We just posted our first 2026 Kickstarter update for Crescent County!
One of the things I'm really pleased with is how our cat-in-game rewards are coming along. I wanted to get our cat stylisation ironed out, so here are the fluffiness-level turnarounds I drew whilst trying to adhere to a slightly anime/cartoon look:
And then the base meshes our wonderful 3D artist built:
And our first in-engine shader test!
A big question was how to get cats to look like they belong in the Crescent County world. Matching animals to sit well with characters and environments can be more challenging than people realise, so we tried to carry over visual details that our characters also feature: a thick, modelled line above the eye, building angles into the face and body, and using pointed shapes (like fur tufts) to catch the lineart and cel shading. This kind of thing is my FAVOURITE stuff to get into the weeds with, and I'm really pleased with how things are currently going 💖
They're not rigged yet and they still need proper textures, but the big battle is getting them to sit alongside characters nicely.
Anyhow we cover a TONNE more stuff in our update, but this is something I really wanted to shout about because, well, I love cats.