Supreme Courtship

Art direction and illustration for an educational comedy video game

The Idea

I was brought on as the art director for a small indie game project with one goal: teach people about the Supreme Court in a fun, engaging way. The developer wanted to take inspiration from the dating sim genre, thus the name "Supreme Courtship".

Logo and Branding

Taking inspiration from popular dating sim games of the time, I came up with our logo. Additionally, I defined our project's fonts and designed branding elements. These spear-headed the development of the game's aesthetic.

Concept Art

As the art director, I had to make a lot of quick concept art to convey the style and direction of the game. While most of this was focused on characters and locations, I also created a rough storyboard for our in-game cinematic sequence, which you can see in the gallery.

Character Sprites

Not only did I get to illustrate the Supreme Court justices (circa 2016) as young, stylish, 20-somethings, but I also got to design various quirky side characters. And with each character needing a set of emotes and poses, I ended up drawing nearly 400 unique sprites!

Game UI

Everything in our game needed to match the branding, so I designed multiple different user interface elements like dialogs, buttons, and menus. I then implemented and animated these designs in the game's engine, Unity.

Managing Artists

As the art director, I hired and managed three artists. I had to describe to them the visual style we were looking for, and guide them on how to implement it, like in this feedback doc where I was describing how to visually depict water.

Video Production

The game's trailer and Kickstarter video were put together and edited by me using After Effects. I animated custom transitions, made graphics, and even added sound effects! I also worked in collaboration with a videographer, helping with set design and costumes.

Kickstarter

Along with everything else, I also helped write and provide assets for the project's kickstarter. While it ultimately did not reach its funding goal, the project did get 495 backers and was even in Kickstarter's "projects we love" category!