Concept Art

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Dungeons of Aether.

Concept Art#

Fleet#

"Character Concepts of Fleet, the protagonist of the upcoming project, Dungeons of Aether. Please look forward to it!!🦊

Character Designed by @elranno and I!"1

"It’s been over a week since Dungeons of Aether has released, so I figured it’s time to start showing off all the concepts I made for the game!

Here’s some concepts of our protagonist, Fleet, including some early iterations and character exploration from 2019! 🦊🏹"2

"Character Concepts of Fleet the fox for Aether Studios' Dungeons of Aether (2023). She's the main character of the title and we had to design her around being translated into fitting into a pixelated sprite. This meant avoiding too many unnecessary details such as exposed legs or gloves."3

"Here’s the progression of the very first character portrait concepts I created for Dungeons of Aether!

Being the protagonist of the game, I of course started with Fleet! 🦊

Character portraits were categorized by “Face-Only” and by “Fully-Body” expressions. I initially began by designing expression with various stages of intensity, but we condensed them to less, but more flexible usage within the game’s story script."4

"2D character portrait art made for Dungeons of Aether's main story dialogue. Expressions were divided into Face Only and Fullbodies for expressions that required more body language. These 2D portraits were later translated into 2D sprite art, which I also painted over and wrote notes for corrective anatomy/shading consistency."5

Slade#

¹ 6

Hamir#

"It’s Hamir time! 🔨

This guy went through a lot of changes since his first iteration. He started off a bit more of an Armadillo than Pangolin, had only a single 2h hammer, and was named “Armorus” early on.

At some point during gameplay/animation development of Hamir, I proposed that we give him two hammers instead of one so that I could keyframe a more unique move set from Artemis!"7

"One of the Four Protagonists of the Turn-Based, Dice Drafting RPG, Dungeons of Aether. A character based on the existing Rivals of Aether lore, he is an Armadillo/Pangolin Hybrid made of Rock and Scales and based on the Wall-Runners of the Aether Universe. Hamir has a defensive playstyle and his design was created to convey that. In 2019, Hamir was one of the protagonists I spent the most time designing along with Fleet, as I began to explore and learn how to depict bulkier, heavier shapes in character designs."8

Artemis#

"Concept art of Artemis from Dungeons of Aether!

The early days of the project were some of my toughest. I didn’t usually find myself designing tough lizard ladies in 2019, but it was fun getting out of the comfort zone."9

"Concept and early exploration of Artemis, from Aether Studio's Dungeons of Aether (2023). One of the four playable protagonists in the Turn-based, Dice RPG. Working on Dungeons allowed me to design characters out of my usual comfort zone, this time, a large, axe-wielding komodo dragon."10

"You guys like Artemis Dungeons of Aether?? Here's a thread of Artemis concept art."11

"Artemis was probably one of the hardest characters for me to draw. She's pretty complex. So instead of redrawing her armor over and over, I ended up drawing over existing sprite work to create her various expressions."12

"Portrait expressions were divided by "Face-Onlys" and "Full Bodys". Usually, FO was a simple expression change, while a FB had more unique posing for certain lines of dialouge in-game."13

"Super early Artemis portrait (usually a place holder for early development) and another special pose."14

"Some early concepts for her halberd weapon. I dont remember why I made them, the sprites were never gonna be able to be this complicated, to be fair!"15

Doctor#

"Here’s one of the very first NPC concepts I made for Dungeons of Aether – The Doctor!

This guy is a sight for sore eyes, especially when you’re low on health exploring those dungeons."16

"Concept art of the Doctor NPC featured in Dungeons of Aether (2023). Can be found through the in-game dungeons."17

Ayala#

"Character Concepts for Ayala! 🐰🔧

Ayala began as a minor NPC character at first, but over story changes, she took on more of a mentor figure for Fleet!

As for her new look, I went for something that felt fresh, yet familiar to her Rivals 1 design."18

"Character concepts and dialogue portraits for Ayala, a support character featured in Dungeons of Aether. Ayala was a character I designed years ago for Rivals of Aether (2015), and was subsequently named after myself by the dev team. Ayala makes another appearance in Dungeons of Aether with a new, yet familiar design."19

Banker#

"Character concepts for the Julesvale Banker!

I gotta admit, I kinda love designing bird characters, so I’m glad I got to do this one. He’s based off a Magpie!

….Do Magpie’s actually like shiny things? Maybe it’s just a myth, but this one definitely does."20

Blacksmith#

"Concepts for the Julesvale Blacksmith!

One of the very first town NPCs I designed, who evolved as the town setting was fleshed out a bit more. I felt that Julesvale needed some sort of rodent NPC somewhere, so I figured why not a capybara."21

Randall#

"Concepts of Randall from Dungeons of Aether!

I really liked designing this totally trustworthy, kind looking old vulture man. Surely he has no intention to pull any ruses on me."22

Thief#

"One of the first enemies I concepted for Dungeons of Aether, we called him Small Bandit!

Can you really trust this weaselly looking guy?"23

"Concept Art of Small Bandit Enemy featured in Dungeons of Aether (2023)"24

Bandit#

"Another early enemy that I concepted for Dungeons of Aether, the Large Bandit!

I personally like to think that small and large bandit are good, thieving pals."25

"Concept Art of Large Bandit Enemy featured in Dungeons of Aether (2023)"26

Miner#

"Concept Art of Badger Co. Miner enemy featured in Dungeons of Aether (2023)"27

"In his final design, we gave him a dufflebag on his back instead of a bindle.

I also pitched an idea where there would be a random chance that his dufflebag could sometimes spawn as a Sandbert bag. It didn't happen."28

Skeleton#

"Crypt Skeleton concepts from Dungeons of Aether!

This dude was definitely one of my favorite designs I got to make for the game, he’s quite the handsome lad."29

"Concept Art of Crypts Skeleton enemy featured in Dungeons of Aether (2023)"30

Digger#

"Concepts I made for the Badger Co. Mech enemy.

These concepts were used as a baseline for the enemy in the game before he was split up into different colors/designs to fit several biomes.

Sadly this construction mech doesn’t show up as it does in the game and the Pilot is only visible upon defeat, but it was very fun getting to design mechs!"31

"Concept Art of Badger Co. Digger Enemy featured in Dungeons of Aether (2023). The Final version in game contained several color variantions. I concepted the initial Mecha Robot and the Pilot idea."32

Graverobber#

"Graverobber concepts from Dungeons of Aether.🗝🐀

This dude makes all of the rules."33

Foreman Kohler#

"The first boss I designed for Dungeons of Aether. I came up with the design of both the construction mech, the Beaver Foreman himself, his Dialogue Portraits, and the mock-up visualization of the in-game fight. Because of the limitations of Dungeons' UI elements, I had to design the mech itself with a "safety" area in-mind, so that the player was able to see the character to prevent UI elements overlapping the character's face. This is the only unique fight in the game that utilizes a parallax, moving and looping background during the climax of the first dungeon floor."34

"Here’s a long post on the process of creating the first boss for Dungeons of Aether’s story mode, Foreman Kohler!

My initial pitch for the boss character was a play on words, I wanted to have multiple beavers at the helm of the tank dozer, however time constraints meant we had to keep it with just the head honcho himself.

Tank Design

Did you know unique-looking construction vehicles are hard to design? Yeah, this one was super tricky. I went with something that felt like a combination of a bulldozer, as well as some early 20th century tanks. I also wanted it to look menacing as it came barreling down towards the player character.

Battle UI Limitations

I had to come up with something that was appealing, simple, AND within the constraints of Dungeon’s battle UI. There was no option to make the UI smaller, in fact, there was only scenarios with the UI would only become bigger, depending on the amount of dice or skills the opponent could have!

So not only did I have to design his tank, I had to design it in a way that the player could see Kohler’s face with in the cockpit between the UI safe regions.

Battle Sequence

And lastly, here’s the earliest mock-up on how I visualized the Kohler boss fight! I pitched an idea of having a moving escape sequence, with Fleet fleeing away from Kohler on a minecart. This is the only fight in-game that features a moving/repeating background! This fight alone took a TON of work, and it was the first major story fight! I would have loved to design more unique fights like this!

Rivals 2

So yeah, this is practically the reason why Fleet and riding minecarts became a thing, even featured in Rivals 2! Thanks for reading!"35

"Concepts of Foreman Kohler, the first boss you fight in the Dungeons of Aether story! My initial idea for Kohler was designed around a play on words, with multiple beavers at the helm of the construction tank."36

"Part of the challenge in designing Kohler's dozer was having to create a design that worked within the limitations of Dungeon's Battle UI.

He had to fit snuggly between the dice and skill menus, and that was tricky in itself."37

"...and here's the earliest mock-up on how I visualized the Kohler boss fight!

I pitched a moving escape sequence with Fleet escaping via minecart from Kohler. I think its the only fight with a moving/repeating background loop!"38

Geode Vendor#

"In Dungeons of Aether, there’s an NPC that you can give geodes to turn into random items.

Here’s some of the initial ideas I made for them!"39

Olympia#

Merchant#

40

"Merchant Axolotl concept from Dungeons of Aether"41

Avarum#

Avarum's early name is mentioned in this concept art.

Witch#

"In the main town of Dungeons of Aether, there's a witch NPC you can purchase Amsidian from.

I wanted to design a chameleon because initially they were going to be found within the dungeons themselves."42

"Early idea I came up of the concept was that this NPC in the dungeon would be (of course) invisible, with nothing but a witch's hat on the floor.

If the player encountered the witch's hat, the hat would then 'float' into a different tile/floor, and reveal a secret shop."43

"Since they simply got changed to a town NPC, I figured I'd make her appearance less sinister, and instead more friendly/goofy looking."44

Innkeeper#

"Concepts of the Inn Keeper from Dungeons of Aether"45

References#