Tales from:
The Mailboy
About
Tales from: The Mailboy is a cozy game where you play as a little kid named Milo, delivering letters to the townsfolk of an Italian coastline town. The art direction is a mix of 2D characters and a 3D environment.
This project was never finished, but a lot of planning work showcasing concept art, for both 2D and 3D, was created which is enough to show.
I was officially a 3D artist, but have also created many concept designs for 2D characters during the planning stage of the game.
TLDR
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Pitched several 2D character concepts based off of narrative storyline
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Explored types of Ghibli art styles
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Pitched colour schemes for main character
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Made turnarounds for future animation
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Created 3D room environment with asset kit
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Created 3D objects with Ghibli inspired textures
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Created examples of shaders that resemble 2D cell shading
2D Concept Art
Early Style Exploration
Before any actual character concepts happened, I began with an exploration of Ghibli styles that could be pitched to the team. It was important to understand what type of art we were going for, even in the very early stages of the game development.
For this, I made several visual representations of what styles we could go with.
"Types" of Ghibli styles and their distinctions
clothes inspired by Italian fashion
types of outlines for characters to a generic background
Character Design
Some specific characters were designed by me, based off of their early narrative description.
I focused on keeping the vibe bright, colourful, Italian-inspired, and sometimes magical.
six different character concepts; store owner, mayor's wife and daughter, Milo's dad and mom, and Duke the cat
Main Character Design Exploration
Milo, the main character, was initially designed by another team member, and I took that basis to explore his design a little more.
I also took it as an opportunity to figure out a colour scheme that suited the game the most.
list of colour combinations for Milo
Milo animation turnaround
3D Concept Art
Textures Concept
As the first concept for the 3D environment that was made, I created a little table scene while playing around with recreating 2D textures on a 3D object that makes it resemble a Ghibli art style.
I also played around with some shaders that could possibly better reflect the cell shading of a 2D animation. Two of those attempts were recorded in a video and pitched to the team.
Environment Concept
A big part of the game would be getting to know characters in the town, which would include being in closed spaces, including character's rooms. To test this, I created a small room for a hypothetical teenager that the player could explore in the game.
Although the game was cut short before this room could be finished, a lot was modeled. All the pieces of the room were then compiled into an asset kit for easier integration into the game.
asset kit