Creating Creatures for Scion! news

Creating a Scion

Hello I'm Doyle, (aka Judexis) the artist of the project Scion. I'd like to talk a little bit about my process in creating creatures (also called Scion.) There will be over 100 Scion for the finished
project and each one requires a lot of artwork to get to a completed state. In this article I will
go through some of the steps of how I created one of our newest Scion, Todon!

Scion uses sprites for pretty much any in-game visible object. This is to keep a consistent art style throughout the game. The Scion are also done this way. Each creature must be drawn from 3
angles in order for it to be used.

Here we see another Scion, Sprig, shown in 3 angles. Scion have multiple sets of animations that must be done for each facing. These include idle, movement, attack, casting, and struck. Most Scion have a total of 36 frames which must be done in order to make them viable for the game!

When I want to create a new creature I have to think about what I want it to look like. In Scion, the monsters should look primarily like plants or animals that exist here on earth with a slight twist. Our game will focus on evolving and customizing creatures. The creatures start out in their first form (simple), but can be evolved to become complex! When I designed Todon (who is a simple-form creature) what I thought about first was what animal I wanted to base Todon off of!

I needed a creature to base an evolutionary line of Scion with hooves. Doing some quick research on evolution, I discovered that an ancestor to many of our modern day hoofed creatures (ungulates) was in fact a sort of prehistoric tapir! Tapirs seemed like the perfect fit for what I would base my new creature on. The name Todon was due to the tiny toes on the little guy you see in the reference pictures!

So now I had a base of reference and I had a name, so it was time to design!

This is the initial sketch I did of Todon. I did some musing about how his legs would act during
the movement portion of the animation and was stumped for a while. I wanted a sort of leaping run,
not a hard gallop, but something more playful.

One day I found this .gif of Bugs Bunny while aimlessly browsing Reddit. Though it is silly, silly wasn't too far from playful! I opened this in Photoshop to take a look at the individual frames.

Movement in Scion is done in 6 steps. I needed to come up with way to display this in 6 steps which would look consistent across the three facings. Here you see the sketches I did in order to aid in making this happen. Movement is probably the most difficult part of creating a new Scion so I usually focus on this task first. I also generally focus on one facing at a time.

Once Todon's base form was done it was time to animate. When I create creatures like this I am sure to separate moving limbs onto their own layers in order to better animate them. I do not use an animator program, instead I draw the moving parts again when they would shift.

There it is! I make a .gif to test each frame and make sure it is consistent. Then it is off to the other sets, idle, struck, attack and cast! Then to repeat the process for the other facings!

After all the facings are done, I need to make a portrait for the Scion for display in menus and in combat!

And there you have it! A Scion from an idea to completion as a sprite in-game! I hope you have enjoyed a little look into my thoughts and process, and hope that you will keep watching for more updates and our Kickstarter in the months ahead!