Art direction and design for the narrative game we developed at Bellular Studios, published by Fellow Traveller, and released in February 2023. In the Pale Beyond, players assume the role of the first mate of the Temperance, a ship being sent to the Antarctic on a retrieval mission. Based on Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance expedition, it’s a leadership-and-resource-management sim where every decision is made through your crew members, and so have human consequences as well as practical ones.
My first game project as art director, my role was to create the visual identity for Pale that formed the foundation of its world building, to guide the artists in creating the design and art style, to develop the personalities of the crew, and to help storyboard and pace parts of the narrative, with particular care and attention given to heavier emotional beats.
Key art designs, layouts and updates for the Steam store page. The final characters were collaborated on with Katie Noble, and the background was painted by Ethan McLean
Temperance design and turn arounds, the latter created for 3D artist Ryan Loughran, who created a model we could use for reference for the isometric views. She was inspired by Viking long ships and 1800’s British naval vessels, w the visual marked for which built some whimsy onto the Endurance’s whaling, ice breaker hull
Layout design for the Temperance at the docks – the first image is from when the game was leaning more towards a visual novel – it was intended to be a painted CG image. The latter two are notes and drawovers for the new isometric version, including adjustments to the design of the ship itself
Layout for the opening of the game, referencing the Endurance shipwreck footage
Concept and costume art, and finally, final designs for the main cast. They started as functional roles, and their personalities developed as I drew
Early sketches exploring body language for several of the characters – I wanted each of them to feel completely unique, as no personalities would do the same pose the same way. These sketches, and her designs themselves, were done before we had a script, so they were useful for shaping characterisation and narrative
Poses and sketches for Kasha’s introduction, layout to figure out how she enters the scene
Prop design and turn arounds – Kasha’s camera and Grimley’s accordion. Kasha’s camera was designed to feel a little modern for the time, Grimley’s accordion a little old fashioned
Background crew design, art direction notes, and sketches and layout for isometric character staging
Tent designs, trying to figure out how the crew could build makeshift shelters when they hadn’t planned on doing a lot of camping, and penguin art direction
Animation and final look for the game’s map – it represented the passage of time, as the ice would change with each week, so had to have consistency and flow. I referenced ice floe time lapses, and created the final version using Unity’s Sprite Shape – being able to edit the pieces and draw them with custom made textures was a lot faster than drawing 40 different maps by hand!
Temperance Captain’s Cabin design iterations
Design and layout for the interview with Captain Hunt at the beginning and end of the reveal trailer. I used Grease Pencil in Blender to create a design really quickly based on an old sketch, and then recreated it in 2D layers for final. The background was painted by Ethan McLean, and Katie Noble collaborated on the final character art
Captain Hunt emotes from the interview scene (expressions and character design by me, poses by Katie Noble)
Layout, design, and final character art for the Captain’s Speech scene. Background paint by Ethan Mclean, character assist by Katie Noble. In this scene, the characters aren’t familiar or warm to our player yet, they’re scared, captain-less, their ship is stuck in the ice, and they are sticking closely to their faction groups
Self portrait for the Pale Beyond website in the style of the in-game character manifest cards, an illustration of Stanberry for one of the final shots in the reveal trailer, and the drawings for the portraits of everyone who worked on the game – trying to match likenesses in such a simple style was a fun and interesting challenge!
WARNING: the concept art below this text contains spoilers for the end of the game. If you have interest in playing The Pale Beyond and don’t want to be spoiled, stop here!
Below: storyboards for key narrative moments from early in production. Like the character designs, many of these were done before there was a script
Below: background sketch and dog illustration for an important narrative moment where the player has to make a difficult decision. The colour and lighting design was done by Ethan Mclean, and I tried to lean into the idyllicness of the feelings they generated to bring some sweet to the bitter
Below: sketches for possible game over screens if the player ran out of resources
Below: concept art and design for the Viscount, the ship the expedition is searching for. We knew we wanted the find to be something supernatural, but early eldritch-leaning ideas felt wrong, since they implied malevolence. We went with a tree growing out of the ship’s dead wood, a natural life form doing an unnatural thing. It was inspired by world tree and life tree mythologies, and its purpose was to straddle nature and magic to give the characters something to react to and ponder about, as well as to deliver the save do-over mechanic at the end of the game, and to tie Captain Hunt’s arc into a (time) loop
Below: background and emote design for the second Captain’s Interview scene, where Hunt grills you about how successful your run of the game was, and offers you a chance to try again. My first sketches of endgame Hunt were kind of manic and comical, but this scene led me to soften him, creating expressions that were somber and contemplative, as he reflects on his failures as captain, mourns the loss of members of his crew, and decides whether he deems you a worthy successor or not
Below: background and crew for the final vote scene of the game. Background render by Ethan Mclean, character assist by Katie Noble. Here, if many of these characters have survived to be here, they are likely to trust the player, and have formed friendships with each other that cross faction divides. They’ve been through a lot together, with you as their leader, for better or worse
Below: Designs and some of the final emotes for the epilogue versions of our characters, where the player can learn of the fate of the crew members based on the decisions they made in the game and whose loyalty they earned or didn’t. Many characters needed new clothes for having returned to civilisation, and a new character had to be designed for his appearance – Nutlee’s father, the barber. The backgrounds were designed and painted by Ethan Mclean.
JESSANIGHT 