This week I have been working on the end screen, it is the screen you get when you lose the game, and since this is a “no victory” game, you will see this screen a lot. Therefore I really wanted it to look nice. In the end of this game you will lose your “Life tree” so I wanted that to be represented in the Image, It is shown in the middle as a stump. It has a shaft of light shining on it as opposed to light coming from inside the tree, as it is shown in the game. This is to draw the viewers attention to it and also show that it no longer has any life of its own. The rest of the image is dark and gloomy with little saturation to give the viewer a feeling of despair. Only the flames of the fires burn bright, producing a thick smoke that covers the sky and sets the mood.
In the middle of the foreground we see the axe of the character in the menu screen stuck in a tree stump as a sign of the loggers victory over the forest. I think this helps the player connect the end screen to the game play in one more way.
The text is the same font as the menu screens but this time it’s a pale dark red. This is to add to the mood of the image but also as a contrast to the stark greens in the other menus. Red is also the color theme of the enemies, their hoods and hats and pants being red.
This is how it looks right now, still a few details to add.
I created the image using photoshop as usual. Starting with a background gradient from green to blue, I added hills, tree stumps, fire, smoke and finally the Text.
This is my way of drawing fire in photoshop: I use several layers, first a layer where I draw the flames with a rough brush, nothing fancy, just to get the shapes down. Then I use the smudge tool to draw out the flames upwards making them a bit blurred. Next step is using the Liquify filter, this can create some really cool shapes that look a lot more realistic. After I have my shapes down I copy the layer and use a blur effect on the copy, then I repeat this with the blurred layer once or twice adding more blur to each layer. This gives the fire it’s glow. I then merge the blurred layers and put them behind the one still containing the nice shapes of the fire. Sometimes I play around with the colours of these two layers to get a nice feel to the fire, maybe adding some more yellow to the bottom of the fire, where it burns the hottest, and more red hues to the top. Finally adding some sparks or flakes of ash flying up from the fire gives it that extra detail.
Hope you like it!