STORYBOARD

DESIGN

5 REGIONS, 6 CUTSCENES

STORYBOARD DESIGN: Britney Phan (Concept, Iteration and Final), Ryan Ngoon (Concept), Kanoa Loo (Iteration)
IN ENGINE ANIMATIONS: Brendon Mye, Kanoa Loo
MUSIC: Jadon Ark
VA: Britney Phan

QUICK OVERVIEW

TEAHOUSE - INTRO

MOUNTAIN

POND

BAMBOO

SHRINE

FINAL

TEAHOUSE

PROCESS

From humble beginnings...

The original image used for referencing was pulled from google, which can be found on Ayan Chakraborty's Artstation. I then added text explanation to it to represent stage/regional progression for our game.

PRELIMINARY
The SOLBREAK team knew they wanted some sort of plot for KURU. What kind of plot?
"Help Kuru find his way home and climb up a mountain."

That was it, really... That was what we were given, and we had to illustrate that somehow.

Plot progression wasn't going to happen all by itself, so I had to step in and whip up some guidelines.

As this was near the beginning of KURU's production, we believed that both me and our associate illustrator, Kanoa Loo, were going to be working on the cutscenes. However, as time passed and as we knocked out one task after another, our flexibility worked best depending on efficiency - Kanoa for preliminary drafting (for the following cutscenes: Bamboo, Shrine, Ending), and Britney for iteration and finalization.

This is the very first Storyboard draft of the very first cutscene that I was given by our dearest lead designer, Ryan Ngoon. Yes, it was also taken in the wrong orientation, but this gave me more than enough to work with.

Making some suggestions as to how to make this draft a little more "dynamic" as requested by the designer. I then presented this to the crew, asking if we would make any modifications.

Panel 1-4

This was the preliminary cutscene that I drafted up. The styleguide was very much up in the air for cutscenes, so I was very much open to critique and changes, especially with the FX.

Panel 5

With the context of the blocks I made for teahouse, I wanted the house to be in disarray. Kuru passing by would be obligated to help out, seeing how dogs and mice are stumbling to carry wagashi (Japanese sweets) and furniture to reorganize the house for potential guests.
Will these mice and dogs have actual guests in the future? Let's just say that they will for the sake of their feelings...

I did want to make the style a bit more like the games' existing blocks - hard lineart but still "soft" around the edges, so I brought up two possible lineart styles.