Character Art Progress
Hi everyone,
I'm Maxx Kaufman, Art Director on The Bard's Tale IV. The world of Caith is a place of fantasy, adventure, and a bit of mystery and magic as well. In our previous updates and in our original Kickstarter text and
touch points document, we've talked a bit about the game's art direction, and how we are building a world that is inspired by Scottish culture.
The Bard's Tale IV is based on legends and folktales, and our artwork and designs are meant to be evocative of all the beauty and artistic traditions of the Celtic and other pre-Christian peoples of the north. This world and its inhabitants are accented everywhere with Celtic elements that we are using to bring a particular personality and design that feels unique to the game, with its own mystical and ancient flair – while also still feeling true to the high fantasy feel of the classic Bard's Tale games.
But you came here for art, so I'd like to share a few new examples of that with you today.
Characters & Monsters
The last few months, we've been churning away on new character art for the game. We've shown you a fair number of environments previously, but now we'd like to show you some of their inhabitants, too. Some of these are familiar to old fans, while others might be new faces.
With all our characters, we're instilling a sense of personality into everything, with ever-so-slightly exaggerated features that touch on their most iconic elements. We're also using things like varied clothing and equipment (with either animation or simulated physics) to avoid repetition and give a sense of physicality to them.
Note that the shots below are renders of our in-game models, but are still works in progress so may change. And, while we are peppering in some hints at gameplay ideas below, bear in mind those details may change as well.
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