How We Defined Pirate Nation’s Art Style
Game art and visuals are a player’s very first impression of the game. Art has the power to draw people in and create memorable gameplay experiences. Today, we want to pull back the curtain and share how the art in Pirate Nation came to life.
For Pirate Nation, which is a light-hearted play on the romanticized world of 17–18th century pirates, we wanted a style that would be fun, playful, and inviting, with a lot of character and broad appeal. We didn’t want our art to be categorized as too serious, too cute, too conservative, or too abstract.
Constraints Drive Creativity and Design
The next important factors were the technical constraints involved in a web-based game and within the NFT market. Vector art would provide great flexibility, It has infinite resolution scaling, we could have programmatic asset coloring, and it gave us some fun VFX options.
We went through an intensive concept phase working out feature proportions, color saturation and contrast levels, and intricacy of detail, in order to have art assets that would read clearly at the sizes the art would be seen on mobile and PCs.
A Quest for our Distinct style
We wanted our art style to be timeless and distinctly ours, being instantly recognizable and a step apart from the crowd. We studied what was being done in the NFT space, and we looked to a variety of sources of inspiration, including classic cartoons, anime, and numerous illustration rendering styles. All the while we were making the conscious decision to not follow flashy, short-lived trends nor mimic established big-studio art styles in order to develop our art’s own unique style and character.
The Art Director’s Creative Process: A Voyage of Discovery
At the start, I wasn’t sure if our Pirates were going to look crusty and weathered, plump or gangly, heroic or creepy. Initially, they weren’t even going to be human. So who knew where we’d end up.
With all of that, I started sketching concepts. Seeing how our Creative Director and other team members responded to them would guide the next round of concepts, and the next, and the next. As this process continued our initial character came into focus, turning out to be more ‘handsome’ and ‘leading man’ than I was initially expecting, but it worked: steely gaze, sly smirk, exceedingly strong jawline, flowing hair. So, I nicknamed him “Handsome Harry’’ because having a cool nickname seemed like the piratey thing to do. And Handsome Harry set the baseline that all of the rest of our Pirates would be based upon.
We now have this crazy cast of swashbucklers, buccaneers and berserkers, and the occasional shark, ready to start their fun and weird pirating adventures in Pirate Nation!
Check out our website @ piratenation.game, follow twitter.com/PirateNationNFT, and join our community in discord.gg/PirateNation.
