Falcons: Creating the Art and Graphics
Selecting the Artist
The creation of the artwork was one of the most difficult parts of creating the final game. The first challenge was finding an artist who could match our desired art style and quality while meeting our budget and timeline constraints. We contacted over twenty different artists, and after considering quotes and timelines, we selected our artist: Jonah Andersson (Tuna Ceti V).
Concept Artwork
Creating the Artwork
Once we began working with Johan, we had to define what each art piece entailed. Glorious Old Zoo (the USAFA graduates who we partnered with for this project) spent a lot of time producing guidelines for the project and providing names, descriptions, and reference images for each piece. They gathered information ranging from uniform standards to pictures of cadet activities to ensure the art was an accurate representation of the Air Force Academy. Once Johan had all of our background information, he created a collection of sketches to define the composition of each piece. After receiving our comments and revisions, he began working on the first colored draft of the illustrations. After a series of revisions (mainly uniform corrections), the illustrations were complete and we had the final artwork for the game!
Creation of “Wing Commander” Card
Implementing the Graphic Design
When the artwork was complete, we began the process of adding graphic elements to merge the game with the illustrations. Good graphic design is key to making a game playable and visually appealing. Our graphic designers, Julián Tunni and Ariel Zajac, were essential to making the game functional and aesthetic. They created everything from the icons to board and card layouts to component shapes. It was an iterative and feedback-heavy process to shape the game into its final visual form.
