So I'm not sure if I already mentioned this here or not, but as of last week I've started taking art classes at a major art college in order to build a portfolio and attend said college. I was doing computer science for games as my major at my current university, but after a series of emails and phone calls that lasted over a span of two months, I found that it was nearly impossible for me to switch to the more creative side of game studies. So I took a leave of absence for a year to do real art.
That said, I've got this ongoing project in my Intro to Entertainment Design class where I basically have to design every aspect of a story: characters, props/weapons, vehicles, and environments. I've already got the story written out, and to give you the short version of the overall theme, it's a story that takes place about 500 years ago in a setting where several groups of tribal people are constantly at war, and as such, their culture is centered heavily around weapons, black magic, and ritual masks (used in performing said black magic). I want to do something kinda dark and mystical, something with a graphic art style and overall creepy feel (vaguely reminiscent of Majora's Mask but a step or two farther into the creepy factor).
At this point in my artistic career, I don't think that I have a broad enough horizon to be able to pull a bunch of existing art styles together and combine them into what I would be designing for my narrative. Does anybody have any ideas of what kind of visuals I could draw, style-wise? If you could point me towards the artwork of the specific series or whatever you're thinking of, that would be perfect. I need to have my first visual concepts in by Thursday so anything you can tell me before then would be immensely helpful.
Thanks guys. :D
Well, since you mentioned a Zelda game, maybe you could take a look at Twilight Princess stuff. Here's a picture of a poster I have:
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a67/MontagueHawke/201109/IMG_0589.jpg
Maybe you can take some monster designs from that game and incorporate them into your ritual masks somehow.