My primary task for the first week of this past sprint was to brainstorm ideas for a new ranged enemy. When I first began brainstorming, I was having a really difficult time thinking of a creative, new concept. The current enemies we have are rock golems, flowers, mushroom casters, and spiders. We also have flying venus flytraps and blueberry bush people in the works. These are great and I love the variety, but they're also why I struggled so much with coming up with a new ranged enemy.
I ended up procrastinating my task by continuing to practice using Blender. I wanted to quickly finish up the hair and model a simple top, but it actually ended up taking around 2 hours. I didn't have too many difficulties with the hair, it was just rather tedious and time consuming because I created individual Nurbs paths for each strand of hair, and I decided to create two layers of hair in the back. I then experimented with creating a shirt out of a plane. I created the shape in the front view, duplicated it for the back, and then bridged the loop cuts to connect them.
I did eventually start working on my actual task again; because I had been struggling with brainstorming, I decided to start by researching and finding inspiration online. I tried to think about what other forest creatures or organisms would be found in a magical place like the world of Bloom. My initial thoughts leaned toward something like walking trees that threw leaves or branches, or maybe even acorns—something like Trevenant from Pokemon. I didn't really like that idea, though, so I kept thinking. Finally, I thought of squirrels that throw acorns stored in their cheeks, staying at their max range and being overall nuisances. Overall, these sketches and research took almost 2 hours.
The final time breakdown of the first week is as follows:
2 hours—Blender practice
2 hours—new enemy brainstorming
0.5 hours—studio leads meeting
1.5 hours—studio-wide meeting
In total, I spent around 6 hours on the studio this week.
My time breakdown in the second week was a lot more straightforward. Other than meetings and playtests, all of my time was spent on creating vector art for the ranged enemy. It was a simple enough design, but it'd been years since I last used Illustrator. It was difficult relearning Illustrator because I was never too familiar with it to begin with. Everything I wanted to do, I needed to search up, and I'm sure a lot of the processes I was using (i.e. mirroring a shape) could be done much more efficiently, but my unfamiliarity with the software slowed me down. As a result, what I have currently took me around 4 or so hours to do. This is still a work in progress, but at the least it can be added to the game as temporary art. There are still some finishing touches I want to change, like adding more shadows or adding pink to the ears, or even giving the squirrel an acorn to hold. I'd also like to give the squirrel a hat, or something that would give it more personality beyond just being a squirrel.
Finally, the breakdown for the second week is as follows:
4 hours—vector art
0.5 hours—studio leads meeting
1.5 hours—studio-wide meeting
In total, I spent at least 6 hours on studio-related work this week.
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