies and unmatched logic. Because of this affluence they have a grandure that could match the "People of Pride" (as I have made clear in the image with the elaboratly designed heavy armour). However because of their affluence I see them being quite left wing but only within their nation whereas I see the "People of Pride" being very right wing. Perhaps these two peoples could be the focal point of a war? The main connotation of this people is the connection between their Entity the Pig and its vice greed, driven by their ambition. Their Nation thrives but they want more.

Echo

IOUKA and I wanted to have a world that had a very basic theme and could evolve with in its self without growing too complicated. We also wanted to steer away from having any kind of direct reference to the real world. We wanted to devise something truly unique.

Quite unsurprizingly, we thought the best place to start would be the start. The story of how our concept world came to be. After a day of brainstorming we developed a creation story, with a simple yet engaging narrative.

“In the beginning there was a whisper in the dark, an Echo of what had passed before.
Through time this whisper became a voice. A voice of virtue and vice, infinite and incomparable.
Though within its balance it found only loneliness. The Echo began to fade for it had no peer to reflect upon.
In its last moments, to save its self from eternal silence, the Echo siphoned four pieces of its essence into Entities unto themselves.
We know these Entities as:
Pride the Hawk,
Ambition the Pig,
Calm the Bear,
Insight the Cat.
The Entities surrounded the Echo, resonating its essence, halting its fade.
However the Echo was not eternally safe, for it had made a grave mistake.
The Entities’ virtues and vices were balanced individually.
Pride came with honor and arrogance.
Ambition came with affluence and greed.
Calm came with patience and lethargy.
Insight came with intelligence and deceit.
Together, within the Echo, the Entities’ essences were an equilibrium but when separated, they clashed.
A battle between the Entities ensued for a time we cannot conceive, in the end however, the Echo had no other choice but to destroy the Entities and in doing so dispersed their essence.
From the ashes of this tragedy the fragments of their essence formed our world and its four nations, the walls of the prison that now incarcerate the weakened Echo.
It is inevitable however, for we are not eternal, that the Echo shall once again take back the essence that gives us life, devouring us all.”

We were both extremely pleased with how this turned out. Mainly because it has left a perfect stencil to fill in. Four nations, four decks of cards, four sets of characters and a world to design through an art book.

IOUKA has begun work on this creation story, devising a symbolic language to present it in. I am moving on to the the nations aesthetic designs, working up to the final character card designs.

The concept structure

Both IOUKA and I wanted to explore every corner of our idea and begin to build it up piece by piece. We wanted a world with different structured races, with their own lore, aesthetic connotation and narrative. Then through the Infinite Strategy platform create decks for each race and play out battles which will immerse the player in what we have created.

Our first job was to sit down and list the miscellaneous assets we will need to for fill our ideas. We finalized on: A short story explaining our world (perhaps in the form of a scroll), A character art book for each race along with descriptions to integrate them into the narrative. IOUKA also wanted to use the work he has been doing in his current project to cross over.

Recently he has been working on symbolic written language and came up with idea of writing perhaps a legend or prophecy in a scroll or book. This would be a unique miscellaneous piece of art which adds to the depth of the developing narrative. Along with an alphabetic key it would be another interactive aspect, in which the player can attempt to decipher the legend.

The Plan

This blog is to record the developments of a narrative world created in the format of "Infinite Strategy" (refer to counterpart blog).
The overall concept is that, through the website editors of Infinite strategy, the player will be able to create assets to flesh out an idea or design.

Some of these assets will be key to actually playing the final purchased board game. These assets will be character cards, landscape board and scenario rules (explained as developed).

Other assets will be optional to the player, being miscellaneous ways of fleshing out a story world simply for the players achievement and satisfaction. These assets may possibly include items such as a Story book, World maps, Custom box art, Character art etc. Anything that will help solidify the players creation.

For this individual project I am going to be working in collaboration with fellow artist IOUKA. Being good friends and fans of fantasy narratives we are going to work together in creating a world which will be presented in the format of Infinite Strategy. My hopes are it will be a shining example of the potential Infinite Strategy has.