Melissa Lee
2D Artist / Character Designer / Illustrator
Personal Projects
I tend to work on many complex personal projects that are large in scope such as pitch documents and video game builds, often with the intention of turning them into a commercial product or business of some kind. As such, the majority of my personal projects are confidential unless already published for the general public on social media.
Please ask about my personal projects during interviews if you wish to see them!
Publicly viewable projects are shown below.
Please ask about my personal projects during interviews if you wish to see them!
Publicly viewable projects are shown below.
Project Rodeo
2016 - Ongoing
Programs Used: Adobe Photoshop, Blender, Substance Painter, Unity
Programs Used By Teammates: Autodesk Maya, ZBrush, Unity
Roles in Project: Lead Game Developer, Writer, Art Director, Concept Artist, UI Artist, Level Designer
Roles in 2D Animated Trailer: Storyboard Artist, Background Artist
Project Rodeo is a 3D adventure platformer game project that I have been working on in small increments since 2016. The majority of the development time on my part has been spent on fleshing out the story, characters, worldbuilding, and organizing lists of planned mechanics and assets intended to be in the final version of the game. The majority of the programming, character modeling and animations were done by a friend up until 2021, with some additional 3D animation and programming done by two others in more recent years.
The level design in the prototype build was completed in 2021 within two months by me and largely consists of assets purchased from the Unity Asset Store. The entirety of 2022 was spent doing the storyboards and backgrounds for the 2D animated trailer for the game. In August 2023 an animator was hired to do the character animation for the trailer. In February 2024 a programmer was brought on board.
It has only recently been publicly announced and a playable demo is planned to be released during the SAGE 2024 online expo in late August/September.
Programs Used: Adobe Photoshop, Blender, Substance Painter, Unity
Programs Used By Teammates: Autodesk Maya, ZBrush, Unity
Roles in Project: Lead Game Developer, Writer, Art Director, Concept Artist, UI Artist, Level Designer
Roles in 2D Animated Trailer: Storyboard Artist, Background Artist
Project Rodeo is a 3D adventure platformer game project that I have been working on in small increments since 2016. The majority of the development time on my part has been spent on fleshing out the story, characters, worldbuilding, and organizing lists of planned mechanics and assets intended to be in the final version of the game. The majority of the programming, character modeling and animations were done by a friend up until 2021, with some additional 3D animation and programming done by two others in more recent years.
The level design in the prototype build was completed in 2021 within two months by me and largely consists of assets purchased from the Unity Asset Store. The entirety of 2022 was spent doing the storyboards and backgrounds for the 2D animated trailer for the game. In August 2023 an animator was hired to do the character animation for the trailer. In February 2024 a programmer was brought on board.
It has only recently been publicly announced and a playable demo is planned to be released during the SAGE 2024 online expo in late August/September.
VTuber Project
December 2021 - Ongoing
Programs Used: Adobe Photoshop, Blender, Substance Painter, Unity, iFacialMocap, VSeeFace, Live2D
The rising popularity of virtual motion-tracked idols online led me to try my hand at making my own character and model for fun. December 2021 was spent designing the character and creating the final 2D model in Photoshop for use in the program Live2D. January 2022 was spent learning and creating the working rig in Live2D.
In May 2022, orthographic model sheets were created of the character in preparation for modeling in 3D. September 2022 to December 2022 was spent learning Blender, Substance Painter, iFacialMocap, VSeeFace, and Unity to create the 3D model with rigging, textures and blendshapes to be placed into the Unity engine. January 2023 to March 2023 was spent creating assets for a level that the character can freely move around in within Unity. Programming for character controllers and cameras were provided by friends.
Progress has paused on the Unity build since then, due to lack of available knowledge in creating a character controller that allows for the face and hand tracking to work in tandem with premade animations, such as the idles, walkcycles and cape physics of the character. Other projects have been given attention in the meantime, as well as continuing to post 2D art of the Vtuber design and fleshing story-related concepts for it such as adding side characters and drawing character interactions to garner public interest.
Programs Used: Adobe Photoshop, Blender, Substance Painter, Unity, iFacialMocap, VSeeFace, Live2D
The rising popularity of virtual motion-tracked idols online led me to try my hand at making my own character and model for fun. December 2021 was spent designing the character and creating the final 2D model in Photoshop for use in the program Live2D. January 2022 was spent learning and creating the working rig in Live2D.
In May 2022, orthographic model sheets were created of the character in preparation for modeling in 3D. September 2022 to December 2022 was spent learning Blender, Substance Painter, iFacialMocap, VSeeFace, and Unity to create the 3D model with rigging, textures and blendshapes to be placed into the Unity engine. January 2023 to March 2023 was spent creating assets for a level that the character can freely move around in within Unity. Programming for character controllers and cameras were provided by friends.
Progress has paused on the Unity build since then, due to lack of available knowledge in creating a character controller that allows for the face and hand tracking to work in tandem with premade animations, such as the idles, walkcycles and cape physics of the character. Other projects have been given attention in the meantime, as well as continuing to post 2D art of the Vtuber design and fleshing story-related concepts for it such as adding side characters and drawing character interactions to garner public interest.
|
|
|
|
|