americanmcgee
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Corrupted Dreams and Beautiful Nightmares.
🕑 Added 2021-10-06 14:00:07 +0000 UTCHi everyone, Alex here with an update on Alice: Asylum pre-production work.
With so many moving parts on this project at any given time, there’s always a lot we can cover.
Having spoken to American this morning (Update: he’s doing well and kicking butt, he's still just wildly busy), we’ve got a lot to share with you all.
Heads up. Spoiler-y artwork update at the end of the post.
Firstly, Joey has just submitted a final illustration for rounding out the level design for the boss encounter with Bill the Lizard.
This is the beautiful opening image for this post above.
With Joey’s work, I find it fascinating how it can be dreamlike, nightmarish, distorted, but still retain a child-like innocence simultaneously. Her execution and style in her art speak volumes of her talent.
We’re lucky to see her process below here too. From loose initial lines, through to final artwork.
I’m sure you’ll agree, she’s nailed the atmosphere and design of Bill’s den. Let Joey know how you feel about her work in the comments.
Next up, we’ve got some early concept sketches of the Liddell Family from Adam.
A young Alice, her older sister; Elizabeth, (“Lizzie”), and Alice’s Mother gather around the aftermath of a mishap resulting in Alice unintentionally hurting herself. They also thoroughly yeet the family tea-set.
Without getting into heavy spoiler territory, memories of Alice’s family members are further explored in Asylum, intentionally deeper than ever before. If you want to brush up on this scene and explore some of Alice’s past, it can be read in the Narrative Outline, (pages 52-55).
For now, marvel in Adam’s sketch work. His use of body language is excellent. Effectively communicating the pain in Alice, the warmth in Lizzie, and the mixed emotion in Alice’s Mother.
We’re actively discussing this scene and working on it between Adam, Omri and Myself, so if you have any feedback for us to consider, now is the time. Please be cool and considerate with spoilers in the comments if you’ve read the story.
Also from Adam and Omri, here’s a Chaos Clock prop design that was submitted recently.
Individual prop designs like this are useful in establishing aesthetic and recurring assets in the game-concept art. This was based on original designs way back from American McGee’s Alice (2000).
Personally, I’d like the Chaos Clock in Asylum a little darker in aesthetic to match the early 2000 era vibe… but that’s basically me being a broken record on this project. I like my concept art with teeth. Literally and figuratively. “Make it darker” is my thing.
However, it’s important we balance those sharp edges with the beauty, wonder, and whimsy we expect from Alice’s broken Wonderland. The benchmark I feel is; “Make sure it looks like it could rip your face off. And also make sure it can be framed, admired, and hung up in a beautiful high-end art gallery”.
Those needles sometimes sway more in one way than the other, but if there’s a healthy mix of both, and other visual counterpoints that help strike that balance, we’re in good territory visually for Asylum.
The Chaos clock is intended to be a clear visual cue of the Shadow manifesting in Wonderland. Showing both the level of corruption across the world and the time left before everything is consumed.
It’s our Doomsday Clock. We might have more work to do on this one to communicate those elements, but I think it’s a great start.
What about you? Weigh in if there’s any feedback we should consider on this one.
This concludes our “Spoiler-Free” section of the artwork review.
Scroll below to get into the spoils.
Still here?
Adam and Omri have turned in an updated pass on the fate of everyone’s favorite scientist. Not yet finished, but it shows the process of our selected scene choice.
We went with Option C. and worked on Rabbit’s pose to match Alice’s.
However, based on the feedback we received in the threads on the earlier Patreon post, we are going to show Hatter struggling and fighting more against the Chaos at the base of this image.
We don’t expect it to go too well for the old boy, and the end result of Hatter's struggle against Chaos will be further communicated in the next pass. Stay tuned. We’re about to get gruesome.
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Anything to run past us? Drop it in the comments.
We’re keeping a close eye on all open communication channels, and it was great to see such a large level of engagement from our community in the last few posts. Your feedback helps guide our decisions and the actions we take as a team, so keep it coming.
The next update will be a doozy, (I'll be literally drafting it up as soon as I send this one off) so we’ll all chat again soon.
Cheers,
Alex
Comments
We need that clock as the next Patreon item
Saleh Abu-Rashid
I love the pictures of Lizzie taking care of Alice's shenanigans. It gives a fresh breath and a window to how things were before Alice lost her family.
I love all the artwork that involves Alice's family but in the end we can only select one so I'll go with D and I have read the script for Alice Asylum but not all of it
Love the art work very good the people drawing they know what there doing :)
Sarah McKeegan
I’d go with D for the family scene! The ready of the art is awesome!!!
Greyson Kehm
For the Liddell family scene, I'd go with D. I'm loving your new artworks! You've got some talented people working for you!
Karma Chameleon
Fangirl scream! Ahh I love the artwork!!!! And for the Hatter scene I am so excited to see the new image where he fighting til the end. Woo! I know other people said it too but it is super cool when your idea is incorporated into a game!
Hello, well. This is my opinion. I really like the story and the game, and if it's not so difficult for you (only if you can) can make a presentation of the house before all the disaster happens. Maybe mixed with cutscenes and a part that you can play as Alice in her's house. Then the disaster happens and start a new scene where Alice wake up and get out from the window as like her say in AMR or do some gameplay where she's scape from all the fire and trying to save her family but she can't do nothing for save them. Well thanks for read and NICE WORK MCGEES I really like both games. Bye bye.
Oh, I remember one of the first parts of memories in Madness Returns, where we can hear words about jumps. Is it this moment on the drawings?
Joey's work is one my favorite for Alice :D
Love that art from Joey 😍
![[井戸水屋]黒すけ from fanbox](https://patrefans.com/kistorage/37951.jpg)
