One of the most acclaimed adventure games of all time is now back, better than ever. Grim Fandango Remastered has the all the beautiful art and engaging story fans remember, but has also been remastered to look, sound, and control even better than the award-winning original release.
I was the Art Director on Grim Fandango Remastered and also worked with programming to develop the process and tools for re-lighting the game. I also re-designed the interface, logo and created several pieces of promotional art.
These two screenshots show the difference that our new lighting system made to the look of the game. Because the backgrounds were the orginal, pre-rendered images, our lighting improvements primarily affected the real-time 3D character models. We stayed within the spirit of the original game, and used the new lighting to make them feel more integrated into the environment. We also used a few tricks to project new, real-time shadows on the old, pre-rendered backgrounds.
Original image (above).
Remastered image (above). The lighting has been re-done and the character textures have been up-rezzed.
The following images were created for promotional purposes. I chose to create simple, graphic images that evoked the original look of the characters.
I re-designed the logo and the look for the front-end of the game.
I created the following rough key art images to get the process started. The first image explored the idea of a woman in love with death and in the second image I tried to capture a film noir vibe, with an off-camera threat, only seen as a shadow across the piecture plane. The final image was an attempt at an action piece, with Manny and Glotis driving the Bone Wagon.
