Shape of the Universe - 2

Hey folks! Things are going well with the concept album. First, I've decided to call the entire album Shape of the Universe, which is also the title of the opening track. The first image is  the static artwork for said track. I've also created an animated opening of the image forming from a single star, but I don't plan on releasing any of the final animations until the whole album is ready to release. I'll be sharing much of the work as I go, just not going to spoil the final product, so you can get the full enjoyment when it's all released.

The second image is a very rough storyboard for the main scenes. I like to plan my designs with tiny chicken scratch thumbnails. They capture the basic concept, yet are so vague and abstract to leave room for the imagination to do spontaneous creation while working it out in pixel form. Some of them capture a basic composition, while others are purely about the concept and might end up being visualized in a completely different way than my first sketch. I really enjoy this workflow, as sometimes working from a well rendered sketch, or photo confines my spontaneous creativity. Moreover, I am capable of making nice hand drawings, but the lack of information is deliberate in this case.

The last image shows some character concepts that might find their way into the story. While the story will be left to the audience's interpretation, it will be built upon a fully thought out back story. Most great stories only present a fraction of what is really in the author's head, but it's great because that deep foundation still comes through without need for explanation. That's my hope, anyway.  

In other news, I've also started work on the next Pixelblog. I hope you like 8-bit inspired graphics!