Devlog #2 — Back From the Quiet. Ooh, demo sprites!
Hi everyone! It's been a while. I somehow took an unintentionally long break from devlogs ^^;
Life got busy for a bit . I went on a long trip to Japan with my husband and our friends, and there were a couple of things here and there that pulled me away from writing updates.
That said, development has been continuing behind the scenes! I've also been posting art updates more regularly on my socials, so if you'd like to follow along more closely, feel free to check those out on instagram and twitter.
But for now, I'm back to devlogs!
One of the biggest milestones since my last devlog is that I've finished the sprites for my main leads: Robyn & Noah! Wee!
As well as two important side characters: Suzie & Vidar.
Getting these characters finalized feels like a huge step forward after so many revisions. Seeing them fully realized makes the story feel much more tangible, and it's been incredibly motivating to work with them directly inside the game! 😭
Once I have all the demo art finished and integrated into Ren'Py, I'm hoping to go back and add even more sprite variety. My goal is to add one arm pose variation for every character and at least one more head variation for the main characters.
I've actually already started working on this with Noah. Since he's the male lead and the character Robyn (and the player) will be seeing the most, I'm hoping these additional variations will help make his reactions feel more natural and make him even more endearing. But man, I have to draw expressions for this face angle and re-do the organization of his layeredsprite groups in the code ToT
CG Progress: A Lot… For a Demo
I've also sketched out all the CGs planned for the demo around 5–6 CGs in total. I know… that's probably a lot for a demo.😅
But honestly, having the advantage of being able to create my own art, I couldn't help it! Visual novels live and breathe through their visuals, and I really wanted the demo to capture the emotional tone of the story. And I may have gone a little overboard.
Each CG also has its own variations, which means even more illustrations to complete. So yeah… I may have put quite a lot on my plate 😅I'll show snippets of the CGs later down the line.
If I'm being honest, I sometimes worry my writing may not be as strong as I want it to be but I'm hoping the art will help carry those moments and bring the emotions to life. And of course, I'll keep improving the writing along the way too.
After 3 days of my fingers dying, I finished the first background for the demo: The office stairwell!
But but why a stairwell? This space is meant to become something of a sanctuary for Robyn, a quiet place she retreats to whenever she feels overwhelmed. It's a tucked-away corner of the office where she can breathe, think, and sometimes… have important conversations. hehe.
I've also been experimenting with a more efficient workflow for making BGs and I think I found a process that works really well for me. Here's roughly how I'm doing it
Set up a scene in The Sims 4 as a simple base.
Take a screenshot at a camera angle I more or less like
Adjust and edit the lighting (especially in black and white to focus on values), and rearrange objects/perspective etc
Sketch over the scene and add extra details, do the lineart where I see fit, then paint and color over everything
This workflow helps me quickly establish perspective, composition, and lighting before moving into the painting stage. 🙏
Since I intend for Hue and Me to rely a lot on atmosphere and lighting, especially with the monochrome theme, this approach has been really helpful so far. I'm still refining the process but it's already making background production feel more manageable. I'll share a step by step visual process of it soon!
Thank you so much for your patience during the quiet months. More updates soon and hopefully, less time between devlogs as I go😊