Consummation Proof of Concept: Mid-June Art Devlog
Solo dev sprites, photobashing (?), and CGs
As we hit the midway point of June, Battle Action Fantasy VN Jam (a.k.a. BAF Jam, which I am helping to cohost) is also halfway in!
I’m working on a proof of concept demo of Consummation ~wind above the dragon sea~, a yuri action fantasy visual novel, for the jam.
At the moment, the demo script is fully written at approximately 12k words and other assets are in progress.
The Consummation prototype is a solo development endeavor, so my entry to BAF Jam will be a combination of online assets and my own output. It’s been quite a while since I last solo dev-ed a game, having led teams as director, scenario writer, and character designer for my last two projects (Who is the Red Queen?, Lachesis or Atropos).
However, I prefer not to ask someone to create assets that would be scrapped and redone in the scenario that the game is elevated from prototype to active (likely commercial due to scope) project. Thus, here we are. Jack of most trades shino is on the scene.
Let’s talk about the art!
sprites
Sprites progress: ~80%
Spites are almost done! Line art is complete as is flat coloring, but I’ll have to play around with the palettes and actually render my girls.
The sprites for the demo are drawn waist up with a white outline around them. Originally, I wondered if I could get away with only flats and no rendering, but it didn’t quite match with the background assets I had.
The sprites are displayed to the right, a locational cut-in to the left if applicable, inspired by what you might call the Liar-soft Steampunk style. It’s efficient for a one man team, especially one who is not an environment artist.
(I find that there’s 2 main sides of visual novel staging: comic style and anime style, with the use of cut-ins taking advantage of how comics build mental images of scenes within their readers minds through overlapping frames—but I won’t go rambling about that for now…)
photobashing
Backgrounds progress: 100%
Backgrounds are just about all gathered.
The majority of the backgrounds in the game will be from asset packs, sources to be listed on the game page when published. Alas, as is the case always, some locations are hard to find in those packs!
Hence, I did some photobashing for a handful of places. That is to say, finding some photos on Unsplash and editing them in an image editing software, such as GIMP, to create another image.
Use the clone tool to edit out unwanted elements, overlay lots of blue, and put the image through a variety of filters such as blur, oilify, mosiac, and others until satisfied.
The end result is workable as a temporary asset in a prototype game… Rinse and repeat as needed.
I may occasionally smash up some photos as placeholders, but you probably won’t see me doing BGs often aside from the rare solo dev game where I can’t find a separate asset for a location.
cgs
CGs progress: ~10%
Not much to say here; CGs are all still in the sketch phase, so I’ll just go ahead and show you a sneak peek of the first CG:
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To summarize the current progress:
Scenario: 100%
Art: ~50%
Scripting: ~50%
The month started strong, but unfortunately June’s a bit of a busy one for me. Here’s to making a good demo!
shino