A Summer Art Update
One thing that I didn’t mention in the last art update I did is bring up who this specific character was. This is Anko, our main protagonist’s sister. She won’t be making that much of an appearance in the story, but she was prevalent enough to warrant a design.
Putting that aside, there are a couple of things I wanted to discuss. First off, in regards to any issues that we have in regards to the sprites of our game, most of those will have to be solved at a later date. Our last sprite artist Temeritas has currently been pursuing other ventures. As such, we cant make much progress in regards to in-game art. So if we make any updates to our game and you dont see any immediate changes to the in-game sprites, this is the reason why.
Now, one thing that I mentioned in our last art update was the need to revamp some characters. I feel now that Ive mad some progress, and now is the time to discuss the progress Ive made with you guys to get some feedback.
So, the first character that needed a revamp was Kameko. When it came to the current design that you see in her current sprite work, I never could get a real grasp as to what her character really was. It never felt like there was a real sense of direction in regards to her design, and with some of the comments Ive gotten in regards to having “too many brown haired girls” or some saying that she looks like a “Rin rip-off” I decided that a change for her was needed. So with that in mind...
This the direction I want to take Kameko in. I tried to go for a very “beauty in the mundane” type of approach in regards to her character. I figured it would suit her relaxed and laid back type of character while still looking like someone that would be into activities such as swimming.
Now, another character that I felt that needed some major revamping was Rina. When it came to her design, there were plenty of things that never felt right to me. There was so much going on with her design and so many details that felt off, I felt a revamping was needed.
One big thing that I wanted to change was the unnecessary braiding of her hair. Theres a certain beauty to characters that have just long hair without anything obstructing it, and I felt this kind of beauty would be suited for someone like Rina. Another big thing was her eyes. I was never fond of the very square-like eye shape she had going on, so I rounded her eyes more. Another thing that I also really stood out that I didnt like was her black eyelashes, so I changed that detail as well. Although it is hard to represent this change in regular sketches, so I opted to outline the eyelashes to convey this. Another detail that will change is her eye color. Previously we just made the eyes pure red, but based on my research, I found that detail to be off. In regards to people with albinism, the tendency tends to be an eye color of blue with maybe hints of red, so expect to see these kind of details in future art.
So, those are the only characters that are going under changes. If you guys want to talk about the changes Ive made and have your say, I’ll be happy to respond to these changes on our Discord.
Now, one last thing, while going through the process of revamping, Ive come to realize that the school uniforms we currently may be too restrictive, which hinders some of the designs of our girls.
So I figured that more clothing options should be available in order to express our characters better. The idea for “casual clothes” for our characters was always in the back of our head but I felt that since them being in school will be such a prominent thing, more clothing options to break away from the standard uniform was needed.
So expect to see some experimentation in regards to that in the future.
One last thing, apologies for the art updates being only very rough looking sketches. I’ll try my best to do more digital work, although my resources to do so are limited. Anyways, I believe that is all I wanted to say. Again, if you have any concerns with these design changes, feel free to talk to me about it.
Hope to update you guys soon
-lostmemory123