Total Zombie Apocalypse - needs concept and 3d artists

[Waylon]

It's a commonly known fact that zombies are the next big thing, right? Well, having just completed my first commercial game project, I felt it was time to start in on something new. Hence I came up with the idea for "Quarantine: Total Zombie Apocalypse". It's like Night of the Living Dead meets Mad Max, with elements of Hitman and Fallout mixed with classic survival horror.

But check it out.

http://www.quarantinegame.com/

Now, the reason I'm posting is because I'm looking to get a little more exposure for the project, and I'm looking for more contributors. Particularly, we're looking for concept artists (both character and environment), 3d/texture work, promotional paintings, or anything else you can contribute to the project. We're still looking for investors, so I can't offer any commission work just yet, but this is a great opportunity for anyone looking to build up their resume and portfolio.

If you're interested, send me a PM, or email me at waylon@quarantinegame.com. I'm really excited about the progress we've made so far, but it's nothing compared to where the project is going to go.

But enough gab. Here, have some art! :) Also, if anyone has feedback on either the project or the art direction, I'd love to hear it.

http://www.waylon-art.com/concept/q.jpg
Credits: Tek!, Samuraidoo, Waylon

http://www.quarantinegame.com/content/patato_concept1.jpg
Credits: Patato

http://www.quarantinegame.com/content/tek_carpenter_zombie.jpg
Credits: Tek!

http://www.quarantinegame.com/content/waylon_level01.jpg
Credits: Waylon (original level design, hl2 materials)

Also, some more concepts for your viewing pleasure:
http://www.waylon-art.com/concept/lurkers.jpg
http://www.waylon-art.com/concept/obesezombie2.jpg
http://www.waylon-art.com/concept/patato_railsrevised2.jpg
http://www.waylon-art.com/concept/tekzombies.jpg

Enjoy!

[0kelvin]

It's a commonly known fact that zombies are the next big thing, right?

Well really, zombies were the last big thing. You're about a year or two too late to catch this wave. Don't get me wrong, I love zombies, but they've hit a saturation point and are already, or are about to suffer a big decline. I'm willing to bet Land of the Dead will probably be the last big zombie hoorah for a while. Plus, there's like a hundred and fifty Zombie HL2 mods in development, and so far yours doesn't seem to do anything those ones don't. But good luck with your project anyway

The Finally Finished forum isn't the place for advertisement, even if you throw some art in there. This should've gone into the Non-Paying Jobs forum. But since we're here I might as well mention the zombie design is boring. Nothing we haven't seen before at all. The obese zombie with the weird eyes is pretty cool (I especially like the underwear), but not particularly zombie-like. The environment paintings are my favourite. They're well done and set a great mood.



0kelvin

[Aberrant]

From what I know investors won't touch a computer game with a 10 foot pole. Pitching to a publisher has a pretty low success rate and of course not many projects can soak up a zillion man hours of coding to produce a demo to even be considered. But what do I know, I'd like to hear the opinion of someone that actually works in the industry. Sorry to shit on your project. Most of the art looks pretty cool, I love zombies.

[Waylon]

0Kelvin: Hah, fair points, and I apologise if this was a bad place to post. The people on irc thought it would be fine. :) Maybe one of the mods could move it if it's too out of place?

I actually thought long and hard about whether a zombie game was catching the tail or the head of the surge in popularity. Obviously we've had a whole bunch of zombie films released in the last few years, with a couple yet to come. But what big zombie games have there been? Resident Evil 4 is about it, and that didn't technically even have any zombies. It seems to me like the zombie genre is following what the World War 2 genre did five years ago, when movies like Saving Private Ryan and Pearl Harbor spawned immense popular interest in games like Medal of Honor and Call of Duty. And if I'm wrong about that, I still plan to make a game that's a hell of a lot of fun, which is what's really important in the end.

What makes Quarantine stand out against the mods, primarily, is that this is a full game being developed for next-gen consoles, not a free half-life addon. We're just using the source mod tools to build a gameplay demo in order to get full funding from a publisher.

As for the art... nope, not original in the least. :) It's a zombie game, after all. We want to create a world populated by the living dead. Mutations like the obese zombie are good for mixing things up later on in the game, but there's just something about animated corpses that strikes a fundamental nerve. And that's what we're going for.

Aberrant: I've been through it all once before, and I've got a couple good leads. It's tough work, but at least I know what I'm getting into.

[Red_Rook]

umm, i can say good luck.

regarding the acctual work theres somthing seriously wrong with the perspective of the barn btw.
Regarding the desgin of the zombies, the tekzombies for instance, even if they may be boring have a sense of continuity. the obese one while, awesome doesnt really fit in with the rest, purely on the level of detail and style that goes with it. You seem to be mixing a whole bunch of zombies, from the classic, limpfooted ones with blood around the mouth, which for some reason are always horribly mutilated, for no reason at all, with very halo'ish flood like zombies that, seem to havea more realistic organic, parasitic nature. Also im not sure about the photo manips, that your collaging together, try painting it all, and the continuity will come accross better, and you wont get the slightly out of perspective elements, that all have diffrent lighting. You want all your characters and environments firmly set and integerated into your story universe, and currently they arent very unified. Try to reason explanations, for instance why all the zombies are all damaged, and give anything a reason, even if you never tell the player, if youve thought it through and theres an explanation for everything then it will seem more solid and conected.
The integration also goes for your modeled environment, look at the chimny in the top center of the image for instance, you either need to set up the lighting so theres a cast shadow connecting it to the wall, or your need another conecting, element, some nuts or bolts holding it in place, maybe when it rains water runs off that pipe and down the wall, leaving a permanent stain. Also make very sure you have a legitamet reason for the what seems like sunlight streaming in over the building on a rainy day.
Having the exact same hud, and an almost identical weapon to half life 2 isnt helping either, even if you are using it to set up a demo.
I dont mean to shoot down your project, but these are just some things that occured to me, im kinda uninformed and have by no means seen it in its entirety so its me kinda guessing and stabbing in the dark, I hope that helps a lil.

[dieselseven]

^

thats probably the most thorough advice you're going to get

edit: just another note- you have an old man that appears to have a portion of the top of his head cut off and blood dripping down, yet his perfectly white/gray bears sits unruffled on his face. ?

[Mort]

very cool, zombies and gasmasks are timeless. :)
anyway the old man at the first picture isnt scary at all, looks to clean and like santa or something.. so i should delete it. but i havent done this drawing .
cool drawings and good luck with ur project.

[Waylon]

Rook: All very good points, and yeah, keeping continuity is tough when there are so many concept artists working on the game. But a lot of people have come up with a lot of details I wouldn't have thought of myself, so when it comes to making the 3d art we'll have a much broader base to work from. As far as the specific crits go, I'm having Tek paint up the collage a little bit to give it a more consistent feel, and I'll be sure to connect all the elements better when I revise the level next.

Heh, I need to find a place that will give this level of critique on my design doc and business plan. :)

diesel/mort: I'll pass the comments along to Tek and see if he can incorporate them into the revision. Thanks!

[Red_Rook]

yea i know, its just nice to have someone remind of certain things, even if it is from an outside perspective. Thats all i was tryna do ;)

the main things with the collage was very sever light and temperature changes.

[Woodrodius]

I really like the construction worker!

[Davey Jones]

Hmmm.... I'm a bit taken aback by how pessamistic all these repsonses have been.

A few years ago I planned to create a game with a friend, and yes, it's a herculean amount of work. But this industry needs people who are willing to take a chance.

It doesn't matter what the subject of the game is based on, If the game is fun to play, then people will enjoy it. Look at all the WW2 games, there's alot of crappy ones, but some real winners.

I do feel that the zombie market is very crowded. Cold Fear was just released and the level of art in it was quite impressive. But, nothing's impossible, and even if this project didn't pan out, all the time spent into it will be useful for your future.

I think the level of art in this isn't quite a 'professional' standard, but a very good level otherwise, and it certainly works

So keep at it, and learn from this project, it'll make you a better game developer and artist. And my advice is to look at it as a tool to grow your abilities.


No time spent creating is wasted!
and if you end up making a few coin, well what a bonus! :)

[Waylon]

Whoever moved this thread, thanks, I should have posted here in the first place. :)

Davey: Yup, the competition is tough, but I'm working hard to make sure we're presenting a very unique gameplay experience. As for the level of art, well... it's all concept art. So far we're just getting ideas down, trying to define the look and feel that we want. But we're beginning to model some of the zombies, and when those are done, we'll really see what we're made of.

I'll post screenshots. :)