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Surprise - I’ve got one more batch of Sky: Children of the Light art to share! Back in 2018, four years after my internship at ThatGameCompany, I was reached out to join their team once more. These are my art test submissions!
The prompt was to create a unique environment. For the first, I chose Eden - the final stretch which was still in early visual development at the time. I have a text file documenting all the emotional beats starting from the death of the sky kid and ending at their ascension to rebirth which waxes more poetic than the actual image, haha
The second was a Valley of Triumph-inspired area with lots of aqueducts which fed diverted snow melt into a torrential river. Four years after creating this piece and seeing that we now have swimming mechanics, perhaps this can be an aquatic version of the wind path shortcuts?
Poster mockups for Sky: Children of the Light! I think these were created at the tail end of my internship at ThatGameCompany.
The composition was inspired by N.C. Wyeth’s iconic painting, The Giant. The title design was something I doodled in maybe 5 minutes to give it a movie poster vibe, and it apparently inspired the final logo design for the game. At the time I recall being told that “Sky” was gonna be really hard to trademark as a game title, and I’m pleased that they actually went with it!
Environment concepts for Sky: Children of the Light. These were painted from scratch, which was a nice change of pace from screenshot paintovers.
First image plays around with the idea of a floating moebius ring and cairns being a cool visual - and features one of my early sky kid designs!
Second image might have been an early exploration of the Hidden Forest, with big ol’ see-saw rainsticks all over the place. The idea was that you can summon or dissipate the rain clouds above by interacting with them.
An assortment of environment concepts for Sky: Children of the Light. These were paint overs of in-game screenshots at various stages of polish. The first one is an early visualization of the Home hub. Second and third are concepts of an underwater themed area. Giant hermit crabs…perhaps they can be a giant benevolent ancestor of the crabs?
Series of color studies for Sky: Children of the Light circa 2014. Most of these are painted over concept sketches by Yuichiro Tanabe – identifiable by the sky kids with detached legs. We explored ideas of a world once inhabited by sky-dwelling giants so a lot concepts have these huge abandoned buildings nestled in the clouds.
Super early character explorations for Sky:Children of the Light. The game was still trying to find its identity at the time, and it was challenging to deviate from the established Journey-esque aesthetic. I think some of the recent cosmetics took inspiration from these - particularly the crown for the upcoming Days of Nature and the bird on the head from the Season of Flight.
Bonus paper toy template based on one of the sky kid concepts. It was inspired by Matt Nava’s Journey traveler origami! My memory’s fuzzy, I’m fairly sure for this particular sky kid, the paper toy came before the actual drawn concept!
Finally got permission to share some early concept work from my internship at ThatGameCompany for Sky: Children of the Light, circa 2014. I’ll be uploading more of these in the coming days, stay tuned!
