Saskia de Klerk

Archives: Projects

  • Escaping Atlantis Visual Development

    Escaping Atlantis Visual Development

    Mockup of the battlefield (characters by Roofkat Games)

    Escaping Atlantis is a tactical RPG currently in development by Roofkat Games. The player recruits quirky Atlanteans and leads them against dangerous monsters from the deep, while trying to keep both their giant turtle and their Atlantean friends alive.

    During pre-production, I conducted research on the looks of the flooded world of the game and visualized how the battlefield could look like.

    The style of the game (rough lineart and mostly flat colours) was developed in an earlier sprint. We found the tone of the artwork too happy to fit the apocalyptic theme of the game, however, so I desaturated the colours and experimented with different weather conditions.

    Visual Hierarchy research: how can we focus on the right elements?
    Final mockup of the battlefield (characters by Roofkat Games)
  • Unannounced Mobile Game Enemy Design

    Unannounced Mobile Game Enemy Design

    joto games mockup
    Mockup with my design placed in
    (UI by JoTo Games)

    I was asked to design enemies for an unreleased mobile fighting game by JoTo Games. In this game, the player is forced to fight an endless stream of enemies in a simulation.

    The designs I made all belong to the Beetle Clan: samurai-like fighters with insect and demonic elements.

    beetle clan sketches

    beetle clan enemies

    beetle clan enemies

    beetle material design
  • > deploy helper bot

    > deploy helper bot

    > deploy helper bot is a sci-fi puzzle game created in 72 hours for the Ludum Dare 51. The AI of a stranded spaceship sends out helper bots to restart the console, but each of the bots only lasts 10 seconds. The game is freely playable at https://chartle.itch.io/deploy-helper-bot. We ranked #125th out of 2412 entries.

    I created all artwork for the game, including the main character, props and the isometric tileset, as well as all animations. I also implemented all artwork myself in Unity.

  • Private Commission ‘The Last Human’

    Private Commission ‘The Last Human’

    meditating man illustration
    castle wall close up
    last human close up
    broken wall close up

    A commission for a private client. I was asked to portray a dancing, meditating person on overgrown castle grounds.

    meditating person renders
    I used multiple renders to help define the perspective and lighting.
    last human colour sketch
    last human colour sketch
    Colour sketches
  • Christmas Critters

    Christmas Critters

    Since I started freelancing, it has become a yearly tradition to design my own Christmas cards each year. I got the idea of designing a Christmas-related creature in 2020 and now I’m trying to come up with creatures for the most wonderful time of the year every time!

    Christmas Card 2021

    christmas candle crab
    2021’s card featured a candle-bearing crab creature.

    Christmas Card 2020

    christmas ball creature
    2020 featured a Christmas Ball mimic.

    For 2020, I put in extra effort figuring out how this creature would roll up as a ball, so I understood its shape as well as possible before starting on the final illustration.

    christmas creature design
    composition mockup

    Apart from the sketches above I also made a proxy model in blender to make sure I got the perspective correct, as well as enabling me to play around with the lighting.

    blender proxy model
  • Karuta Card Frame Design

    Karuta Card Frame Design

    Karuta is a collectible card Discord bot, that allows players to collect their favorite anime characters as collectible cards. These cards can be further customized, upgraded, and traded with other players.

    Joining the design team, I regulary pitch card frame ideas to the staff. After pitch and sketch have been approved, I create fully rendered card frames keeping the technical restrictions in mind.

    choco orange frame
    Chocolate Orange
    ming vase frame
    Ming Vase
    hanging scroll frame
    Hanging Scroll
    carnation frame
    Carnations
    tipsy frame
    “Tipsy”
    baroque frame
    Baroque
    karuta frame restrictions
    Restrictions of frame designs
    frame dye example
    Example of an in-game card, dyed in a different colour
  • Knight Illustration

    Knight Illustration

    A client asked me to illustrate a 13th century knight, who was disowned by his lord and lives alone with his barn owl in a forest. Historical accuracy was very important, so I made sure to research the equipment and crossbows of that period.

    knight with owl
    Final illustration
    character sketches
    Sketches of different options
  • Godhood: Icons and Islands

    Godhood: Icons and Islands

    In Godhood, players create their own religion through commanding the people’s virtues and vices. The people are inspired to construct temples, and prepare disciples to convert unbelievers in special battle rituals. The gameplay is similar to sports management games, with automatic battles and training disciples for those battles.

    I had worked on Godhood before, when I explored the look of the buildings and nature. Two weeks before Godhood would officially release, I was asked to help out with drawing a bunch of UI icons, items and island maps.

    • godhood demon island
    • godhood map
    • godhood island
    Island maps: each mission takes place at a certain landmark.
    • cleansing fruit
    • eternal shield
    • fire heart
    • godly recipe
    • gods mask
    • holy water
    • idol of greed
    Relic items
    totem icons
    Totem icons for unique personality traits of characters

    More information about the game Godhood can be found on Steam. The game was announced to enter Early Acces in July 2019 and is fully released as of 11 August 2020.

  • Ramsey Landrace

    Ramsey Landrace

    This character was designed for a collaborative publication called Character Design Zine 2020, featuring all kinds of characters designed by artists all over the world. I decided to design an anthropomorphic goat to stand out from the rest, hopefully!

    ramsey back and front
    ramsey expressions

    At first sight, Ramsey seems a senile old man, complaining about back aches and today’s youth. Under the well-worn cloak hides a sly smuggler with every forbidden good of the galaxy in his ship’s cargo.

    During the Battle of Veluw, his home planet, an unfortunate hit on his head costed him one of his beloved horns and gave him almost permanent headache in return. Ramsey then used his whole stolen fortune to have the ancient artisans of Hircus make him a custom lightsword to fit on his broken horn.

    electric scimitar
    use of lightsword
    The lightsword, known as the Electric Scimitar, channels headache into electric discharges.
    moodboard
    Moodboard for Ramsey’s looks and personality
    • personality sketches
    • full body sketch
    • exploration sketches
    colour tests
    Colour tests for Ramsey
    zine spread
    Finished spread as published in the zine