Developing the Artwork for the Witness Card game

nadia · September 24, 2021, 6:49am

Hi Everyone,

I’ve kicked off the work of building the artwork for Witness ahead of our November 29th event. We depart from the concept sketches that @prgrzn_10 and I developed. A@yudhanjaya’s topology descriptions in the Witnesspedia entries for each distrikt serve as a backdrop ( summary here). This wiki is where I will post regular updates so anyone who likes can be involved.

Anyone can contribute artwork. The intention is to build a crowdfunding campaign, and take part of the revenue to pay for the artworks contributed by community members. The process is a kind of benevolent dictatorship in which I do the creative leadership and take the decisions about what materials we use. But we keep the process inclusive and transparent by doing the development here together with everyone who wants to participate.

So: What do we need?

Illustrations for each Witness distrikt
Illustrations for 3 categories of adverse events in the game (Ecological, Economic, Social).
Illustrations for Event Cards (90 cards)
Illustrations for Distrikt Cards (90 dcards)
Illustrations for Technologies Cards (90 dcards)
A logo for Witness
Badges for each Witness distrikt (should be coherent with the logo for the game)
Graphic design for digital flyers and digital headers
Graphic design/layout for the print version of the cards
Graphic design for the booklet and player scorecards

How to contribute?

Pick a deliverable from the list above, say you want to submit a proposal for it in a comment below - asking in it any questions you need answered before you start, then post your work in a new comment. I will then give feedback directly to your comment. The contributions that are selected will then be included in the budget for which we are fundraising. You can make more than one contribution.

Or you can just go ahead and post something

nadia · September 23, 2021, 6:14pm

A first Illustration from Cristian Eres: based on this reference document Illustrations for Witness the card game - 2D - Google Docs.pdf (13.6 MB)

Distrikt illustration Sketch: Hygge

What I think

Central tree:
- Trunk material should consist not of wood but of electric cables with glow lighting
- It should be a building, with some holes in it as windows.
- “Leaves” of tree should be digital documents rather than vegetation: e.g 010101 in shape of leaves
Background buildings & props:
- Material: Wood & bionic carbon sequestering leaves
- Trees/vegetation: should be luminescent/ serve as lighting
Characters:
- Outfits: Too start trekky and monocultured
Colour scheme:
- Base it on a Laurent Durieux poster. Maybe this one?

8079488

Your input

If anyone else has any thoughts/suggestions welcome especially @yudhanjaya @ivan @bojanbobic @jean_russell @FrankD @petussing @noemi @lylycarrillo @IvanV @alberto @bruces @Joriam @prgrzn_10 @ClaireD @hugi

alberto · September 23, 2021, 10:17am

Staying away from visual design, not my strongest feature

yudhanjaya · September 23, 2021, 1:06pm

Best if we stay away from jetpacks and drones. They’re incredibly wasteful on energy, since gravity is a thing, not something you would need or go for if you were resource-constrained (as Witness is) or aware of environmental impacts. It’s also very 60’s and 70’s pulp motifs, the kind of outdated stuff we should stay away from IMO.

Aesthetically, Hygge typically prides itself on being the ‘sober cousin’ to the other Distrikts. Compounded by the fact that new public installations etc take voting and politics to go through . . . they’d be the most conservative in Witness.