MOIRAI

Moirai is a Sci-Fi/Fantasy themed video game pitch I've been working on in the style of a video game concept book. The story is as follows: Marked by an ancient symbol and condemned to a meaningless death, a human slave rises up with a group of unlikely companions to rid the galaxy of a deadly plague. In the galaxy that Moirai takes place in, Earth is no longer and humans are few and far-between, most having been taken in by alien races for slavery. This is due to a galactic wide plague that takes the form of a giant, tree-like being stationed in the center of the galaxy, it's branches reaching and destroying everything gradual in time. Because of this, there is no true 'space' in the universe, with every living being residing in this galactic cage. The main character and his group of unlikely companions all possess the "Mark of Death", a mark supposedly given by the plague itself; a mark meaning one is destined to die for the plague's benefit. Our main hero and his companions decide to challenge fate, determined to live and rid the galaxy of this deadly curse.

My main intention with this story and project was to create a sci-fi story and characters while keeping away from things that are overdone or exhausted. Though my character moves on to become a type of 'space captain', I wanted to keep his slavery roots, and not lean too much into the typical space captain with giant armour and military background. The rest of my characters are all based on several different animals and insects, and I will continue working through on this project futher towards the end of my semester.

Harrow

A personal project for a mascot assignment. This was an ACAD Fourth year project. I created an original character to headline a potential video game, which I based on a seal, caribou and narwhal. For my piece, I decided to combine knowledge of several different “Rites of Passage” from around the world, to create the story of a mentor guiding a child through the troubles of adulthood. This is how I came up with the title “Harrow”, as it’s defined as “to struggle”. I wanted to combine two animals (Caribou and seal) to create a new mythical create that anyone could really ‘relate’ to, as using a creature too specific to one culture may have perhaps limited some viewers connection with the characters. I named the adult “Zora” which means dawn, and the baby Elio which means sun. In a way, these names represent the “new beginnings” the characters move towards.

I wanted to keep the environment very dreamlike and beautiful, and have the characters look like they’re almost one which nature, really linking them to the ‘struggles’ they go through. At the end of each level, the characters come up to a tree wrapped in the same rope, the ‘red string of fate’ that the mentor’s horns are wrapped in, symbolizing that he is helping weave the story. The symbol I placed glowing on the tree is the celtic symbol for personal growth, as each level cleared is one harrow less.

Momo Aku

This project was a concept book project for my fourth year at ACAD. For my project, I decided to make my own twist on the Japanese fairtale of MomoTaro, a little boy who was born from a peach and travels to an island to fight demons alongside his three animal companions. For my version, I decided to create a little demon girl born from a rotten peach, and have her travel to an island with her three animal companions to fight humans. I decided to give her some superpowers to be able to transform her three animal friends into humanoid characters to give the story the potential for a little more depth and humour.

For my Momo’s character, I wanted her to be portrayed as bubbly and overly sweet, though still in the colour palette of a demon. For Lilith, I wanted a more sarcastic, witty and ‘feline’ like personality to contrast this. I based her off the Japanese fashion trend ‘gothic lolita’ and gave her more of a darker, sly look. For Ravanna, I wanted him to appear always angry and on edge, as he would be the character to do the most bickering. I based him off of the Japanese fashion trend ‘visual kei’. And finally for Asmo, I wanted him to be portrayed as an optimistic and bubbly gay character, offering another lighter touch as I didn’t want the story to be too dark or ‘dark humour’. I based him off the Japanese fashion trend ‘fairy kei’. Each characters name is based of a ‘historical’ demon’s name with the exception of Momo, which means Peach in Japanese.