During my time as Lead illustrator at Sharechat I undertook the Creator Levels project , working alongside our wonderful in-house 3D team. The project was intended to help gamify the creator experience on the Sharechat Live chatroom product. This feature enabled users to keep leveling up as they used the platform, incentivizing them to continue creating live content with aspirational badges, virtual coins and rewards
As Sharechat caters primarily to Indian regional language users, our entire brand was inspired by Indian culture. For this project I drew very heavily from Indian architectural motifs for the entire badge based hierarchy system. I worked exclusively as the concept artist working closely with the 3D team.
As Sharechat caters primarily to Indian regional language users, our entire brand was inspired by Indian culture. For this project I drew very heavily from Indian architectural motifs for the entire badge based hierarchy system. I worked exclusively as the concept artist working closely with the 3D team.
PROCESS
There were 3 themes initially considered as we started of this process - Indian Jewellery, Army Medals & Indian Architecture. The architectural variety of the Indian subcontinent being so vast and inspiring, we decided to take that route forward. Here are some initial rough moodboards and concept sketches during the exploratory phase.
Hierarchy and Asset library
I created a distinct shape hierarchy that sat in multiples of 5. The shapes would serve as the primary badge while the roof above would take inspiration from unique architectural structures across India. In this manner I created detailed, intricate sketches depicted above as the guideline for the 3D team to model after.
Gradually adding detail for levels 1 through 5
TANJAVORE TEMPLE INSPIRED: LEVEL 51 - 55
Process: Ref image - Sketch - 3D Modelling - Texture & colour (All 3D work undertaken by Shashank Shekhar Singh)
Final coloured renders of major badges