Spellslingers Arcade Game

Art I created for my wizard-dueling arcade game, Spellslingers! In this game, you are a wizard locked in an intense battle with a rival wizard. By waving your wand as fast as possible, build up energy to generate a spell that strikes your opponent. The more energy you build up, the stronger your attack spell will be. The first wizard to lower their opponent’s health to zero wins the round. First to win 2 rounds is victorious!
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As the background artist, my job was to design 4 environments/stages that showcased the homelands of our characters. The goal was to create a diverse set of backgrounds that transported the player into a world very different from our own. Initially, the backgrounds were going to be still images, but I decided to animate them so the game looked more polished and dynamic. With the animation, I wanted to breathe life into the stages while ensuring that the backdrop never became too distracting for the player. As I became more experienced with Unity, I felt more confident and was able to do more animations in less time. This was my first time animating backgrounds for a game, and I'm very pleased with the result.
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Fungi Forest is the tranquil home of Wormol, full of dense and exotic foliage. Cryptic Council is the mysterious homeland of Naenia, bursting with dark magic. Hocus Homeroom is the colorful classroom in which Ginger gained her skills. Sunken Swamp was created as a reference to the typical bog environment associated with witches.
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Additionally, I created the animated backgrounds for the start screen, main menu screen, and character select screen. I also implemented and animated the text that appears on them. I didn't want the backgrounds to be too busy so the player could focus on the UI. The backgrounds are split into two colors to match the split design of the cabinet and enhance the competitive atmosphere.

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I also created 2 character concepts for the game. I usually don't do lineart, but I might incorporate it more in my future projects because I learned a lot and had a good time using it here. Paper Mario was definitely a big inspiration when it came to the line thickness; I think a bold outline really helps characters pop.
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I wanted Naenia to read as evil easily, so I gave her a dark and muted color pallet with the only really saturated area being her glowing orange eyes. I noticed a lot of necromancer designs in media tend to use mainly bright green to signify their "evil magic", but I wanted to break away from that. So, I chose warmer colors like red and orange that still convey a sense of power and darkness.
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For Magic Mushroom, I wanted to convey his magical nature through his pointed shoes, cloak-shaped body, and wizard-hat-shaped mushroom cap. I gave him cooler colors to avoid him looking too much like Toad from Mario; his pallet is based on the Viscid Violet Court Mushroom. He may be a little guy, but he's still willing and able to throw down as shown by his attack pose.

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I was also tasked with creating the art to be placed on our cabinet via vinyl sticker. The main aesthetic draw of our cabinet is the two large cardboard cutouts that stand beside it. They feature a magical flame and our tutorial guide, Qrow. I wanted them to clearly convey the magical nature of our game while looking a bit intimidating. For the art on the cabinet itself, I went with a two-toned design that clearly illustrates which side of the cabinet belongs to which player and that these sides are in opposition. The diamonds and filigree give the cabinet a mystical and otherworldly feel. The solid-shaped filigree (on the bottom in the close-up picture) was initially designed for laser engraving, but that idea was scrapped since it would've taken way too long for the engraving machine.