Messages

16

Manga Art Gallery / Re: Kesashi's Gallery

« on: August 13, 2020, 02:57:50 PM »

I'm getting very close to a final art style for Izabel and I'd like to discuss it. The whole project has an interesting relationship with the art world as a whole, so this is leading me towards a more traditional approach. Originally I started with an anime approach and there is a good reason for that. And that has to do with what Izabel is as a whole.

The image below is the latest drawing of Izabel and these will be the facial features I stick to for her from now on. This image comes from collectible items in the game which are pages from Mother's Sketchbook. Izabel's mother is a wealthy painter, and she actually feels compelled to draw things that occur in the mansion. She essentially has no choice but to make art, and that's a weakness you'll get to exploit eventually. With each one of these pages you'll also get to read a journal entry where her mother talks about the subject in the drawing.

I'm sure many artists feel the same way. They have to draw things they sometimes wish they didn't. I think it would be awesome for me if I loved to draw the things people love to see. Like if I drew more fan art or more sexy women, instead I draw things like cannibalism and people without eyes, even as a child my art was hardcore and I couldn't say "hey granny put this on the fridge", but sometimes I wish I could've.

Izabel

Izabel is based on my natural tendencies when making art. You've probably noticed at this point that I draw a lot of conservative-looking women. There's actually a very specific woman with very specific features I've been trying to draw. As far as I know this woman doesn't exist. But if she did exist, I'm not saying I don't have any ideas of who she might be, I do have a few individuals in mind, I'm not that crazy. It's also possible that she represents my interpretation of ultimate beauty which could be my subconscious idolizing positive relationships in the past with people who have similar features. Izabel is meant to be that woman or at least she looks like her.

What I mean to say is this is the woman my subconscious wants to draw. If I were given the opportunity to draw anything with no real guidelines, I would naturally end up producing an image of this person. Again, I couldn't say exactly why. I could just be weirdo, or there could be things going on in my subconscious that would be obvious to any therapist.

This image above is from 2016 and it's possibly the first time I attempted to draw this imaginary person. And this got me interested in drawing people who don't exist as if they do. You may notice some similarities in their features. The wavy hair, the smooth face. You'll probably see it more in an earlier drawing of Izabel. This next image below is sort of like the mission statement of the project which makes it extremely important to me. The emotions evoked in this image should be echoed throughout the entire game.

I'm not sure exactly at what point black hands came into the design. I found them to be a very effective way of displaying emotions. Months after I started this I learned those emotions are related to Social Anxiety Disorder. In many ways I feel like this could be a meme template that says "this is what social anxiety feels like". As a child I didn't know that I had Social Anxiety Disorder, and now that my mother is a Special Ed Teacher, she can pretty easily identify some of the core signs. Because I didn't know about it, I had to live my life as if I didn't have it. Always living up to the expectations of people who don't have social anxiety and hating myself for not being able to do it. So in this picture we actually see Izabel looking at these monsters as though they aren't a problem, and even holding hands with one of them.

So looking back at the style again. Izabel started with an anime theme because anime art comes naturally to me. Anime art is how I got started so it will always have a place in my heart. It has a very important relationship with my childhood. But I found a traditional approach was much stronger. These are all digital paintings, but I do enjoy giving them the feel of traditional media, since that's what I'm known for. Especially my work with colored pencils.

This next image is the first drawing of Hilda, a blind maid who you're meant to face. Originally I considered the hands to be a representation of the way she interacts with the world by touch. Mother makes it apparent that her eyes were removed because she saw paintings that Mother wanted to keep hidden. These are actually some of the first paintings you see. Which means you end up on mother's bad side very early-on.

This is another page from Mother's Sketchbook. One of the reasons why I like this style is because it adds character to Izabel's mother as an artist. We're meant to believe that her mother made every drawing in the mansion. The drama of the monochromatic drawings is something I really liked about the original anime works that I've been using in the current style. By using a such a traditional style, I think, shows how prideful she is. Interestingly enough, Izabel's mother actually deals with same issues as Izabel, which is why she mentions being hungry.

Izabel and the Cage (in progress)

The entire project was originally called "The Cannibal". Which comes from a book I wrote while I was in elementary school also called "The Cannibal" about a little girl who is born with a disorder that requires her to exclusively eat people in order to survive. So you could consider it similar to Tokyo Ghoul. I actually don't have any copies of the original text although it's not very interesting to read because it was written by a child. Looking back there were some core themes that I found very interesting or at least unusual for a child to write about.

The story starts off with the little girl's parents arguing about how they're going to euthanize her because providing her food is completely unrealistic. In that moment the little girl had already been starving for weeks and when she approaches them after hearing them argue, and a combination of her predatory instincts taking over, a feeling of anger at her parents, and a supernatural voice urging her to eat, she decides to eat and kill both of her parents with some kind of supernatural strength. She also much later on uses their skulls (and spirits in theory) as magical weapons which insinuate that they still love her and she still loves them. So there is a theme of being betrayed by her parents, forgiveness, feeling broken, and the need to destroy others in order to sustain yourself.

One thing that makes Izabel complicated is that there are two different art styles that have to work together. There's the actual art inside the mansion and then there is the way the game engine renders the mansion which is also heavily stylized. Which is different in Blade Regalia where the rendering in the game is meant to mirror the art style. Rendering in Izabel is meant to highlight the importance of light and shadow regarding game mechanics. Light itself is actually a very core element of the game.

Some comments I've had were that the flat, cel-shaded objects provide an interesting sense of artificiality and an unnatural mood when adjacent to naturally rendered objects. Some people have told me it was more interesting to have the house naturally shaded with the hands cel shaded because it made the monsters feel more otherworldly.

This is the same effect I hope to maintain with the natural paintings in an unnatural world. Some of the drawings in the mansion are actually real oil paintings that were photographed. However, my favorite drawings would be like the one below which indicate mother's painting compulsion in real time, and that she already knows you've been sneaking around and had time to paint, frame, and hang it up on the wall for you to see. These paintings are done by using a projector to project he game onto a canvas and trace each color.

In some ways this relates to the incredible difference in power between parents and children. I'm sure many of us as children can recall being outsmarted by our parents or by other adults. It's very humbling.

17

Manga Art Gallery / Re: Suuper's manga (+digital and 3D)

« on: August 10, 2020, 02:23:09 AM »

Well tools don't matter unless you're on a narrow career path. If your goal is to be like popular manga artists, then you will need to use the same software and techniques they use. You can build a house without windows, but you can't build a glass house without windows.

Goals should define your materials. Sometimes working with "bad" tools is a part of the process and it can help you stand out. Are you that manga artist who draws the same thing everyone else draws the same way everyone else draws it, or are you the artist who uses MS Paint drawing obscure things we've never seen before? Sometimes it comes out ugly, but ugly doesn't always mean bad. Look at Shin-chan or Picasso for example.

Maybe an issue here is more with how goals are set. Everyone else here has a goal for you to make art they way they want to make art, and they'll prescribe solutions to get you there, but it isn't really valuable if that isn't how you want to make art. Teaching you how to draw a hand doesn't help you learn how to 3D model a foot.

You've proven that you can set extreme goals and reach them. How about trying to set visual goals. For me, I had a visual goal of making paintings like Leonardo Da Vinci because I liked his style. If you're not feeling comfortable with how your art looks, think about how you want it to look, and set visual goals for reaching that style.

Something they teach in art schools a lot is to spend more time looking than drawing. Take a picture with your phone or copy the image onto it. Step away from the image and look at it from a distance. This makes it easier to see the image as a whole as an observer and not as an artist.

If you don't feel like your artwork needs to look different, or you can't imagine any visual goals, then move on to other goals. Think about how it relates to your career path, what about setting a goal like 100 manga pages for example.

In summary, your goals are unique to you. Other people will have different goals for your art and you need to be mindful of that. Your artwork is great in part because you are meeting your goals. You're making hundreds of sketches like you sought out to do, but you've said you have some complaints about its visual progress so you can apply that same work ethic to meeting a style-based goal.

18

General Discussion / Re: The limit of improving an idea?

« on: August 01, 2020, 03:59:55 AM »

This reminds me of some philosophical questions they ask in art classes like. (There's no actual correct answer here)

When is a work of art finished?
What makes a work of art good?
Why make artwork?

So when you think about realism there is a limit, an obvious limit. You cannot get more realistic than a camera, and at that point what's the point in drawing instead of using a camera? Flexing your skill is cool for a few minutes, but ultimately it's a boring idea. And the faster you master your realistic or non-realistic style the better. It should be a good thing when you reach that point.

Making an idea more interesting is what artists dedicate their life to. We can use your standing girl for example. If you wanted to improve this idea you have to think deeper about the idea itself rather than its appearance. We can break it down word for word.

"Standing Girl in a Dress"

What does it mean to stand? What does standing make you think about? It illustrates that we are superior to animals. It's a learned behavior that babies take time to understand. It's also something we take for granted until we can't stand. We could be paralyzed, have no legs, or have a mental disorder that prevents you from standing. Not being able to stand or walk could ruin your life. It could even represent autonomy.

Could this idea ever invoke those powerful and complex emotions around standing? Or will people just see a standing girl and move on?

What does it mean to be a girl? Does it mean anything? It could be arbitrary, an illusion of human society, or genetic binary. And is there a binary? Does the government have a right to legislate against transexuality? I don't want to start a political discussion, but think about how the concept of a woman could do that. That's powerful, because people will kill over discussions like that. What about the relationship between women and children. The idea that women are weak and defenseless, or beautiful and prized. Are these ideas correct, sometimes correct or never correct? And is she a woman or does she just look like one? Does looking like one make her a woman, or does she need to look like one because she is a woman?

And think about what the dress tells us. Is the dress meant to empower her or oppress her. Is it comfortable to wear, does it hinder her. Does it give her positive attention, does she like it? And what about the history of it all, like how many now "feminine" clothing options were historically "masculine" and worn by men instead. What about the expectations of the figure, the impact of the corset, the idolization of the "hourglass". What about the popularity of the lolita fashion, the desire to look young. Think about the role fashion plays in the mind.

You want to make people stop and think about your artwork, you don't want them to see something hollow and move on. She's a just a girl in a dress, we'll she's more than that. She's her experiences, her insecurities, her dreams and goals. But if you don't show that, then people won't see it.

In terms of style and realism you will eventually reach a plateau and that's okay because that means you can focus on the concept because that's what's interesting. People want to see your ideas more than they want to see you flex your skill. Especially if a camera could do it better.

19

Manga Art Gallery / Re: Kesashi's Gallery

« on: July 26, 2020, 11:58:40 AM »

Well you're concept for how this thing works is definitely deeper than my understanding of it, I'll give you that. But there's got to be something said for functional clothing. Various levels of mana this or that is all well and good, but the moment your stilleto heel snaps off in a sword fight, that all goes down the drain.

Basically: Style is important, but don't let function follow form if you don't have to. You wouldn't be the first person lambasted for questionable fashion choices for female characters, even if there is a detailed reasoning behind why said female characters are dressed as they are (See: Quiet from Metal Gear 5).

In Blade Regalia there is the idea that most of these people did not get to choose the clothes that they're wearing. Some of these clothes weren't actually meant for combat or war (they use them like that now because they give you super powers anyway). This is true for a couple of dresses that we see. Most of these were artifacts that were recovered. And there is an appreciation for functional clothing more when the characters are allowed to create their own Regalia.

When the protagonist gets the opportunity to design her own clothes she chooses to make pants as opposed to originally wearing a dress because she doesn't like dresses. This also adds to the culture, our protagonist spends years learning how to fight in high heels in anticipation for when she gets the opportunity to wear a Regalia. So characters do make it apparent that impractical clothing is not ideal. But there is a reason why they wear it and usually it's not specifically to be attractive to a man and that's what I like about it.

Funny story I imagined there would be like a form of illegal chicken fighting where people would emulate Regalia combat by having two women wear normal (powerless) dresses and fight and you would have things like stepping on the dress to ruin their balance, pulling hair or, like you mentioned, breaking a heel.

20

Manga Art Gallery / Re: Kesashi's Gallery

« on: July 18, 2020, 04:49:33 AM »

My only question here is that the two seem a bit contradictory? If Mana can be quantified volumetrically (as seen with the dress), wouldn't it make more sense to have more contract with the ground by having a flat soled boot? You'd get a lot more surface area that way (not to mention it would be more practical at the same time). The rules should at least be self consistent, otherwise this is just a blatant excuse to draw women in high heels 

Great observation. This is all tricky since in some places the effect is obvious and in others the effect is arbitrary like the relationship between color and elements. And each function is designed to promote strategy since we'll get to customize these features in the game in the future. So a dress is not superior to pants, it just offers different tools. Between shoes it is arbitrary which one allows you to draw mana faster and which one protects you from being knocked off your feet. I feel like an argument could be made to swap each relationship.



And Heels would not be superior to boots or armored shoes, but a large shoe would offer a similar effect you're describing, it would be a shoe that would make you immovable in a sense. I would say I big oversight I'm noticing here is that the functionally effective clothing probably wouldn't be good looking at all. You probably would see more shoes like that for that reason assuming culturally the designer would put function over fashion.

But between dresses and heels we're talking about two different speed metrics. One is the speed of movement, the other is the speed of mana collection, and the third which is not mentioned here is the speed of activating abilities (which is improved by wearing pants). Which altogether deals with the "flow of Mana". Maintaining a proper circulation is important. Having a dress is likened to having all the blood rush to your legs, so wearing pants improves the circulation because abilities are in a sense the result of the flow of mana.

----------

At least that's the theory I'm working with. I wanted to spend some more time before I posted this but this is the general rundown of the Mana based on their colors. An important feature here is any color can be achieved by mixing primary colors RYB since some colors do not appear naturally like indigo or the complementary color sets. White and Colorless being the exception. Technically there are endless combinations, some obvious ones are not even listed here, like yellow-orange (which is why there are 11 colors instead of 12) but theoretically that would be some kind of super-defensive mana and it's not listed because there is no character who uses it.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

There is an imbalance here, you may notice, white mana and colorless mana seem objectively overpowered. This is handled by their density and rarity in the world. The ability to throw the whole world into the sun is technically something White Mana is capable of, but would not be possible due to there simply not being enough white mana available to perform such an ability. Conversely setting the whole world on fire (for a similar result) would be possible due to the density and abundance of red mana.




Recently I've been working on the rendering styles in the game. Previously it was a more cold and stale approach with harsh cel shading. Here we have a more saturated, high contrast approach with stronger glow effects and also a simultaneous use of natural shading and cel shading. Below is an older picture with the previous rendering styles. It's a difficult choice, but it will all depend on the art direction in the end. Which means it's my job to pretend like I know the answer.

21

Manga Art Gallery / Re: Kesashi's Gallery

« on: July 07, 2020, 10:38:58 PM »

That's a great idea Suuper.

So you may remember that the people in this world get their power from their clothes. These abilities are defined by the shape, design, color and intricacies of the clothing. So I thought it would be interesting to break down some of the specifics and how things in Blade Regalia end up a little backwards compared to combat gear in reality.

So Color is also relevant to the type of magic they'll be using. And these mechanics aren't necessarily relevant to the game now, but they will be useful for my long term plans to introduce character creation in a later version. So there is a complex engineering aspect to the design and structure of the clothing as well as the layers of clothing that may not be seen on the outside.

Spoiler

22

Manga Art Gallery / Re: Kesashi's Gallery

« on: May 25, 2020, 02:26:29 AM »

Now progress in the game demands more artwork. New faces are needed for the story mode. New character added to the game as well. Now the AI can control melee characters pretty well, but I'll need to introduce some new systems in order for them to use ranged heroes effectively.

The Oracle "Uriel" Magnolia


The Mother of the Desert, Laura

23

Manga Writer workshop / Re: Universe Litmus Test

« on: May 17, 2020, 04:00:23 AM »

This is interesting because I don't know some of these.

1- Your protagonist meets a wild ravenous lion in the middle of a jungle, what do they do?
Katherine loves combat especially when the stakes are high. So whether or not she has her Regalia (her source of supernatural powers). She would attempt to fight (she's kind of crazy). If she didn't have her Regalia it's debateable although she isn't just a normal girl without it, she has a "crown" (another source of power)

2- What allergies do any of your main antagonists have?
None except the main antagonist avoids deserts because his powers don't work there.

3- What was the weather like when your protagonist was born?
I don't know this one.

4- What was the name of the grandparent of your protagonists' best friend OR their sibling?
I know on her father's side their last names are smith.

5- Is there a famous cook in your universe?
If there was, it would be Mortdar because he is famous and he did a lot of things. Probably cooked something at some point.

6- Someone shoots your protagonist with a pistol - do they survive?
There's a character in the game (and story) who uses a [magic] revolver. The revolver does 180 damage per shot at medium range or closer. And katherine has 800 health with 200 of that being armor health which reduces damage by 30% this would result in her taking 126 damage to the body, and this lady, Sophia, has a critical hit multiplier of x2 so to the head it would deal 252 damage so Katherine would definitely survive the first 2 shots. In the story, she would die to a shot in the head or heart or vital artery. But she could theoretically be brought back to life by Helen.

7- Van Gogh is transported into your universe: What happens? (Is there already Van Gogh? Is there art in your universe? Explain honestly what would happen)
Well I have made artwork as an artist making artwork in the story. Painting and Painters in this world are similar to their state in Van Gogh's time.

8- What language do they speak in your world?
Multiple languages. In the west they speak Spanish, Latin and English. In the north they speak Russian, in the east they speak Japanese, Chinese, and Thai, and in the sky they speak French.

9- Did The Big Bang happen in your story?
It could be a viable model of origins.

10- Are there farmers in your world?
Yes, I assume.

24

Manga Art Gallery / Re: Kesashi's Gallery

« on: May 05, 2020, 05:52:59 PM »

I can't help noticing that each character has their movements sorted separately, does this mean that you have to do extra work to do different walking animations/coding for each character, rather than copying and pasting, or just handling every character with the same code? Because I hope that you can reuse or recycle something otherwise that's a lot of work that is going to be very similar and tedious.

AI is a pain in the neck, no exceptions. Especially if you're writing one from scratch, and especially when it's more than just a card game AI, controlling movement and deciding how aggressive to make the movements, and control accuracy and so on can be really hard to get balanced.

So yes by design each character is meant to have very unique animations and in the past I had to make those animations before I could even test them and it slowed me down tremendously. So now each character can share every single animation, so I have been skipping making animations like walking and allowing each character to share a "base walk" animation as well as for jumping. Some characters do have specific animations to match the type of weapon they're using. Just trying to prevent things from looking too strange.

Right now i'm working on introducing a settings menu to increase frame rates for other computers. The performance cost previously was a bit obsurd considering the way characters are textured with the simple flat colors and cel shading it didn't really make much sense for the system requirements to be the same as a realistic game on Ultra.

Lowering the settings here reduced the Graphics Card usage by 75% and you can see the image isn't really too different from its Ultra settings. You can see the maximum settings in the next image. I've also added two more options regarding Damage Numbers and "particle clutter". Damage Numbers I found can really get in the way when there are a lot of them on the screen. They're not a big deal when you're playing a melee character and fighting in close range, but for long ranged heroes like a sniper it can be hard to see targets when the damage numbers are in the way.

Particle Clutter is just a setting that replaces every opaque particle effect with a transparent alternative. It helps for the same reason as disabling damage numbers. Big opaque particles can block information on the screen. It's fine in casual play, but in high stakes situations it becomes a big disadvantage that the AI obviously don't share. Since a lot of things can be happening very quickly it's best if I let you see as much information as possible. If I have an ability like a smoke cloud that's specifically designed to block information, then that will only be affected by this if a teammate uses it, and the AI also won't be able to see through it.

Kor

And lastly one new bit of art. I've got a few more characters to design who may be relevant to the early game in terms of the story.

25

break Room / Re: Are you in quarantine? How are you dealing with the lockdown personally?

« on: May 01, 2020, 02:31:14 PM »

Fortunately for me I dislike social interactions and spend most of my time turning down offers to go to concerts and conventions. If it weren't for the fact that my job changed to completely online as well as my college courses, I would've forgotten there was supposed to be a quarantine.

Normally a week of complete isolation would start to give me anxiety, but it's comforting knowing that staying inside is also keeping my family safe. It was also nice to get some financial reimbursement from the University due to the changes, so financially it happened to be one of the best things to happen to me. Fortunately my family all works at essential businesses so it didn't compromise them either.

So I'm one of those people who has come to find that my normal lifestyle has a name.

26

Manga Art Gallery / Re: Kesashi's Gallery

« on: April 18, 2020, 12:24:59 AM »

Actually I do have a tracker for BR progress on characters. It's not fully up to date, but it can give some insight. I might be slightly inspired by you and suuper. This file shows a general look at where characters are and it adds up to about 25% done on the prototype and 8% done for the kickstarter campaign. Here's also a character select screen I've put together based which characters have 3D models and I imagine will be playable for the prototype. And right now there are 9 out of 24 characters you can actually play. 5/9 the AI can play, and 4/9 have all of their abilities fully programmed.

I should mention this is actually 1 of 2 projects with Blade Regalia. There is a singleplayer project and a multiplayer project. So this is the singleplayer story campaign of Blade Regalia. It was originally called "The First Inquisition". Because the the multiplayer game where these characters come from takes place during "The Second Inquisition". This was supposed to give some background to what happens in the past. But I thought it would be nice to also play as the main cast, so this project will actually go through the full story starting with the present day (The Second Inquisition). The Singleplayer project happens to be easier to develop.

I forgot to mention the footage I took where I show the AI interacting with each other. It's in a map made out of basic shapes so I can work on the AI pathfinding. I will want the AI to be able to identify flank routes, high-ground positions, and to use mobility skills to cross large distances.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFWeSepglK8

27

Manga Art Gallery / Re: Kesashi's Gallery

« on: April 17, 2020, 11:31:38 AM »

Well it's been a while with all the stuff happening I'm working on getting back into the groove of making Blade Regalia. I've reached some important milestones in AI development in the game. Currently the AI can play 5 different characters effectively. Right now their difficulty can be controlled by manipulating the AI's "reaction time", "ranged weapon accuracy", and "movement accuracy". So Blade Regalia will start releasing playable builds just like Izabel.

I recorded some gameplay, I'm hoping to get some time to do some commentary, maybe even discussion the metagame with my character designer. And it's strange, but I'm starting to run out of characters to design. This would make 103 out of 150. Here are some new characters: Camilla, Katelyn, and a redesign of a character named Behemoth.

If you're curious about the lore of some of these

Camilla is a servant of the royal family of a kingdom called "Dulong Kingdom", or "The Long Kingdom". Camilla would be the second-highest ranking servant, Jianna being the first (picture below). So she would be called a "Right Hand Fleur" and Jianna would just be a "Right Hand". The interesting thing about the Dulong Kingom is that it's a country floating in the sky inhabited by black people who speak french. It's one of the strangest things I've created, not counting Izabel. It's actually a late-game place where Blade Regalia ends.

Katelyn is an Inquisitor whose job is to make sure "Regalia" is under control. Regalia being the clothing that provides each character with their unique, supernatural powers. Regalia has a negative effect on the environment, along with just being a deadly weapon, so inquisitors judge countries and their use of it. Themselves having the most powerful Regalia (not including dulong kingdom which would take ages to explain).

Behemoth is a "Formless Spirit" (e.g. demon) who was defeated and lost almost all of her power. Originally she was a gigantic monster, now she's a small girl because that's the best "form" she can produce. She has an uncontrollable desire to kill or hurt people, so the leader of the Formless forces her to wear the mitts and keep her mouth covered to make her more harmless. She was actually sealed into the "Accursed Sword" (picture below) which is used by a character named Tara. The Accursed Sword is notorious for influencing the wielder's mind and compelling them to kill people. When she is released from the sword is when we get access to her as a character. She also has an extremely deep, masculine voice.

If you're curious about their gameplay.
Camilla is a highly mobile ranged support hero. She has the ability to operate "between dimensions" which allows her to enter an intangible state to avoid damage as well as fly and move around more quickly.

Katelyn's abilities are still being decided. Her abilities are time themed, and it's likely it will function similar to the time abilities in the game "Blades of Time" since stopping, slowing, and speeding up time has already been used in another character. The only thing left is turning time backwards. May also play with the concept of a Time Limit such as abilities that need to be used within a specific time frame or at a specific time, like waiting for one half of the hourglass to empty.

Behemoth is a support hero who provides stamina and damage boosts to teammates. She's supposed to have the ability to take the form of another player's character.

Camilla

Katelyn

Behemoth

Jianna

Old Behemoth Design

Tara and the Accursed Sword

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Manga Art Gallery / Re: Kesashi's Gallery

« on: March 09, 2020, 10:34:11 PM »

Working on this new design for Katherine's Blade Regalia in Blade Regalia has gotten me a little conflicted. This was originally going to be the replacement design for the original design, but now I'm working on introducing some character customization which will allow you to mix and match abilities and clothing because the abilities are tied to the clothing.

So this means Katherine needs a few more regalia to work with, and right now this design functions well as a Tier 3 regalia for Katherine to have.

Tier 3


Tier 2


Tier 1

29

Develop Your Story / Re: Visualising Characters

« on: February 27, 2020, 12:55:28 AM »

You're having trouble because their appearance is very arbitrary. There's no formula, but there are ways to approach it. You can design the appearance against the personality, or with it.

Example: character uses a giant battle axe.

Big Hulking man with a giant battle axe
Little girl with a giant battle axe.

Being a little girl works against the concept of having a character use a heavy weapon. However, this adds depth to the character, makes them more interesting especially when the writer can give a good reason for why this little girl is a capable fighter with a weapon she wouldn't normally be able to pickup.

But it also makes them less believable, the big hulking man is more of a flat character. It's a design we're very familiar with, and he could have depth in other ways. Like being a pacifist, great with animals, etc.

In real life, we don't get to choose our height, hair color, eye color, skin color, so these traits don't need to be perfectly matched to your character's personality, they can be completely random. Ideally, you would use these traits to add more to the character and tell more of a story. Like how being a short, lean-built guy might make being a soldier more challenging than for a larger stronger man, and it creates interest in how he overcomes that conflict. 

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Manga Art Gallery / Re: Kesashi's Gallery

« on: February 22, 2020, 05:15:48 PM »

New Character, Hana of the Black Lotus. This is sort of the beginnings of the new design direction for Blade Regalia. I've gotten requests from a few friends to turn them into characters I'll be working on next and that's always a very interesting starting point especially when you know the person for such a long time that you can break down their personality and likeness into simple elements.

I'm definitely interested in working with backgrounds and environments more to bring the character designs home.