#development post

[the-redemption-project]

Motive and purpose: Alastor’s deal.

I do like Rosie. I think she’s a really fun character with a gorgeous design, especially by Hazbin’s standards. I do not like Don’t You Forget. Now, Don’t You Forget is a very musically strong song with a banger of a reprise, but I hate the storyline it introduces. My reaction to this song was a very confused What and it when came to The Redemption Project, I knew I was changing the hand at the end of the leash. And I had my answer straight away:

Building off the changes I’d already made to Lilith’s character, as I’d discussed in her own motive and purpose post, me and @paranormal-paracosm immediately began discussing what this would mean for Alastor’s role within the story and within the Hotel:

It was these discussions that made me realise why Lilith sent Alastor to the Hotel; to keep a watchful eye on her daughter when it wasn’t safe for her to be there in person.

Later on, we discussed how this would affect Alastor’s relationships with the Hotel’s staff and guests;

But as for the relationship between Lilith and Alastor themselves?

Well, I think I’ve told you all enough for one day.

[areseiseart]

08-10-2020 A long Awaited Update

Personal emergencies are done! Which means I can get back to work and update you all. I apologize so much for the delay everyone, my cat needed the vet, my mum needed emerge and I needed sleep,

Drama aside-here is the update.

Writing:

So let's talk pacing-I realized while working away from home this week that i was trying to cram way too much into the prologue of the game so I decided to go back reorganize my thoughts and how i want each different part to be introduced.  I have set up a short brief 'prologue' that acts as a flashback of the mc of events before the game begins. This short prologue leads into the common route where the characters will each be introduced. The prologue and chapter one of the common route are done and I am thinking 4 chapters will be the maximum needed for the common route. I'm working on chapter 2 of the common route this coming week and will update you all as the pacing and plot progresses.

I have also started fleshing out the vague line of Aspen's route. He will be the first to be written so I've gone back and forth on his first chapter set up as I have changed and adapted the common route.  His first chapter is majorly just in need of editing but has been put on hold in the meantime until I complete and finalize the common route. Just to ensure continuity is upheld.

The side stories are more casual but I am mostly done with the first 'story' for Aspen and Gabriel, it is just a casual story of their first meeting.  It might appear more episodic in its releases.

Other than that just spelling corrections and some quick pacing changes have been made to the completed chapters (prologue and common route ch1.)

Art:

I got quite a bit of art things I'm working on! Minor sprite adjustments to fix anatomy but as well as some background sketches.

The two backgrounds are of a lounge area and a classroom, there's also a revamp of aspen's pin up that I'm working on. because i was unhappy with the anatomy of the first one. Here’s a preview of the sketch for the lounge for now

Coding/GUI etc:

Coding very much took a back seat this past few weeks.  Other than implementing more of the script from the prologue and completed chapter 1 of the common route I haven't touched it much. I  wanna focus on the assets being completed before I place them into renpy. just to avoid losing files as i have a couple times now.

That's all I've got today! But I hope you all liked it. thanks so much for patience <3

[the-redemption-project]

Motive and Purpose: The Exterminations.

The idea of Lilith being the mind behind Hell’s yearly Exterminations did not start with me. @paranormal-paracosm gave me the idea while I was venting about trying to untangle the mess of motivations in Hazbin Hotel.

I knew I’d wanted more complex reasons behind the Exterminations than a simple hatred of the residents of Hell, but given Lilith’s affiliation with Adam (which was a particular frustration for me at this point in time), it made sense to involve her in his work. I’d been thinking about how the then-recent reveal of Lucifer being unable to harm Sinners would have affected his relationship with Lilith, and I decided to make her the Architect of the Exterminations.

Lilith had watched Hell grow increasingly lawless as Lucifer fell deeper into his depression, unable to rule over his subjects. The Sinners in the Pride Ring no longer respected the Royal Family as they once had, but bowed to Sinners with more power than a mortal soul should have been able to hold. With her beloved unable to defend his honour, Lilith went to the last person she ever expected to return to; the First Man, with a dangerous idea in her mind; to introduce a yearly culling of the Sinners in Hell, conducted by a heavenly force led by Adam himself. Knowing that the Angels could kill Sinners, she hoped that reintroducing morality to Hell would lead to the souls in the Pride Ring revering their immortal rulers once more.

Adam presented the idea to the Seraph as his own, with Lilith’s blessing, and although they were reluctant, they accepted the proposal. Adam was made the new commander of the existing Exorcists, and with the support of their Lieutenant, was able to turn them into a force to be reckoned with. Lucifer signed the terms without protest, and Lilith, fearing that her Deal would be revealed, left the Pride Ring and her family behind. Lucifer still recognised his beloved’s work.

Adam had his own reasons for making a Deal with Lilith, but I’ll talk about that another time.

[the-redemption-project]

Concept to final design; Charlie Morningstar.

I have a giant Pinterest board for The Redemption Project, so I began by saving twenty pins for Charlie, spanning fanart of the character herself, as well as real life garments alongside aesthetic images, song lyrics and a lot of text posts. I then used Pinterest’s Shuffles app in order to make a single image combining the contents of the board, thinking about how I was positioning both the text and visuals.

Using this as a reference, I did a rough sketch in order to figure out Charlie’s design; at this stage, I was more focused on the character’s style, choosing not to include animalistic elements at this stage.

Having completed the sketch, I decided that I wasn’t a fan of the yellow tint to her skin, deciding to go with a more desaturated colour. I also decided to add horns and ears, leaning into her demonic heritage, although I knew she was going to be a humanoid character. My biggest problem, however, was her skirt. Although my notes put the issue down to the skirt being too short, I wasn’t happy with longer skirts either. The issue turned out to be more complicated than I expected; the blazer was too long and affected the skirt, although I did also lengthen the skirt slightly.

Finally, I decided to edit some of the colours from the first design; making the blazer and pumps red to be more similar to her Hazbin design.

Now that I was satisfied with Charlie’s design, I did a full piece; redrawing the character with the correct proportions and an appropriate pose; I chose the pose in question in order to show off both her design and her character.

I did a couple of alternate versions before coming to the one I was happy with. This one I rejected as I felt like the lighting was too red, and I feared it washed out Charlie herself.

And that brings me to the final piece! It takes a long time to develop and design a character, and The Redemption Project is no exception. I hope this gave you a chance to see what goes on behind the Hotel doors!

[areseiseart]

Dev log 07-04-2020

Hey guys! bi weekly updates are underway so here we go with updated info. Sadly I didn’t get as much done as I wanted-since I have experienced yet another loss of a family friend. (we’ve had a death almost every month this year...2020 is not great)

That being said here's my small update.

art:

I was having some issues with some of Carmen’s sprite expressions. So I went back and tweaked the base and will be editing the editing the other expressions later. The anatomy was just bugging me and I couldn’t figure out why until now. I’ve been finishing up pin up poses for postcards as well and I'm waiting for some more prints. 

writing: 

I managed to get through most of the prologue edits and started the potato draft for Aspen’s first chapter. Other than that I was mostly doing some side story stuff to keep myself writing.

Coding: 

I was having an issue with Jace’s sprite where he would just zoom in-and then out...and then disappear from the screen entirely. So that got fixed thankfully and he is no longer zooming off into the distance. I fixed some minor spelling mistakes I made in the code so things run smoothly. 

GUI

I did some small edits to the mock up I already made for the gui and I’m no designing the new text box which will be something like a piece of parchment.

All in all its not as updated as I’d like but sadly life gets in the way and being one person is somewhat frustrating. But I’m still powering through and getting my mojo back :)

Hope everyone is doing well and I’ll be back in another 2 weeks with more updates!

[areseiseart]

Just a public development update for anyone curious!!

[residentwizard]

Hero of the Veil

Lilith’s general idea and concept has been in my head since I first started reading Linked Universe (which actually started before I ever got tumblr and read the series through Pinterest).

She has actually gone through several different looks and phases. Her personality and appearance changed every story rewrite, and in some rewrites, she didn’t even have a brother or mom. I did know that her father would be a main story point, but I always flipped between him haunting her through memory or him being an active role in the story (which means he was alive). In one iteration, Link was actually her older brother who was a knight, disabled due to a war injury in his leg. In another Link was dead.

So yeah, I’ve put her through the wringer a couple times :’)

My final version of this hero solidified when Noah Kahan’s new album dropped and I listened to orbiter. It made me change her story to have her mom be involved in the story, acting as her moral compass and a metaphorical foil. She looks nearly identical to her mother, but she acts like her father. Link serves as her “girl worth fighting for”, because she made a promise to her father to protect him, and she views him as the thing she revolves around.

Lilith draws inspiration from a couple of sources, not necessarily for her appearance, but personality. She was originally inspired by Ahsoka from Star Wars, and eventually I drew inspiration from Neytiri from Avatar (blue people), Astrid from HTTYD, Vex from TLOVM, and a couple other sources.

All in all, I wanted her to be independent and something of a grump, believing herself to be too different from who she should’ve been, and unable to get past certain experiences. She is an imperfect hero, and she holds it against herself. She is fierce and loyal, and this causes her to throw herself into fights recklessly when the people she cares about are involved. She has a couple different qualities that do contradict each other, and her journeys have defined certain qualities that aren’t always positive.

[residentwizard]

Sylphwings

Sylphwings actually weren’t in the original version of this story. Lilith had a blue roan horse named Dusty, who then became the first idea for a Sylphwing, who then became our beloved Epona, who then went back to Tora the Sylphwing.

Sylphwings are based off of Ikrans from Avatar (the blue people one) and dragons, and loftwings. As for what they are, who knows.

Story description:

Sylphwings: the colorful apex predators of the Hithlaerian mountains, these beasts are believed by scholars to be the direct descendants of the loftwings of Skyloft, much like how their riders are closely tied to the floating islands. These beasts are vicious, the only known animal to prey on monsters of any size. Aeshyra’s safety is mostly due to these beasts, their ferocity keeping the skies above safe. Sylphwings bind with only one hylian the entirety of their lives, believing to choose the person that matches their spirit and soul. Aeshyrans often believe them to be their other halves. Claiming a Sylphwing often happens after turning 12, though there are a few exceptions.

Noteworthy sylphwings:

Tora: Known as the Emerald She-Demon, this beast is the infamous mount of the eldest daughter of the Wind-Speaker. Tora bonded with Lilith during the girl’s Wing Ceremony, but only after flinging the two off Draconis Island during their fight, where Tora had ripped a chunk of flesh out of Lilith’s left shoulder. The sylphwing is loyally fierce, and willing to go toe-to-toe with monsters and predators much larger than she is. She is still considered a juvenile, as sylphwings reach full maturity at 20 years old. Tora will not let anyone but Lilith ride her, even if Lilith is the one steering. When they Eye of Ganon captured the sylphwings, Tora was responsible for the killing of numerous cultists who attempted to ride her. Tora will willingly look for fights, and can be seen trying to fight and wrestle with her rider at any given moment.

Talu: Regarded as the Crimson Fury, this sylphwing is larger than most of its kin, and ten times as ferocious. It is known to chase after its own kind looking for fights, and is notorious for killing Torathorns, both for food and for sport. Claimed by Lance de Chevallier, the two were bonded for twenty years, and Talu has been rarely seen since Lance’s death. The crimson sylphwing helped defend Aeshyra during the Great Disaster, helping to chase down and kill the Gleeok responsible. Talu was one of the two sylphwings not captured by the Eye of Ganon. Tora tried to fight Talu once.

Mistdancer: The partner of Wind-Speaker Rhea, this sylphwing possesses a gentle nature, and is the perfect partner for the dutiful chieftain of Aeshyra. Mistdancer, although old and not quite as fast as she used to be, is still fierce in battle, and has a unique horn shape resembling an ivory crown. Rhea is said to be the only Hylian who claimed her sylphwing by simply walking up to it. Mistdancer was known to carry Lilith around like a hatchling when she was a baby.