Demon's Souls - VFX Concepts

We addressed nearly every spell in Demon's Souls from an early concept stage since there was an incredible amount of work required to remake these 50+ effects from scratch. Under Mark's guidance, we knew we wanted to both pay homage to the original spells as well as improve them in a number of ways - from their visual clarity and fidelity to their level of interaction with the player and the environment. Early on we worked out color palette and form language to help differentiate the two schools of spells - magic and miracles.
Personally, I'm very happy with how the soul-collection effect turned out. I envisioned it as a stream - or ribbon - of souls being torn out of enemies' bodies and siphoned into your own, and Dane really nailed the execution. Additionally, Sean did an excellent job ensuring that many of your bread-and-butter spells (soul arrow, flame toss, etc.) feel awesome even when you've cast them for the 200th time.
All told, this was a colossal effort by the VFX team and I was happy to be a part of it.

VFX:
https://www.artstation.com/daneshannonsparks
https://www.artstation.com/seanlantis
https://www.artstation.com/m357y

Art Direction:
https://www.artstation.com/madmanmark