Billie Bust Up

3d Puzzle Platformer

I focused on defining the visual direction and concepts for all the levels, aiming for a playful, whimsical tone. Often times, the prompts for levels were loose and I was given the privilege to pitch ideas, story beats and even gameplay to refine the team's vision for a location.

Breakdowns

You can find some more details on how I approached different aspects of the project here

Our Passing Thoughts

2d Platformer

Our Passing Thoughts started out as a game jam game that I and a couple of friends took to a pre alpha build over a period of time. Aesthetically, it started out as a pixel art game but transformed into a 2D illustrated style.

Illustrations

Barnaby's Mansion

Billie bustup

Barnaby's level takes place in a twisted chaotic world of Barnaby's Mansion, a place in the middle of everywhere and nowhere.

Cat Pirate Cove

Billie bustup

Cat pirate cove had a simple premise. Its pirates and they are cats. The idea of the level was to be broken up into smaller islands where different narrative beats will take place. To separate this aesthetically from a generic pirate aesthetic, I added some very "cat like architecture" and looked at how cat furniture was made on stilts and poles. This had an added benefit of naturally giving verticality to make the play space more interesting.

Cat Pirate Cove

Pirate Fort

I was tasked to establish a pirate fort for one of the factions of this level. I wanted to give this location a very visual gimmick to leave a strong impression for the player and wanted to introduce some intrigue through the architecture by providing some sturdy old, Spanish style forts as opposed to the more rickety unstable nature of the other cat structures. The idea being that this fort was more repurposed by the Cat Pirates, not made by them.

I had an early idea of a giant pirate ship crashed into the pirate fort, and the pirates simply making do with this wrecked ship and the ruins of the castle.When I first made this, I was tasked with other parts of the project and when I revisited this concept, too chaotic of an idea.Going back to the drawing board, I found the idea of a Spanish style fort built into the remnants of a giant conch shell too alluring to not explore.

Since Billie Bust Up is a 3d puzzle platformer, I like to mock up my ideas to see how well they translate in 3d space. I then create a paint sketch as a guide for the other concept artists on the team.

The sketch paint is rendered to get a better idea of the colors and vibe of the setting. Because of the nature of development, we left the concept at this stage for awhile while we attended to other parts of the game. The final render you see was done after some time and I fleshed out the Fort walls and covered the hole in the shell with a giant tarp to reduce the many interest points of this composition.

About Me

Jon Arvin Medalla

Concept Artist

I'm from Cebu, Philippines. Passionate about the art of games in all their forms—whether it’s strategizing across a board, storytelling at a tabletop, or immersing players in digital worlds. I specialize in environmental storytelling and prop design that bring these spaces to life.

Email: [email protected]

Experience

Billie Bust Up
Senior Concept artist
2020 - 2025

3d Puzzle Platformer - Upcoming
- Conceptualized all levels for the game
- Provided mood pieces and prop breakdowns
- Contributed to Game Design of certain gameplay sequences
- World Building

Our Passing Thoughts
Lead artist
2020 - 2025

2d Puzzle Platformer - Cancelled
- Lead artists to achieve artistic vision
- Created Mood and Art Direction for the game
- Produced Environment assets
- Implemented Environment assets
- Explored Technologies and Techniques to achieve artistic vision

Ace Play
Lead artist
2019 - 2020

Mobile Game - Defunct
- Established Art Direction for the Entire Project
- Coordinated Art Contractors to meet deadlines
- Set up asset pipeline for efficiency

Experience