The Art of Kay

Scratchbeetles...

Long time no update, even though theres still plenty left in the Kay box...today some scribbles for the infamous scratchbeetles...

Random Background stuff vol.III...

Gorillas...

Above to see: The Flameaxe armor....

...and the Axeweapon evolution

An early sketch for the evil Emperor Shun (Kay's archnemesis)

Random Background stuff vol.II...

Today some randomly chosen background artworks related to the mountains of Kay's world...

This is one of the sketches I did to figure out, how the structure small settlements along the mountain paths could work...

Above a researchdrawing for one of tose typical eycandy spots you pass throughout Kay's journey...

...aswell as this location.

In the swamp...

Some early crocodileconcepts...sadly but reasonably we didn't had that variety of types in the final game. I would have loved mysterious Gavials as temple/cult-crocodiles...

Some face expressions to visualize the character of the ugly, but nevertheless mean ferryman toad...

The three upper pictures are some of the early concepts, I've made for the frog huts...I tried to find some oval/organic forms, to characterize the amphibian style, I also focused on typical swamp materials.

Random Background stuff vol.I...

The pictures below are showing some of the colorkey sketches I did for the catvillage.

A sketch for Kays parenthouse..later I decided to construct it in an "L" shape to frame a frontyard...but the style kept the same

A feminin version of the basic house...

The main gate...

Some more basic houses, without special functions..

Every animalrace got its own sign, above you see the catlogo for their flags in the village...

Here there be dragons....

The finally used design for our waterdragon...nice to see how the style changed compared to the much earlier version of 2001 below...

copic marker on paper...2001

scribble compilation....

another early picture from 2001, with the old version of Kay (I think this is the first picture with him in red fur instead of grey)

Rat upgrades....

Towards the end of production we decided to differentiate the difficulty level of our fighting adversaries with certain weapon-upgrades and armors that kay has to break throughhout the battles...

Above you can see the design for the first Hookrat armor. I wanted the first upgrade to look a bit like those eastern martial arts thugs from that 70s Kung Fu movies....mixed with the cool and clear style of japanese amor elements. To complete the badguy look I chose an nasty slaughter version of a hook weapon.

For the second upgrade of the Hookrat I decided to use an obviously different and more noble, soldierlike style than in version one. This design was inspired by traditional chinese armors, combined with water, flower and blossom symbols in sharp cutting shapes. For the material I chose sun reflecting, shiny polished chrome and copper, to symbolize the more dignified fighter.

This is my favourite Hookrat armor. Nature and its spirits are the strongest powers on the planet. Thats why I used leaf symbols and colors to symbolize total unity with the woods. To complete the scary mysterious appearance of this fighter, I designed the armor like an oversized asian mask, to irritate the focus (in the scheme of mimcry). For the wristguards I chose a feather style to illustrate flying arms. To complete the nature topic, the third hookweapon got the design of an iron claw to reach an windy fan feel.

The hookweapon evolution in a row...

Here you can see the first Sparrowrat upgrade that should appear in the swamp. The swamp inspired me to let the sparrow-upgrade series start with its natural materials as bamboo and reed with green, brown and golden swamp colors. To reach an "authorized evil fighter" look I gave em golden helmets with an flamelike red brush to underline their dangerousness.

There were only 2 upgrades for the Sparrowrats, so here is the second. This one should appear in the old city. So I focused the look on colors and forms of the city, its sand and dust. Also I got inspired by the armors of the Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang (which would have an own appearance later in the game) and traditional guardian helmets.

Early ratstudies from 2001...

Early character studies (that never saw the light of game)....

This character I planned as one of some supporting friends Kay could have in the game... characters you meet throughout the story..to give you power ups, advices, hints, whatever...at least to inspire Kays world with more believable life...
In the beginning I focused my research on not too usual animalraces to give the game a more exotic feel and avoid too many stereotypes...

Early study for an "in between" master...I liked the idea of letting Kay travel through different stages and let him learn more and more different special moves from several cultures/races....but didn't made it into the game

My beloved Chameleons that can become invisble for a few moments and attack and pull you with their tongue...

Sniperfrog..

Early Studies for Kays teaching master...

One of a few gameplay ideas that sadly didn't made it into the game was the multifunctional chinese umbrella (you could use it as a weapon, shield, parachute or boat aswell...)