Outer Wilds - underwater ship concept
Ever curious Hearthians filled with bravado, a thirst for adventure and a zeal of unrivalled determination seek glory in the depths.
"Welcome to orientation recruit.
I hear you're quite the navigator topside, bit of a hot shot from what they tell me. This model will feel familiar. Are ya nervous? Excited? Excellent. Keep your wits about you, never know what's down there. Here, always keep these on always.
Hm, I nearly forgot. The emergency flares all got drenched. Pyrite's working on some new ones, but you're on your own for now. Go for it champ."
"Can you eat a pine tree" - Hearthian Food Exploration part 1
I'm in the middle of a deep dive investigating Hearthian food.
Take the words of this post with a pinch of salt. Heh.
Omg it's happening, I think this is my first expanded headcanon.
I'm so excited.
Theory crafting Heathians and their culture around food, sourcing ingredients and preparation techniques.
Disclaimer
So far, the presence of ghost matter wiping out non-aquatic lifeforms seems to limit the availability of hearthian diet to aquatic based life. That being said, it was long enough for Hearthian's to evolve, so let's just ignore inventing entire species for culture is outside a game dev's scope alright. I'm firing off ideas since I want to draw more food and it's raising a lot of curiosity. But that being said, having access to more creaturas opens a lot of doors. I must design one.
Fish meat
They eat fish. There's enough bodies of water on Timber Hearth to suggest the presence of a variety of freshwater lake and river fishy. We also have the entirety of Giant's Deep which is just an entire planet of sea. The large gravitational pull on that planet amplifies deep sea pressure. I'd like to think that anything coming out of that water would be evolved in such a way to adapt to these critical conditions. Lots of teeth, bioluminescence, blobby or flat bodies. Extra creepy looking. They're all evolved to be ambush predators to preserve energy. They grow really big. Catching one of these titans could feed the village for a week.
Incidentally, I drew angler fish hotpot the other day. I imagine the Hearthian population is quite large. At some point you get a group of people risky enough to challenge the anglerfish. I think it'd be like a fairytale or generations of fish hunters who bring back this glory meat. But they can't do it in a flashy loud way, so they develop all this stealthy hunting gear designed to get them really close for the assassinate. HYAAH then they drag this big ass carcass back home through cold space that keeps it fresh.
Food preservation
So at it's core food preservation is about dealing with the microorganisms in food, food preservation is finding ways to deal with them so they can't render our feed inedible. So with something like fish (meat, fruit etc.), you're looking to pull the moisture out, you'll see drying racks where they salt the stuff or leave it to hang in the open, you can bake stuff, or put it through a dehydrator. That's far too high tech.
Similar techniques with salt (curing) or smoking foods, it's the same principal.
Ingredients
So we then have to ask, do they have access to edible salt? Primarily that's sodium chloride to us. For the sake of simplicity, Hearthians are surrounded by rocks, and they have good stomachs, so yeah, probably. Having access to salt opens up so many possibilities.
In a similar vein, a really common important ingredient for food is also sugar. The existence of Marshmallows suggests there's natural source. Just wandering around, I think most suitably would be honey, it wouldn't be too far removed to imagine bees on Timber Hearth. There'd be an abundance of flowers, actually I've talked myself into it just now. Bee keeping Hearthians is now in my head.
We also know with fish you can boil bones for stocks and gelatine (the latter is also used in marshmallows, sweets and other desserts, not to mention the flexibility it affords us in cooking).
And by extension I think natural flora that have fruit. With that and sugar you can make vinegar, which opens up pickling as another food preservation method - pickle fruit, veg, fish whatever.
I've been imagining lots of wilds mushrooms and leafy things. The hardiness of Hearthians means they'd probably be more adventurous, even at risk of an upset tummy.
There's just an abundance of potential here and I'm no mycology expert, but I do think when I come around to drawing more, focusing on incorporating more fungi is key to interesting dishes. It's so versatile, I think you could think of it like a tofu. Plus the colours and variety of shapes make for really interesting shapes to draw.
What about vegetables?
There's a lot of potential for naturally occurring vegetables. Which in turn leads to entire bodies of agriculture and options as a staple food. Root veg and leafy greens should be common in the wild. Though rice and grains to grow maybe?
Pine trees
So this is where I started this entire rabbit hole. I thought, well, they can't just survive off fish and marshmallows. Haha... Unless?
Literally first question "can u eat tree bark"
Turns out in some cases... yes. Kind of.
The two models in game are more likely pine trees (Pinus sylvestris) and redwood pines (Sequoia sempervirens).
Outside the usages of wood as we know it for buildings and spacecraft, as far as I could find, the edible bits are split into:
cones
needles
bark
sap
nuts
You can apparently boil the tight closed green female (???) cones to soften them and eat. But stay away from the barky stuff. It's old and wood like lol. Actually did you know pinecones make for great fire starters. Get a couple dry ones when you're camping and chuck them in.
Needles, it's possible to make tea out them, random reddit comments say it tastes like juniper berries (like in gin). It's quite healthy too. Allegedly they have medicinal purposes else they're used for mulch (for fertilising plants). I always imagine Heathians to be careful for future generations like that. I found some posts talking about using the pine needles as a flavouring for smoking your fish, so potential here too.
Bark. I really wanted some evidence of people just chewing on hunks of wood. You know like how a toddler monches on toy blocks. Turns out inner pine bark was used in something called bark bread. It was a starvation feed where they used the stuff to pad out the flour to make it go further. It didn't have much nutritional value so as soon as possible it was cut.
Sap wine exists. Generally pine sap isn't used for food purposes. Who am I to question it. Actually far from it, I think if we start incorporating extra sugars (from root vegetables, wild flowers and fruits), the process of fermentation actually opens up so much. Alcohol, vinegar, heck if we start factoring in the potential for additional creatura, then we can have milk, therefore cheese, yogurts and stuff.
You start combining all of that with plants and medicinal whatnot, we have the potential for cosmetics and medical products.
Imagine that, hearthian makeup.
So pine nuts are a classic. You can roast them, throw them on a salad, with fish and meats, turn them into a dessert. They're super versatile.
For a treat you could turn it into flour. Super expensive, but maybe for big occasions - like a festival?
I'm at the character limit. I'll be back.
edit: ooof I just scrolled back in the queue and saw this guy, it's quite funny looking at my cringe. Let this weird character serve as my reminder to actually learn some real character design :v
Why something doesn't work is equally as important as why something does work.
When we deal with character design we will be iterating through a high quantity of sketches, doodles and ideas. Much of which won't see the light of day, scraped or otherwise repurposed into something better.
The likelihood of getting something right first try is astronomically low, and even if it is there is stuff to be learned from drawing them repeatedly, in various outfits, poses, and props.
If design is your interest then we need to get used to piles of repeated drawings and trying many options. Being precious about art in this situation is a hinderance. Most of the art isn't going to be used, seen or make it anywhere. But it doesn't mean it isn't valuable.
The design approach
Where do ideas come from? How do we even start designing a character? These are genuine questions because the answer is - it depends.
Who are you as a person, what are you drawn to? What inspires and how do you like to work?
Is it by writing out a backstory and working out what they look like. Or a visual first approach, get the shapes and blobs down and work out the rest along the way? A mix? There's no single answer to this, and how you do it is part of your artistic signature.
You can imitate as much as you want, but you leave behind traces of who you are as you go - from poses, colors, even subject matter emerges over time. This is your real style, you can't force it. You're just drawn to certain things.
What makes good design?
This is where subjectivity come into play. We can have measurable things, such as readability of silhouette, shape design and language, color choices etc. But all of that shifts and changes over time. Techniques, words and beliefs are always changing. Good design one year can be absolute trash and old news in 5 years, or we can look back and see some designs hold up to the test of time.
What is good design? Everyone you ask will say something different, patterns emerge, but there won't ever be a consensus.
So what matters is, does the design suit the project, be that personal or for something else.
If it matches the artistic vision, then you got good design.
It doesn't have to be complex to be good
complex design doesn't always mean good
good also doesn't have to be technically proficient either
So what is it?
It's the execution of a coherent idea presented in it's intended form to the expectation of the creator.
You can have someone just starting to draw and have top notch design skills and you can have someone who draws like a fiend and also not know how to design.
These two things are separate tracks, but they often overlap, it can be hard to differentiate.
Either way, if you want to design things, it's a good idea to train actual drawing skills, it's the technical skill that makes the ideas understandable. Good designs and ideas that can't be conveyed effectively is going to be a struggle.
Why do designs collapse?
We can tell at a glance what 'bad', 'awkward', 'uninteresting' 'unappealing' designs look like in the same way we develop our tastes and preferences.
What is bad to one person is genius to another, these aren't measurable in that sense.
There are things that are more universal which is why there's so much emphasis on fundamentals. But strictly following them leads to robotic lifeless images, so what's the answer, why do these things bump.
It's very subtle, but a topic such as anatomy shows over time.
It's the power of intent.
You can't see it as clearly in the moment , but people can tell the difference between an accident, a mistake and intention. Maybe not overtly, and they won't see it without stopping long enough to notice, but it's there. You can tell when someone knows anatomy based on the types of things they are drawing.
But that's more to do with draftsmanship (drawing) than design.
Design philosophies
Design at the creation level falls apart when we don't consider - what is the purpose of this character?
Let's consider Don Mega, a character I made for an AU of Outer Wilds:
This character gives me a headache, they exist on two planes - one side is creative freedom - wanting to form naturally and be it's own thing, and the other track is creative restriction - adherence to rules and boundaries within the context of the intended world.
You can't have both.
There's a world where Don Mega works as a standalone character - this is by removing all links to an existing world. They're a sharky buff swimmer. Absolutely fine. But they aren't a Hearthian (Outer Wilds).
The alternative is make them more typical, but that removes all the features that make them who they are.
So we have
1. an idea
2. intent and purpose
3. enough drawing skill to put it on page
but it doesn't work - why?
It doesn't work because I decided it doesn't work. Their design doesn't make sense to me because the reason for them existing doesn't align with what I want. The pictures are fine, but the idea doesn't fit the vision, beliefs and values and preferences.
This is a bit conceptual, but this is the underlying thought process behind what makes a cohesive design.
So they go back on the shelf, chopped up and repurposed, informing design decisions for future characters. We do this over and over again, each character teaching us a bit more about what we like, don't like, and how we want to shape our ideas.
Eventually enough threads will align and we have a set of design preferences that are undoubtedly our own - this is how we formed our artistic vision. Habits, ideas, preferences all coming together - sat on a mountain of discarded ideas and old thoughts.
So how do you get better at design? By drawing a lot and trying as much stuff as possible such that you can tap into any number of inspirations buried deep.
So we reframe, maybe the design isn't right for what we'd like now, but it is part of a much bigger picture. We make enough Don Megas so that another Don Mega doesn't have to happen again.
In plain words? If I design a Hearthian, I design a Hearthian, if I make a world concept then it's a world concept, now we just keep those things separated. We make the distinction of what it is we're trying to do as early as possible so the ideas don't fuse again.
Don Mega didn't work because I was trying to do different things at the same time, and other characters didn't work for different reasons; no story, too much story, weird poses, boring, uninteresting subject, wrong theme, ugly colors. Each design teaches something different, it isn't wasted effort.
Anyway, good luck, design is related to drawing, takes a different type of thinking, you can train it if you want.
Make links between random objects, it'll help you think creatively by default.
(a cloud and a rock, both are grey, inanimate, opaque, can be put in a bottle, take on lots of shapes, soundless, etc etc. doesn't really matter, it's just the pattern of thinking we want)
