Sequential Illustration: Trapped, Anxious & Paralyzed By Decision Making RPG

The project brief was to create a sequential illustration within the scope of a single image. The image had to still capture the essence of sequential illustration, providing narrative and momentum to an ongoing scene or experience. With this in mind, I was inspired by the PC game, Scooby Doo’s Showdown In Ghost Town because of the way it ushered story and order within a static scene. Point-and-click adventure games create scenarios that require making the right decisions in order to escape, complete and uncover using a mouse’s pointer. Choosing a game that was nostalgic while still incorporating the theme of anxiety made the work more realized, with a setting that mirrored the subject matter of both influences brought upon by the claustrophobia evoked in the scene. Using lingering hallways, closed doors and a character panel looming upward, I included details that further encapsulated the feeling of being anxious in a virtual environment both familiar yet paralyzing to navigate.

Whether its battling armies signaled by the sword, hammering through intrusive thoughts representative of the hammer, restarting an extinguished flame showcased by the bundle of fireless tinder or equipping yourself with healthy habits visualized by the water bottle and journal your experiences become your superpowers, the tools that help you see clearer, the ones that breath magic and betterment into your life indicative by the right panel in the character bar. A subtle node to the conceptual ideas which make the artwork present is the snake & apple game towards the left of the canvas symbolic to Eve, highlighting the paralyzing fear that comes with making a decision and facing its repercussions in even greater complexity.