Some Info on my new Idea

New brief, I am yet to fully finish the draft up of it but I have so much artwork that is just literally piled up in places along the floor that it is time for a super huge post.

MC came and talked to me about my idea, I showed her a handful of my first designs and some of the rudimentary work I had dumped on DA as back ups (so I can't lose them, and also to show my online friends what I was up to). She really seemed to like them, and asked me to post them all up (that is- over 100 different colours and bodies)

My idea was to create cute characters which a player could control and grow through game play. These creatures I named Fulloxes, spirit like animals which are cute but still kind of scary (not huge animeh kawaii desu eyes) with a skull like head. This I think is a good combination and I was keen to progress with them.

However, I found that within a few weeks of posting my cute little Fulloxes, hundreds of people on DA began favouriteing and subscribing to me. I was even pressed into making an online group for my Fulloxes.
 This was all very encouraging and I was amused by it all. 

I however, understod fully the risks, and no sooner did I get 'popular' pushing padt the 400+ subscriber mark, then did people start copying my ideas. A good example here;

Anyway, I did so many designs to show how diverse these creatures are. And how you can have SO MANY different colours.


But first I would like to show where the style came from and how it developed, much different from my usual artwork.

I used photoshop and traditional art mainly, in either very detailed styles or very simple, linless work:

Or stuff like this which just shows off how much I love insane creepy scary things:

Everything evil and terrible and satanic. This is where my art resides a lot;

But I wanted to come away from this, as I wasn't attracting much attention. People thought I was trying to be edgy or scary, when really I was just drawing whatever I wanted or fancied. So, to try my hand at something else I went in a completely different route- using pixilation in my work via the pencil tool on Photoshop.

For years I simple ABOLISHED the pencil tool, such a silly thing that I absolutely hated. But then I sore its potential for whimsicalness drawings and created this for a friend:

As you can see, nothing like my usual works. It was bright, somewhat cute and have a lot of motion to it as well as a full body image. But my friend LOVED it, and so I created this for her a little later based on her pet dog;

A quick simple little image, with a cute little border. Simple, but I feel; extremely effective.

I drew a handful of Fulloxes, about four or five after this and displayed it somewhere on my blog previously, but then never did much more with them.

For this new brief I looked back at my old work, and though I would of liked to sculpt in zbrush, some hideous monster lurching up from the abys; these new ideas just seemed so fresh that I decided to peruse them.

And this is where my obsession started. I began coming up with designs, quickly and simply, but as time went by; I spent the first few weeks basically glued to my computer drawing these critters in every possible way I could imagine to show how diverse they could be. And here they all are. I hope you enjoy!

Fulloxes age in four basic stages (not unlike the levelling up of a Digimon; Rookie, Champion, Ultimate and Mega etc) which I have listed them below.


There is the first stage; A Puffle.
Puffles are what the player begins with; a baby. Tiny, fluffy and utterly adorable. They mearly roll around and eat. They are simple, mostly either black, white or grey. This gives a little bit of an indication of what the character could look like in the later stage; but of course it all depends on what the player makes the Fullox do. Making a Fullox battle a lot by attacking little bugs and not eat much will make them black and skinny. A player that avoids little enemies and feeds their Fullox on lots of food white be more pale and more round. Certain foods will make certain colours appear. So, say eating red berries with cause red spots, white eating blue squiggly banana like fruits will cause blue stripes to appear.

Second Stage; A Puppy.
Puppies are the most well loved form of all. Cute, Robust and more agile. They can jump high and glide back down the the ground. They can run and walk and are great fun. Making the game faster and more exciting. The Fulloxes colours are usually well showing by now based on what the player fed them earlier. So far, the skull like head has no antlers or horns, but this will change as the player continues to the next stage;

Third Stage; An Adult.
The Adult Fulloxes can now fly! But also walk along the ground if needed. They can not go too high up on the game, but are able to very feectivly fly around as the game scrolls along. Now many enemies with appear- ones that can cause real danger and even kill the Fullox. The player must be careful not to be injured a lot before the Fullox can recover. At this point, A fullox may be able (if fed the right things- such as special gems or magical beans or something) to shoot fire, or ice, or smoke to defend themselves more effectivly then simply biting or batting at an enemy with their paws and back hooves.

Fourth Stage; The Eldar
The Eldar are the final stages, the most awesome and powerful. They are now very big! And can no longer go on the ground. But instead fly high up in the sky. Able to fly around 'cloud sharks' and battle extremely powerful enemies. This is the most energetic part of the game, and most rewarding. The Eldar have huge horns and antlers by now and look very cool indeed. There are also 'Bull Eldars' which are the hardest Fulloxes to get, as they take a lot of time in one session and need to have certain events happen.
Other special Fulloxes you may have spotted are the very dark black Fulloxes 'Obsidian' ones and then also the 'Glass' Fulloxes. Kind of like albino. These happen randomly, at a chance of around 1/1000 which makes them extremely hard to get. Obsidians even harder, at 1/10000 chance. Super rare! And look how long and slinky they are. Neato.
At the end, once the player is done, they will get to keep the Eldar Fullox as a character badge which they could show off to their friends on their mobiles or face book pages. Seeing as there are so many different outcomes possible, i would be extremely hard for two kids to have the same one. As such they may get competative and want to play more to make an even cooler Fullox then their friend. Or maybe trade heir Fullox for their friends. All of this could be done pretty simply.

Added an Eldar with some puppies, showing the scale of how big they get. Also it looks cute.

I liked the one above so much I put a bunch of puppies and an adult into one picture with a big pretty Eldar. It makes a lovely display image;

I like the gold look on this one, and realised I could add another feature to the game via this....

I took a while on the next Eldars, ones I call 'Bulls'. Bull Eldars are extremely hard to get, require a lot or ALL the food available and to defeat all the enemies. These are larger and have larger horns with more detail as you can see. Also note the ranking system; Copper, Bronze, Silver and then Gold. These are likely Fulloxes a player has to achieve after having collected enough other Fulloxes (say 10 for copper, 20 for bronze etc). This would be a goal to work towards and again adds competition between Fullox Players.

And then the ULTIMATE Fullox, being there is only one of them;

His long slinking skinny body is original and not be done again. I really think he is cool and desirable to players.

I also had this idea to do CYBORG Fulloxes, an extra for players who did very well and collected certain items. These Fulloxes had robotic parts on them which are extremely hard to find and collect in the game. Having enough would mean your Fullox would become a robotic creature. This idea is pretty neat too, however I haven't really looked into it too hard. May be a dead end, I much preferred the rank system above, but it was a cool idea at the time.

Scale diagram

Overal Evaluation

My overall attitude to this project on War Horses was very excited at first but as I got into it I found it to be quite... Sad. I enjoy horses and animals and such, but seeing horses killed and hurt among other things was quite upsetting. Made worse by other peoples lack of consideration for the creatures. Tom often commented on how 'It is just a horse' which deeply disturbed me. I wonder if I am just overly sensitive of animals feelings or if really other people just are cold towards animals.
So many times I was asked 'Why would people care about a horse?' and despite my vast research into empathy for animals within films and books- no one really took notice. Even when using their own pets- they still commented how they did not care.

My lack of ability to see past my own feelings held me back while developing my ideas. I really need to work on that and being able to understand why others feel that way.

Otherwise, my digital illustration skills seem to be improving! I was pleased with my final illustrations, my two beat boards (alas I would of liked to do more but time and illness but a halt on that) and my sweet little sketches and colour ideas. I enjoyed designing colours for horses based on real ones but found other peoples feedback on them to be so extremely varied (many saying they hated one while others say they loved it) that it confused me.

 I need to focus more on what I feel is good, follow my own instincts and not keep trying to do whatever other people like who are no part of my process. My team works and myself are who I should listen to- not my friends. 

As for working in a team with Tom; I did not really like it. Not anything to do with Tom; but I just do not like working with just one other person because when we disagreed- it was 50/50. In a three person group we could of voted on it 2-1. Which would of settled it. I will not be in a duel person team again. But four or five people would of been too many I still feel, butt hats just be me being roughly anti-social.

Three person groups or more should be attempted in future; not avoided for the sake of my own comfort.

Otherwise... For this project I did a huge amount of research that really shows off where I have come from with my development process. I hope to continue with such work in future as I feel this amount of detailed research is perfectly right! Despite my friends feeling otherwise.

Detailed research and picking and choosing what to follow is an effective way of improving my own ideas.

I hope my project is exciting and fun to read. And that we will not bore people with our work. I try hard to make my blog fun, exciting and more casual so people can see the real me and not some professional machine sat behind a desk. I am a real person with real ideas and concepts!
Thank you for Reading

Final Illustrations

Finished illustrations for the War Horse game. Putting them all Up now real quick.

I know my style is anime Disney fail face. It upsets me. But I don't think I can dig my way out of that one- especially not in time for this project. But it is pretty disheartening. Tom picked up on it really fast and I felt kinda bad; I did try to make it less cute and 'animuuu'. But honestly I like my human faces like this... Oh no. I am objectively deciding what to do with my art and avoiding certain things in pursuit of.... a style??? oh dear


Never mind; here is some body language of horses shown mostly with the ears.
And then with the bodies.

In our game your horse can be trimmed in the stable (as well as have your health and stamina improved by eating and drinking) to the players preference and depending on the weather of the mission.
Having the certain cut (the colour of the cut fur is slightly a lighter shade as you can see) will improve your horses performance slightly when used in certain situations. Basically for the seasons. Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.

As an example- for the Ice Fields mission- the lowest cut (Belly and Gullet) should be chosen if any at all. This means the horse has a lot of fur to keep him nice and warm but wont get ice forming on his underside where his sweat runs to.
For the summer Air Rescue mission, the top 'Hunter' cut should be chosen to shorten his coat so he does not get overly hot.

These sort of choices make the horse feel more personalized as well.

The grasses are an 'item' one would come across in the game while walking through fields. The player can choose to eat which grasses much the same as you can choose to 'Pick' flowers and weeds and such in Skyrim when you approach a bush or mushrooms etc
Your horse will graze on the grass you decide on- the grasses on the top in red will improve your horses health slightly but nothing else.
Picking the grass below in green below will improve your health and your stamina by certain high amounts based on the grass.
You can only eat so much grass before the horse is full up and can not eat any more. Over eating will make you gallop and canter slowly (because you are overweight and heavy- just like when you are carrying too much equipment).