Portfolio
JSB is a two-player spy game, played in VR and on mobile, which I created with five other designers. The players are spies at the organization JSB and are sent out together to solve a mystery; the VR player sits in an office and has access to all sorts of gadgets and tools to help their partner, while the mobile player goes outside to find locations, talk to people, and find clues.
Group Project
role: character artist, ui/ux artist
Project Runtime
1 month
Software Used
firealpaca
For this project, I worked as character artist together with another artist, as well as UI designer. As usual, I also helped out with creating the concept at the very start of the project. My main challenge would be matching up my art style with that of the other character artist.
The early concept sketches of the VR player's office feature the front and side views of the room. The front view features a desk with all sorts of gadgets, the left view features shelves with items from previous missions that can be stored there for later use, and the right view features a workbench where the player can create new things. The notes in the images are unfortunately only available in Dutch.
For our game, we needed several character designs for the characters in the level we were going to showcase. I was tasked with creating the designs of the makeup artist, the weatherman, and the news reader.
The makeup artist is supposed to be a chatty type, who takes her job seriously but at the same time knows how to have fun. I tried reflecting this in her design by letting her wear some fun makeup herself, giving her piercings, and having her outfit be professional and well put together enough but with some playful aspects (the popped up collar and the rolled up sleeves).
The weatherman is supposed to be very chill and laid back. I mostly let this show in the outfit he wears, giving him a Hawaiian shirt despite the weather outside being rainy.
Lastly, the news reader is supposed to be a very charismatic guy who's mostly here for himself rather than anything else. I made him look well put together and made him radiate confidence bordering on arrogance, to achieve the look I'm aiming for.
The original concept art for the characters is drawn in my own style for convenience, allowing me to quickly sketch up some concepts to reach a final design. The official in-game characters are drawn in a different style, however, fitting what we had in mind for the game. The biggest challenge was to accurately mimic this style in order to make the characters match up with the characters drawn by the other artist.
The official designs add some fun glasses to the weatherman to amplify his laid-back nature, and the news reader is shown with a big grin to show his charismatic nature better.
For the UI design of the mobile version of the game, I chose a clean and sleek design, with dark interface and a brighter accent. I chose the color purple because it is a symbol of mystery, which fits the themes of the game well. The street view image used in the mockups would in reality be the camera of the player. The image used as placeholder is from Unsplash.
This project has taught me how to work in a different art style than my own, and managing an art style between different artists. It allowed me to create a concept for a game that's meant to be played both in VR and mobile, and it was challenging but also fun to find the right balance between the two players to make the game enjoyable for both. Lastly, it allowed me to practice with UI design, which I would love to do more of in the future.
