Knightlight is a first-person 3D puzzle platformer that was created as a university project. Knightlight's aesthetic focused on whimsical fairy tales and bugs. During the first half of production, I acted in art lead responsibilities such as meetings and delegating tasks and assisted in project management. In the latter half, I was the project manager, ensuring the team's efficiency and project completion. Throughout the project, I was consistently working with the Design and Programmer leads. I created 2D and 3D assets throughout production. Knightlight was showcased multiple times at local Game Dev community events.
Initial Concept Art and Illustrations
For the first half of production I was in charge of the 2D artworks, including the character designs and splash art. Each character draws inspirations from bugs and clear job roles, using defined silhouettes to ensure the player can not only differentiate them but understand what area of the kingdom they belong to, in the overall Knightlight worldbuilding.
Before creating any sprites, I would warm up by creating small 'chibis' of the characters. The team ended up loving them, and they got implemented as easter egg collectables.All concept art and sprites were made in Procreate or Clip Studio Ex.
Polished Character Sprites
Once we were granted more time on the project, I revisited the character designs and refined their uniting elements so that each character could feel unique yet connected. To do this, I used example bugs to decide what elements could tie the design scheme together. Eventually, I decided on antennae, wings/other bug body elements, facial crest and pointy legs that resemble their tarsal claws. Some of the core characters received multiple sprites for differing emotive dialogue.
3D Models
Due to the extra time we were granted on the project, we were able to expand our scope and therefore needed some more models! I created multiple decorative assets and hero assets. There are always issues during collaboration, and I took on extra modelling responsibilities to ensure we had a refined project for submission.
All assets were created in Maya/zBrush, Adobe Substance Painter, then rendered in Unreal Engine 5.
