We all discussed and agreed that the art style we wanted to implement into our game, would be the style of Scavenger's Reign. As this is our main style focus, we discussed doing a joint case study to help us all understand the main features of it. This will help us when it comes to finalising our concepts and assets in the style we want. Our lead researcher, Evie, was kind enough to come with various topics for us to include in this study. We all discussed what we would prefer and made the mutual agreement that we all should all take part in the last topic as it's good for us all to reflect on as individuals. We decided that we would all attempt to draw an environment in the style of Scavengers Reign.
Once we have all finished our research, we will organise it all into a group word document that will be placed into our shared OneDrive.
My task as shown above, is to look into an artist from the show. Nathan had recommended I look into Charlie Huettner who co- created Scavengers Reign. Nathan also kindly linked his Instagram in our discord server.
Scavengers Reign Case Study - Charles Huettner
Charles Huettner is a artist and animator from Pennsylvania, North America. Charles Huettner is mainly known for his work on Scavengers Reign (2023), Scavengers (2016), Swap Meet (2015) and Ghost Stories (2013). He is the co- creator, writer, art director and comp lead for Scavengers Reign. Charles studied at Kutzdown University where he pursued a major in fine art despite originally wanting to be a graphics designer. Due to the purpose of this case study, I will be primarily focussing on the work he produced for Scavengers Reign. I chose Charles Huettner for this case study as he played a major role in the creation of Scavenger's Reign. The art he produced for it is breath taking and I'm eager to learn the thoughts and process Charles went through in his artwork.
Originally, Charles didn't have any passion for animation and struggled to understand how it was produced. He comments in an interview on tumblr that he "wanted to animate so badly" but it just seemed like "a huge colossal undertaking" (Greg Sharp, 2014). He didn't really make a breakthrough in animation until an Adobe Photoshop update in 2007. Charles was quite familiar with Photoshop and he saw this as his opportunity to figure out hand drawn animation. He taught himself the basics of 2D animation and comments that "I've only recently started to feel confident with my 2D animation abilities this year" (Greg Sharp, 2014). Seeing other animators online was a big inspiration for him as he found it hard to connect with pre animation Youtube films. He found artist like David O'Reilly, Don Hurtzfeldt, Joel Trussell and David Ferguson. He used to hunt down experimental 3D animation especially ones that seemed to have no point or ambition. He found "the idea that you could make a film that didn't have to be a 'proper' festival piece was kind of an eye opener for me" (Greg Sharp, 2014). His first attempts at animation used AfterEffects puppetry and the experience he gained from this became handy when he eventually got into freelancing motion graphics.
When it comes to Charles' drawing process, he loved drawing characters. He wanted to have a huge visual library of the skills and stuff he already knew how to draw . This came in handy as he'd already have concepts and some skills that would aid him in the animation phase. Charles art is quite simplistic in terms of style which makes sense as he is an animator as well as an artist. He's said that he's "a fan of simple character design and geometric shapes" (Greg Sharp, 2014). This is shown throughout his artwork. He's always trying out different styles and techniques as he "quickly gets bored with how his stuff looks" (Greg Sharp, 2014). This leads to a lot of different illustrations and techniques.
People like to compare his art to popular cartoons such as Adventure Time and The Amazing World of Gumball.
Above for Cartoon Networks online gumball promo (Charles Huettner).
In 2023, Scavengers Reign was released on Netflix. Scavengers Reign is a sci fi tv series based on the short film Scavengers (Joseph Bennett, Charles Huettner, 2016). The art style and work Charles did for this project is what I'll be focussing on. This is due to the style used in this show being our main stylistic influence for our game. Charles played a crucial role in the creation of Scavenger's Reign. Not only was he the writer and director of the original short film (Scavengers), he's also the co- creator, writer, art director and comp lead for Scavengers Reign. He also helped direct the first episode alongside Joseph Bennett.
Background Art for Scavengers (Charles Huettner, 2016)
The software that Charles used to create the art for both Scavengers and Scavengers Reign, is photoshop. The style Charles and many other artist used is quite simplistic including majority of the detail in the linework. Another key feature of this style, is that they used vibrant colours and included minimal cell shading. Charles did a variety of different art pieces for Scavengers Reign. He drew some of the posters, background art and did some of the animations. He also contributed in the pre- production phase by creating storyboard images and concept art.
Here are some examples of his work:
Poster for Scavengers Reign (Charles Huettner, 2023)
Background art for Scavengers Reign (Charles Huettner, 2023)
Storyboard images for Scavengers Reign (Charles Huettner, 2023)
Concept art and Layout images for Scavengers Reign (Charles Huettner, 2023)
In an interview in August 2024, Charles Huettner talks about Scavengers reign. The interviewer asked if there was any Pennsylvania inspiration behind the world - building. Charles responds by saying "Absolutely! I grew up on old farmland in south- central PA. I spent most of my childhood running around in the nearby forest. One of the biggest inspirations for me was the way some of the thorn bushes and vines would overtake certain man- made structures, like fence posts, etc. Eventually, they look like this big old chaotic mess of vines reaching out for something that doesn't exist" (Colin Deppen). I particularly love this answer given by Charles and it helps provide some insight on the inspiration behind the environments in Scavengers Reign. This is also particularly helpful for our game as it's main theme is based on nature reclaiming the land.
Here is his process of one the posters:
Rough Sketch
Poster for Scavengers Reign (Charles Huettner, 2023)
Line Art
Poster for Scavengers Reign (Charles Huettner, 2023)
Flat Colours
Poster for Scavengers Reign (Charles Huettner, 2023)
Final Image
Poster for Scavengers Reign (Charles Huettner, 2023)
In this process, we can see Charles first creates a cleaned sketch of the rough composition he wishes to use. Then he goes in with the thin line work that adds the main details. The vibrant colours are then applied to the piece. In the final image it shows the minimal cell shading used in scavengers reign. Some areas are clearly darker than others and in the centre, there's a light that creates a fog/ mist effect. To create depth in the image, Charles faded some of the trees in the background.
How will we apply what we have found to our game/ art style?
Looking through the work Charles Huettner has produced for Scavengers Reign, has helped me realise the key characteristics of this art style. The characters and creatures are simple and most of the detail in the environments come from the linework. The cell shading is minimum. This knowledge will help me when I try to recreate this style for the final assets in out game. In my case study, I included progress screenshots of Charles' process. This will help us recreate the style as we can see the different in each stage of the artwork. Another thing that will help us with recreating the style of our game, is the inspiration that went into Scavengers Reign. Charles Huettner commented that his biggest inspirations was seeing thorn bushes and vines around his home overtake man made structures. One of the main themes of our game is nature taking back the earth and we could photos around where we live of overgrowth over man made structures to aid us in creating our environments.
Scavenger's Reign Style Study
As part of our case study, we all discussed drawing an environment or creature in the style of the show to help us prepare for when we draw our final assets. I decided to attempt to draw the promotional poster by Charles Huettner that I included in my research above. This is because it includes a lot of environmental detail so I think it would be the most useful to me to study as I will be designing an environment in this project. I have also chosen this piece as I have Charles Huettner's process which could help me in my own study.
Reference List:
Charles
Huettner, 2016. Charles Huettner Scav Short [online]. Charles Huettner.
Available at: https://www.charleshuettner.com/work/scav-short [Accessed 6
November 2024].
Charles Huettner,
2023. 4th Poster Promotion for Scavengers Reign [online]. Instagram]. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/CyC-8qKg0qm/?hl=en&img_index=1
[Accessed 6 November 2024].
Charles
Huettner, 2023. Charles Huettner Scavengers Reign [online]. Charles
Huettner. Available at: https://www.charleshuettner.com/work/scavengers-reign
[Accessed 6 November 2024].
Charles Huettner,
n.d. Charles Huettner [online images]. Tumblr: Charles Huettner.
Available at: https://charleshuettner.tumblr.com/page/12 [Accessed 6 November 2024].
Colin
Deppen, 2024. Meet the Pa. animator behind one of the 2024’s Emmy –
nominated shows [online]. Spotlightpa. Available at: https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2024/08/scavengers-reign-charles-huettner-max-emmy-awards-pennsylvania-ties/
[Accessed 6 November 2024].
GGSharp,
2014. Charles Huettner Interview [online]. Tumblr. Available at: https://ggsharp.tumblr.com/charleshuettnerinterview
[Accessed 6 November 2024].
Scavengers, 2019. [YouTube] Charles Huettner,
31 May. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TRzemJbUsw&ab_channel=CharlesHuettner
[Accessed 6 November].
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