First Commissioned Work I Ever Did: Illustrations for a CYOA puzzle game book
This was the first ever project I was commissioned for, from 2017. It was a CYOA puzzle game story as part of a book featuring 2 others. The basic premise was you and your brother(?, can't remember details) crash off the side of a road above a frozen lake in winter and weird shit is happening.
There were 4 main locations, pictured in the first 4 illustrations. There was also an in-game map.
The puzzles revolved around glyphs, that I think had numerical values based on the circles featuring in the individual glyph, but, again, I can't remember. It's been 9 years. The actual visual design of the glyphs was mine, since the writer gave me the basic premise that they're shaped like coins or tokens that look like they were made of ice. So I went with the circular theming. I made 2 versions of every glyph except the last one. The crosshatch-shaded ones ended up being the final ones.
One of the puzzles involved a safe with a 3 number combination. The illustration for it took up the bulk of my work time. There were two main versions. The original one (which went unused and frankly I'm glad it did) is the gradient-shaded one. The final version was styled similar to the glyphs though I still went through several iterations, mostly for lighting. This puzzle also featured a clue that was in-universe scrawled on the ceiling. The solution was math-based, I think.
The final puzzle took place at the stone circle. The player had to choose 2 of the 9 glyphs to place in the empty slots on the bottom in the two relevant stones. This puzzle followed the same logic as the safe, I think.
As I said, I'm glad the gradient-shaded versions were the ones that ended up on the chopping block, though I can't remember if this was the writer's decision or mine. I think it may have been mine as the gradient versions just didn't look right to me. Was much happier with the final versions. Although it meant that due to this being my first project and me not having any experience with managing my time or workload, a good portion of the work I did over the span of 2 days without sleep at the 11th hour before the book was gonna go into print.
Mysterious circle of standing stones. The final stage of the game.
Overturned car over a frozen lake. The starting location of the game.
A willow covered by ice and snow.
Abandoned house half-buried in snow.
Map of the area the game/story takes place in with the four relevant locations on it. Styled like a sci-fi-looking tablet computer.
Final 1.
Alt 1.
Final 2.
Alt 2.
Final 3.
Alt 3.
Final 4.
Alt 4.
Final 5.
Alt 5.
Final 6.
Alt 6.
Final 7.
Alt 7.
Final 8.
Alt 8.
Final 9. No alt.
The safe puzzle illustration, final version.
Safe puzzle, final version variant 1.
Safe puzzle, final version variant 2.
Safe puzzle, final version variant 3.
Safe puzzle, alt version.
The clue for the safe puzzle.
Final puzzle part 1, final version.
Final puzzle part 1, alt version.
Final puzzle part 2, final version.
Final puzzle part 2, final version, variant. The glyphs were harder to see due to the cracks, so they were toned down a bit.
Final puzzle part 2, alt version.