Olly Moss

Project Brief

Art styles in games to look out for:
Arise - A Simple Story
Monument Valley II
Journey
Limbo
Alto's Odyssey

Making a Character Silhouette Poster

For this task, I decided to make a poster around the game Fallout 4. I chose Preston Garvey as the character silhouette and The Sanctuary to be the background landscape since this is where he can be found for the majority of the game. It is also one of the most memorable places in Fallout 4 since it is where your character lived and where you begin your journey in the destructed world.

To create this poster, we used Photoshop and we first had to get some images that we would be using. They would include a landscape/background image, a character from this game, and possibly some items or things from the game that could be included. Some grass and other plant life would be useful since they could be additional details that you add to the outline.

First, the character needs to be selected and then if you inverse the selection, you can add a solid colour adjustment layer. This then gives you the cut-out character shape. I then selected the character again, but this time didn't inverse the selection. I added the adjustment layer but flipped the character so it looks a bit different. I then added a couple of bits of grass, a bush and some items from the game, and it was done. I added a title image that I found online, and the poster was complete.

Having a more minimalistic background would have suited the image better, especially since this is what Moss' art is based around, but it would take a while to do a whole image, unless you used AI, or completely redrew it in a very simple way.

Researching Olly Moss Art

Here, I went and researched Olly Moss's art style and the different ways his art is made. As you can see, there are a lot of ways that his art style is implemented into game posters, and I already have some idea of the posters I will be using as references for my Olly Moss inspired art pieces.

First Olly Moss Piece

To begin, I went on a search for a cool-looking environment. I know ideally, it's meant to be 2D, but without going and building a mini scene in-game, I'm unsure of how I would go about this, so I think I'll just use something like this for now. The other problem is that Minecraft is primarily squares, so it might not be easy to identify what structures are if everything is the same colour.

For now, I settled with this. I thought it was a good one to use since a lot of the image looks far away which is the impression I get from the other pieces like this, so it's a good starting image. I also got a rough colour pallet so I knew what the main colours were if it wasn't clear enough. The other good thing about this is that the environment is primarily one colour, which is what this art style is mostly based around, so it is a great starting point.

Finally, this is the completed copy of the Minecraft poster. I think I'll take a lot of the good and bad from this one and use it to make better posters for the next ones that I make, but overall I don't think it's that bad.

Clearly, I did revert the environment to something similar to the original image. I then also changed the sky to match the scene's colour since that is what Moss did in his art piece. I then added a black layer of environment which is what he did, and then I added the Minecraft title on top. Because I didn't really know what to put for additional text, I just left it blank. To complete the image, I then changed the eye colour to a darker orange which still stands out in the sky but is a bit easier to look at and once again links to one of his posters, the Stormtrooper one specifically. I then added some Phantoms which are flying in the sky and some armadillos on the ground level which is once again matching Olly's style of adding character in these specific ways. The other reason that he does this is because it gives the illusion that things are closer or further away since black is the landscape layer up-close, and the darker, but coloured bits are further away. This helps with perspective when making a piece of 2D art like this.

I think my idea for this artwork piece was better than the outcome. Although it doesn't look horrific, you can at least tell what game it's from and what I'm going for with the design. Ideally, I wanted a custom environment which would've looked similar to the Star Wars environment, but instead a structure, such as a village. I could've added a few buildings and done multiple layers of land with a few different structures on, as well as mobs. But, this would've taken a lot longer since I would've had to build a 2D environment myself probably. Maybe it could be relatively easy, but for now, this design is good enough.

Second Olly Moss Piece

Finally, we have the completed design. I think it's quite good, and I'll explain some of the changes that I made to complete it. Firstly, I added a border around the black box on the bottom, leaving a large space at the proper bottom part. This not only just makes the design look better, but a lot more similar to Olly Moss'. It also gives some space for additional information that would be on a poster, so a little description or something. Since he does these posters for films, this is why this part of detail is commonly found on his artwork. Another thing that I changed was adding — or more like removing — some of the hand with a paint brush. This gives it a neat texture that I don't really know how to explain, but it helps to make the empty spaces on the fingertips feel less empty. I also did it a bit on some other parts of the hand. I probably should've also done this on the left side near the bottom since it looks a bit out of place, but that isn't the most noticeable due to the paint splash. To get these details, I used a paint brush brush on the brush tool and just slightly dragged my mouse to get small changes.

Overall, I'm very happy with how this one came out. I think it's significantly better than the Minecraft poster, and primarily due to the environment change. Having the background hand image being trees and that vehicle makes it very obvious that it's about Left 4 Dead, especially due to the fact that I used the logo which is quite recognisable, as long as you know of the game. I believe that this piece of art also gives you a pretty good idea of what the game is about. Firstly, the hand, which is also green gives off zombie vibes straight away. Having trees gives hints that it's an open world game. Furthermore, the truck not only tells you that there are vehicles in the game, but also drops more of a hint on the kind of game it is due to the vehicle looking heavily armoured.

My idea for this artwork sort of started out simple, and it just kept developing as I went along. I don't think I would've wanted to add any more details, however, I may have wanted to change some of the ones that I already have. For example, the paint splatter could've been better. I could've changed the position to a place that I preferred, or I could've changed the whole thing to make it look more like debris, since it doesn't really match the other particle like things. Moreover, the 2 in the logo has a bit of the glow cut off. I'm pretty sure it's because of the image I got online, but this small imperfection stands out quite a bit to me. Lastly, because I don't have any text on the bottom, I probably should've decreased the gap that's left there since it looks a little odd having a massive gap on the bottom. Overall, though, I'm quite happy with how this one came out.

Third Olly Moss Piece

After doing quite a bit of research, I settled on these three images to be the main focus for this art piece. I chose this F1 car specifically since Lewis drove the Mercedes W11 (this car) and won the drivers constructors at the Turkey GP in 2020, solidifying his 7th and last world title to this day. This car was not only a race winner, a title winner, but also widely considered to be the fastest F1 car ever built. This extraordinary speed was often down to the fact that it “turned corners into straights”, making it one of the most iconic cars in the history of the sport, so it only makes sense to use it, especially since I was having Lewis as the main figure.

I went and found this random picture of Lewis' side profile of his face, which would give me a decent outline for his face. And finally, I wanted this pose that I would somehow display within the smoke. I thought I'd go for the iconic one which happened after Lewis won the Turkish GP and his 7th world title, since that is one of the most recognisable poses that he'll ever have.

For the final design, I've attached these two images. The left one is my original, competed design, and the right one is the new, updated version. I changed it slightly because I wanted the game's logo title at the bottom to be the 2020 F1 game, since this is mostly based around the 2020 season. The images I got for these are also a lot higher quality. Although you can't really tell from this far away, the F124 and EA logo is quite pixelated, whereas the new ones I got were a lot higher quality. I also thought the different EA logo was better since it matched the other part of the logo better. In addition, I also edited the smoke to make it a bit more obvious what it's meant to be. I made more of an arm and adjusted the hand part a bit. Although it doesn't quite line up with the reference image I got, I think it looks better, and you can tell what the pose is a fair amount easier. The last details that I added for the final designs was the texture that I applied to both the car and the purple background. You can sort of see that in Moss' piece, it isn't just a plain image, but something with a little more going on. Therefore, I wanted to also change a small amount to make it look less flat and boring.

I think, across all three of these pieces of Olly Moss inspired art work, this one is my favourite. However, I think that is partly down to the fact that my understanding has increased for how he makes these things. For one, you have to try to keep the designs as simple as possible. The detail will come, as long as you don't try too much with the actual shapes and stuff. My original plans for this image were overall reflected in the end result. I don't know if I could've got it looking much better, apart from changing some of the smoke slightly. For example, the face makes the smoke look like it has a strange shape. Although the various colours I added makes it more look like the smoke continues behind it and that is more a cut-out area. Something I could've done to change this could be to include more of the face in the smoke, but have the darker colours be it. Furthermore, this could allow me to add even more of the pose into the design since I could have the other arm show up a bit, which could make it look even better. Although this is a cool idea, I still think this design I've done is pretty much perfect, and I wouldn't really want to do something to take away from the amazing art here.

Final Designs & Mini Evaluation

I think the purpose of this project was to once again get some ideas from other artists, which we could use to design posters of our own. This also made me think about what assets I need in posters, especially the part where I need to design a custom 2D environment for each game. I think every design was better that the last. When I come to having to make posters for my own games in the future, I'll have plenty of ideas I could use and the good and bad from these pieces which I could use to make sure I make even better posters.

From the start, I didn't really know what games I wanted to design a poster for, but at least the research I did helped me get an idea of what pieces of art there were that I could do. I think every time that I made one of these posters, I implemented my ideas well and used Olly Moss' designs to help me as much as possible. If I were to do these again and use posters like this as advertising for a game, I'd have to spend a lot of time making the assets, such as trees, either from scratch or using assets from the game I make. This is because some images that I've grabbed from the internet could be copyrighted, and even if they aren't I'd rather someone doesn't see something and try to claim my work because I've used one simple 2D tree they made. However, due to the fact it'll be for my own game, I might as well just make everything from scratch since the rest of the game will be.

One use that I thought of using these designs for other than advertising posters is using them as backgrounds for certain menus in the game. Even if it's just the environment, a simple 2D environment would give the player a good idea as to what it looks like before jumping in, and it would be a perfect way to get a background image done.

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