Hello again! Did you know that 18+ creators can't embed videos on Patreon? I just found out too, which is why the speedpaint that I mentioned in the title is actually an attachment on this post. You'll have to scroll down and download it to watch it.
Okay, now that that's cleared up, let's talk about how I did the drawings for this chapter. If I felt like lying to you guys, I would tell you right now that I have a nice, elegant process for planning and executing my drawings, and that it's organized, intuitive, and sensible. The thing is, I think you guys could probably tell that I was making up some bullshit, so I'll just tell you the messy truth. Starting with...
Concepts of a plan
After I have the first draft of the script for each chapter, I get to work making these little thumbnail drawings for each CG I want to include. Usually, I'm doing this while reading and re-reading the script. If I feel like being nice to my future self, I'll make notes where I think a CG would be warranted--the goal is to hopefully avoid having any moments where the text on-screen doesn't really match what's happening in the picture.
You'll notice that each little thumbnail box has a dark band at the bottom. That represents the area where the dialogue box goes; early on, I made a ton of drawings without considering this, and large parts of the drawings would get blocked by the text box once in-game. As it turns out, composing pictures so that 1) all the important bits end up in the narrow strip at the top and 2) the full image remains compelling is tough. I've been looking at comparisons of IMAX vs standard-aspect-ratio films for inspiration.
After that, it's painting time. I just hunker down, make some coffee, and render, render, render until the work is done. As you can see, I have a bunch of references pasted around the picture that I'm actually painting, to help me keep the paintings consistent. Obviously, the pictures need to make sense and be roughly in the same environment. But my first priority is making sure that each image is actually good, and I'm more than happy to change up the lighting or background a little if that helps with the composition.
After a few CGs, I usually get a little tired of painting and start plugging whatever I've finished into the game. Playtesting tends to reveal some issues: parts of the script where I've written actions that I haven't illustrated, sections that go on for wayyy too long without a new image. I'll rework both the script and drawings so that they match more closely. After that, it's right back to the mines to finish the rest of the paintings.
How the sausage gets made
People frequently ask me what brushes and software I use for painting. Sometimes they get a bit disappointed when I answer: for characters, I almost exclusively use the basic hard round brush, the basic airbrush, and a basic smudgey tool for blending sometimes.
What about my drawing process? The speedpaint is fairly representative, but I want to break down a few key parts for you with a bit of commentary.
I usually start with a very loose sketch, like so. Because my art style is more painterly, rather than being based on lines, I prefer to use the sketch phase to just get my ideas out and onto the canvas. The sketch inevitably gets covered up by the end, so I don't think there's much of a point in making it too refined.
After that's done, I create some layers underneath the sketch and make some big blocks of color. I like to keep each character on its own layer, and make the background separate. Blocking in a rough background early is really, really important, since the environment has a lot of influence over the color and lighting of the characters.
After that, I'll establish some basic lighting, and define the forms a little better. I usually do this with a huge brush - either the airbrush or the hard round, depending on my mood. Around now, I'll also scribble in a rough version of anything that I've left out of the sketch, like the hair and the bottom of Aphrodite's face in this picture.
Now, it's off to the rendering mines. I'm using the hard round brush here to establish more defined forms. I'll also work on the silhouette of the character I'm working on, refining the shape. I like to think of myself as a sculptor in this step: I'm trying to carve my rough sketch into something actually recognizable.
Here's an example of me trying something that didn't make it into the final piece. See, the lighting in this picture isn't actually consistent with the other pictures in this sequence. The light is technically supposed to be coming from above the characters, so the guy would be illuminated like this. However, I decided to take some artistic liberty and go with a much more restrained lighting setup to better convey the mood that I'm going for.
Now that I've established what the guy's supposed to look like, I can turn my attention to Aphrodite. Here, I've done a bit of painting on her body. I want the hair to fall in really pretty swirls across her chest, so I sketched out some satisfying shapes that I can use as a guideline for painting.
And ta-daa, now we've got some hair.
For tricky problems, like the placement of the guy's eye, I sometimes make a quick sketch on a new layer. I'm not just drawing the eye, I'm drawing the structures around it, because the location of the brow ridge, cheekbone, and nasal bridge basically tell me where the eye belongs.
I realized at this stage that the guy's neck was a bit too long. The first step to fixing it was, of course, making fun of myself by drawing this handsome giraffe. Then, I just selected the shoulder and moved it up a bit, shortening the trapezius-muscle area, and blended the edges a little bit to make it fit seamlessly.
I make alternate versions of many of the CGs in the game to add movement and better reflect what's going on in the script. Here, I want to have a version where the heads of both characters are slightly tilted in different directions. I start by making a new sketch.
Then, I overlay the sketch on top of the existing image and very roughly paint in the changes that I need to make.
I blend the sketch into the painting by making sure that it's on it's own layer, then alpha-locking it and coloring it. After that, it's time to paint, paint, paint until it's the same quality as the original piece. I frequently flip between the original and the new version to make sure that they're consistent.
Towards the end, you can also see me making some alternate versions for the alternate version: different mouths, so I can move Aphrodite's lips as she speaks. And there you have it: one of the CGs for the new chapter! I'm nearly done with all of the art that it needs, and will be spending the next few weeks programming, adding sound, and play-testing. Stay tuned: in a few weeks, I'll have a new build ready to share :))