IN PROGRESS
This piece is an ongoing development and the details are reflective of the project in its current state.
Nashandra
A Dark Souls II Cinematic
The current piece of art I am working on is inspired by specific characters and cutscenes from the video game "Dark Souls II"
When first introduced to the final boss of the game, a character named Nashandra, I was highly impressed by the initial cutscene that led to fight itself but found myself very disappointed when the mechanics and gameplay did not match the quality of the cinematic just shown (in my personal opinion).
I decided that I wanted to see "player/boss fighting gameplay" that I felt matched the quality of the cutscene and that gives the character introduced more content and mechanics.
Process
My first step in this process was rotoscoping the initial cutscene. I wanted to include what drew me into the project in the first place and decided that having it hand drawn would suit the rest of the project which I also intended to hand draw using 2D animation software.
Rotoscoping the entire scene, which consists of of 418 frames, took between 10 and 14 days by spreading out the work everyday until completion.
Notes
Storyboard
Player Character Design
After completing the rotoscope, writing up notes and a basic (incomplete) storyboard; the next step was to draw up the "player" character - the visual that would give the viewer the sense of watching a character within a scene that had been controlled by a person playing a video game.
The finished armour design (as seen to the left) is inspired by a real armour set found in the "Dark souls II" game itself, but simplified for my own ease in regards to drawing the character repeatedly in the future.
I used the default male model from an IOS app "magic model" to give anatomic accuracy to build up from.
Cutscene Prelude & Editing
When finishing the rotoscope of the pre-fight cutscene, I realised that I felt there was not enough context or content that portrayed a progression of the character when seen in the game to how she looks in the final battle (as seen below.) Within the game, there is minimal indication that these two characters are the same person and I wanted to 'rectify' that whilst adding my own sense of lore to the character.
Taking inspiration from Bill Skarsgård as 'Pennywise' from Stephan King's "IT" and Javier Botet as characters like 'The crooked man' from "The Conjuring" and other monsters he has played from various similar movies, I was able to draw up and animate a horror inspired transformation from the human form to the true form.
Human Form Reference
Inspired Transition
True Form Reference
With the inspired transition (as seen above) sketched out, I moved on to basic editing of the piece which mostly consisted adding some pacing to the scene.
I spliced between the frames I wished to slow down or speed up and simply changed the time.
The editing decisions I made were also inspired by some of personal favourite horror movies such as the "Conjuring," "Insidious" and "Saw" series, all with input and/or inspiration from director James Wan.
3D Work & Game References
With the prelude to the official cutscene 'finished,' it was time to move on to the post cutscene content. Thanks to a good friend and reddit, I was able to download collision data of all of the buildings and areas in "Dark Souls II" and place them into a map viewer (as seen above). This gave me a perfect reference to use for accurately mapping out the arena in which my player character would "fight" the final boss because my intention for this project was to recreate and expand on existing content and so accuracy is an important part of that.
With access to an accurate reference that didn't require going within the game itself, I have been able to start creating a recreation of the arena, in 3D software, that the final boss takes place in to be able to have exact references for player character perspective and camera angle changes; which I personally find difficult to hand draw when trying to recreate how a real person would control a character in a video game. Using blender and basic tools like extruding, I have been able to begin modelling and will continue adding accurate details found within the area.