Research and Idea Generation
For the Asset Design unit I had to choose a main theme and a sub-theme, and then create an asset that fit those themes.
The four main themes were Horror, Fantasy, Science Fiction and Historical with the eight sub-themes being Alien, Corruption, Utopia, Dystopia, Celebration, Decay, Family and Beauty.
For the main theme I chose Fantasy and then Decay for the sub-theme.
Researching the Themes
I chose fantasy for the very large amount of reference imagery or videography I could take inspiration from. Playing many video games and watching lots of television/cinema meant I had a wide scope of the fantasy genre which I could use to generate ideas.
With decay as a sub-theme, I first had to gain an understanding of what decay is and how it differs to corruption. Both sub-themes are present in many forms of media. The Dark Souls series developed by FromSoftware has both corruption and decay present in many of its items. The Blasphemous Blade contains a corruption of sorts with “the remains of the countless heroes he (Rykard, lord of Blasphemy) writhe upon the surface of the blade”. The weapon shows corruption as it is comprised of the flayed flesh of others and is practically alive.
On the contrast, many items will have decay such as the rusted coins, broken straight swords and many more. This is decay because they have been broken down, usually by natural means.
The Asset Idea
For my asset idea, I first looked at what environment I would be developing it for. My environment idea is going to be a cottage in the forest with an alchemy lab in the upper part of the building. This lead me to look into what things I would see in this environment, specifically the alchemy lab. I decided that I would make a potion bottle of sorts as I could incorporate fantasy into it through magical effects and then decay through the appearance of the bottle or other things.
Taking inspiration from fantasy productions like Lord of The Rings, Skyrim, some Disney movies and other sources, I started the design process so that I had some idea of what the final product would look like.
Designing the Asset
Below is a mood board of the things I used to gain insight on what I would be making as my asset. One image that might be confusing is that of an umbrella belonging to the character “Fragile” from Death Stranding. This is because my vision for the potion bottle is to be out of place and angular by design.
