This is an artefact I made from last week. I designed and drew several background borders for the game that would convey the setting to the player. The main locations for our game would be the village and, later on, the forest.
To start it off, I had a discussion with my team regarding the perspective. Our game is in a top-down perspective, but drawing trees and houses from that angle is difficult. For example, when I attempted to draw a tree from the top, the leaves obscured the tree trunk. That kind of made the tree look more like a very big bush which wasn’t what we were aiming for.So we all agreed to slightly tilt the perspective a little so that the player can get a more obvious feel of what the objects actually are.
I used Photoshop to create these artefacts. Since the game is set in the 16th century, we had to convey that timeframe somehow through the assets in the background. I conducted some research by looking up what huts and houses looked like at the time. I got a general idea of the style: for instance, the classic grassy roofs and visible wooden beams. I did not add too much details to these artefacts as the player’s eyes will mainly focus on the main character, the obstacles and the enemies. I did, however, add a number of variations on both the forest as well as the village huts. I did this so that the background would not get too repetitive.
Another thing I had to keep in consideration was the actual background of the game that was made by the other graphic artists on my team. The color of the background where the borders will be located is a slight dark green tone with grassy textures, so I had to make sure the assets would be visible but also not steal too much attention from the player. I chose mostly neutral, dull colors that was not a big step away from the background and also made sense according to the setting. I also had to make sure that the colors were bright enough to pop from the background.
Elina Marjomaa 
You make it clear what you have done and why you have designed your game assets the way you have. In addition to researching about the overall setting of your game, to get a general sense of what types of assets you could create and giving you different ideas on how you could give an accurate portrayal of what it could or would have looked like in the 16th century.
Although, it would have been nice to have been able to see your design progress by seeing some early sketches or transition of your work from early on to the final ”product”. To get a good sense of your thought process, even though you do mention what you had in mind while making your design choices, this would make it more clear how certain things were done. Nonetheless, I think you really captured the theme through your designs, and that when certain things did not work out how you thought, you adjusted (changed the perspective) and pushed through, and I really love the small intricate details you put into your game assets, in addition to how that gave the buildings character, and provided more of an overall feel to the game environment.
GillaGilla