WOWSER! – A “Life is Strange” realistic fan artwork rendition

A picture is worth a thousand words. And when there’s a collection of them depicting a
really evocative fan artwork rendition, it becomes quite exigent to describe the visuals
without lacking short for words. Changing the entire environment from stylized to
realistic, we bring to you a complete remake of the washroom scene from “Episode 1:
Chrysalis” of the popular video game title, Life is Strange.

That particular moment right at the starting of the game when Max sees the magical
butterfly, rewinds time and tries to save her friend from getting shot, is one of the most
notable moments amidst the entire Part I of the series. As we had to hold the prestige
high for a fan artwork, while we were pondering upon what should be the choice of
scene, setting from the within the game - it seemed pretty relevant for us to go with
that one only.

Unreal Engine effectively helped us portray the scene the way we wanted to, giving it a
realistic touch. Using modular assets and related techniques to bring alive the rendition,
it felt great to see the output as it seemed like a complete makeover has been given to
the scene and realism is spewing right from our screens.

Looking back upon how it all panned out right from the eyes our Environment Artist
Taufeeq Ali and 3D Artists Nihal Sanjeevan, Rajan Verma, Vikas - the ones who contrived
the entire scene from concept and scratch to a full-fledged working UE4 project - it does
seem that the result was a work of an inspired endeavor, fueled by the tenacity of
taking on new challenges and learning, growing along the way.

Thus, after almost a month of efforts - right from collecting references to blocking out,
making list of props, assets and going forth with the production pipeline of modeling,
texturing, lighting, asset placement, adding elements for refinement and as fillers – the
team was all set for the final presentation. They emphasized that using certain
techniques pertaining to modular assets did make things go smooth during the
production process.

Overall, it was a gratifying task involving a slight learning curve as well for the shrewd
artists, as well as for Shivendu “Sh1bZ” Mishra the one who had thorough interaction
with them and curated content for press releases pertaining to this project. They’re
looking forward to work upon more such environment based projects, where they get to
experiment with new ideas and are able to express themselves thoroughly just like they
did in this fan-artwork rendition.