There's always a lighthouse. There's always a man. There's always a city.
Playing through Bioshock for the first time in 2007 was a truly eye-opening experience for me. With the stunning art direction, environmental storytelling, and strong narrative, not to mention the philosophical and literary themes, it showed me for the first time what gaming was capable of as an art form. Needless to say it left a lasting impression, and with its successor Bioshcok Infinite wowing me again, the franchise has firmly established itself among my favorite games.
One of the things that stood out to me in a big way was the theme of constants and variables introduced in Infinite. The fact that there is always a man, a city and a lighthouse, and that the lighthouse is a gateway to the city where the events of the games take place. Playing through the remastered collection again recently, I was inspired to create some pieces based around this theme.
First I wanted to express the concept of the lighthouses as a gateway to the cities of Columbia and Rapture. I drew the cities contained within an outline of their respective lighthouse to evoke a sense of a snow globe or a window, of looking in on something. With a bit of post processing, I ended up with the below pieces.
From here, I also wanted to do something with 'constants and variables'. A 3-part series based on my favorite quote from Infinite. I conceptualized them as posters showing the respective subjects from Infinite in the upper and Bioshock in the lower half, set on vibrant complimentary colours with a bold Art Deco sign featuring the respective part of the quote.
When creating these, I was able to reuse some of the assets I had created for the 2 lighthouses.
From these designs, I then did a lot of post processing to add the colour gradients and some highlights on the Art Deco signage to make the gold trim more pronounced.
