Chloe Renee Hayes
ILLUSTRATION & DESIGN
Digital Art & Illustration
Below is a curated selection of illustrations and digital artworks from both personal projects and commissioned work. Specializing in character-driven art and expressive portraits, this portfolio highlights my strength in visual storytelling as well as my draftsmanship across a range of illustrative styles.
Also, don't miss my ARTchive page, featuring a sketchbook gallery periodically updated with my most recent studies, concepts and art explorations!
Fantasy Frontier Journal (Ongoing Project)
“Fantasy Frontier Journal” is an ongoing illustrated worldbuilding project presented as a fictional research journal. Each entry follows the observations of a frontier naturalist as they traverse an uncharted, magical realm—cataloging its curious wildlife, ancient guardians, enchanted flora, and strange spirits. Rendered in a storybook style, these pages blend botanical illustration, fantasy zoology, and a sense of scientific wonder to build a whimsical ecosystem filled with folklore and mystery serialized in a physical journal that will continue to grow with new discoveries and ideas!
Goodbye Number 10 Illustration & Design
This is a sample from a series of illustrations and concept sketches for a published short story "Goodbye Number 10" written by Laurence Roberson, told from the perspective of an unusually intelligent catfish named Number 10. Originally the subject of scientific experimentation, Number 10 is released into to the wild by her kind and remorseful scientist keeper and lives a contemplative life outsmarting fishermen — and eventually crossing paths once more with the very scientist who once experimented on her. This narrative blends fantastical storytelling with grounded emotion, grappling with ethics, intelligence, and the quiet dignity of life under the surface. Artwork reflects a storybook visual style with subtle emotional and psychological undertones. The story is beautiful and the project was a pleasure to work on.
Character Design & Concept Art
Snack-tober Character Design Challenge!
“Snack-tober” is my month-long character art challenge—an exercise in creative concepting and character design inspired by a mystery box of Asian sweets and snacks. Each day in October, I chose a new treat to enjoy—many of which for the first time—and used its flavor, texture, packaging, and overall visual presentation as the basis for an original character. Designed in a playful anime/cartoon style, each piece was a daily exploration to sharpen my character development skills, push my creativity, and design outside the box (or, in this case, inside the snack box).
Film & Game Concept Art
note to self Film Concept & Character Designs
Character designs and concepts for the film. Includes a character turnaround sheet for animation, various pose studies, different hair/body explorations, as well as colored thumbnail shots for the first draft of the film.
Scarlet Knight Animated Trailer Designs
Character designs and concepts for the animation, including a character line-up, backgrounds, and layouts. The visual style was developed to emulate the look and feel of early 2000s DC superhero television series, such as Batman Beyond and Static Shock. Characters were adapted directly from the Scarlet Knight comic book series, with all artwork tailored to fit a stylized, animation-friendly TV format. The goal was to stay faithful to the source material while optimizing the designs for clarity, motion, and strong silhouette appeal in animation.
Id of the Perverse Film Concept & Character Designs
Character designs and concepts for the film. Includes a character turnaround sheet for animation, various pose studies, color and line style explorations for the scene/character, and some creepy concept art from pre-production.
Beowulf - Concept Design Project
Beowulf is a concept design project reimagining the classic Old English epic through a revisionist lens. In this version, the legendary hero is re-envisioned as a woman navigating the harsh, mythic world of Viking-era Scandinavia. Developed for a PG-13, action-driven, cinematic 3D animated feature, the project includes visual development for characters, environments, props, and color styling—blending historical grit with fantasy aesthetics to create a bold, modern retelling of the legendary tale.
Flicker Fortress - 3D Game Concepts
Flicker Fortress is a 3D single-player indie puzzle game developed with a small team of artist friends. In addition to contributing as a lead in concept design and art for the game, I provided character modeling and rigging, prop models, environment textures, and some puzzle builds in Unity.
A trailer made by me for the game can be seen here.
The game is available to play (via controller) or download on itch.io here.
VRsus GuARdian - AR vs VR Game Concepts
VRsus GuARdian is an experimental fantasy two player game designed to be played with an Augmented Reality device and a Virtual Reality headset. For this game, I provided concept designs, 3D models, and rigging and animation for the VR Player character, along with collaborating with my 11 teammates in other areas of game development.
Trailer and playtest footage can be seen here.
Itch.io page for the game can be seen here.
Miscellaneous Game & Film Concepts
A selection of concept art from unreleased and in-progress indie game collaborations and film ideas, featuring a range of visual development work across 2D, 3D, and pixel art styles. This B-side portfolio highlights exploratory designs, stylistic experimentation, and behind-the-scenes visual development for characters, environments, props, and UI elements.