Crazy Caverns, Platform layout

For my platformer, I want to have the location be in a dark cavern.

The main conflict for the level is about the character being trapped in a cave, and needs to find a way out. With various obstacles like moving platforms, falling spikes and timing your jumps correctly, this can be a fun course.

The twist of this level is that if you make one wrong move in certain areas, you have to start all over again so tread carefully. The level is located in a deep cavern with various crystals and spikes dangling from the ceiling. I would like to put some tribal paintings on the walls to give it a bit of culture behind the environment. Since the area is underground, the time of day isn't really important, but I suppose it would be during midday during winter since I want to have some rays peeking through. The only other residents to this cave would be the creatures and tribal people who have decided to call this home. Since these people have only lived in the cave their entire lives, I want the bits of architecture to be blocky and ancient looking, like the animated version of Atlantis.

Prior to the character arriving here, there was a collapse in the cave that caused the natives to evacuate their homes, so everything is abandoned. The player arrives, simply looking to explore, and has accidentally ended up being trapped in a deep cave with a beast, and must quickly find a way out.

Here's my layout for a rough overview of how I want my level to look.

I definitely want to have a color glow similar to this picture.

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/GXH64w5fiXc/maxresdefault.jpg

But still be cartoony like this

DFA silhouettes and gestures

For our first DFA project, we have to visualize 8 characters from choosing from 100 silhouettes , and 50 gestures. I definitely have some ideas in mind for some of the creepy and cute creatures I want to create from these.

WIP digital piece: Queen of Hearts

Digital Piece in progress:

It's been a while since I've done a full digital piece, probably a full year by now since the last piece was for my board game, Marmora. I have a love for dark fantasy art, and I love Alice in Wonderland, so I thought I would take a more gothic approach to the Queen of Hearts. Since I have a past being a traditional airbrush artist, I tend to enjoy smoother rendering styles when it comes to digital work. Eventually, I would like to be comfortable enough in my rendering skill to not have to rely on a black outline to keep me in focus and neat. 

So here she is, about 50% done. I'm only using 2 basic brushes for this so far. Many of the colors are not finalized yet since I'm still looking for the best contrast.

Platformer Analysis- Sonic!

For my analysis, I chose Sonic Sega Genesis. I used to play it a lot when I was a kid, and grew to love it. 

The pacing of the game is rapid, and is exciting to the player because Sonic is always running fast. It's as if you were riding a roller coaster but you could control everywhere you go. The player will never be bored because of the rapid speed and the spacing of enemies throughout the course.

The layout is simple so that the player can run with ease without any confusion from the course. This makes the game easy to play for everybody while having fun.

With upcoming levels, there are more twists and turns throughout the course, as well as harder enemies. Sometimes there is water that will rise on the course to give the player more anxiety.

There are many enemies in the game, from jumping fish to mini robots.

Here's a walkthrough (or runthrough) of the sonic level.