Illustrated game pitch · 2026
Beyond Us
A journey from the furthest reaches of space to the microscopic world inside everything we know.
Explore the projectJelizaveta Skobejeva · Central Saint Martins
The overview effect
Putting human existence into scale against the universe.
My project is an illustrated game pitch that explores ego death by putting human existence into scale against the universe and providing the audience with a simulation of the overview effect — a feeling astronauts report when looking back at Earth from space, where borders shrink and conflicts seem illogical, while the view also reveals the beauty and fragility of life.
The storyline is based on the short film Powers of Ten by Charles and Ray Eames.
Driven by ever-rising tensions, primarily as a result of exceptionalism and cultish superiority within communities and groups of people, the project nudges the viewer to reassess their views on themselves and the world around them.
The art of Beyond Us
A physical art book, visual world and game pitch.
Concept art for characters, spacecraft, environments and a story that travels across impossible scales.
Complete publication
Explore the full art book
The complete pages include cover design, characters, spaceships, environments and storyboard work.
Open art book PDFThe complete art book opens as a local PDF in a new tab.
Campaign visual
“Bigger than us — and yet…”
A visual expression of the game's shifting scale: from human perception to structures far greater and far smaller than ourselves.
Powers of Ten™ (1977)
From galaxies to protons.
The storyline for the hypothetical game is based on this film.
The shot starts looking over a couple in a park before gradually zooming out past our atmosphere, with the scale increasing by a power of ten every ten seconds. After passing the Virgo galaxy cluster and reaching a distance of 100 million light years from Earth, it zooms back in — continuing all the way to a microscopic view of what we are made of.
Similarly, the game begins on Earth. The player travels into the furthest reaches of space before an anomalous event shrinks them to microscopic size, where they explore the tiny world that makes up everything we know in search of a way back home.
External video · YouTube
Illustrator & designer
Jelizaveta Skobejeva (She/Her)
My main interest lies in storytelling and designing characters and environments.
I am driven by fantastical worlds and narratives that explore deeper messages surrounding human connection, personal growth and sociopolitical themes.