Confusing and Side Images

Spent the day trying to figure out side images in RenPy.  Major confusion.

Mark (Main Character)

Drew him with my vector app, then changed my mind and kept him the way I originally had him.

Made a couple of expressions for him.

Not entirely happy with him...he looks too much like a girl for me.  Maybe not so much in this drawing as some as the others.

But gotta get the demo out at some point, so we'll have to put our fixes on hold!

Note: HAIR.  I HATE IT.

Doing Art vs. Writing

Art takes forever to do but is relatively easier for me.

Writing takes less time but makes my brain hurt.

Redid Penny, Started Coding

Started coding the game today.  The sprites continue to taunt me to fix them.  Recolored Penny and added some expressions for Penny and Cody (whose name keeps changing, and will probably continue to do so until the game is finally compiled.)

My husband's comment: "hmmm....I notice everybody's got their hands in their pockets."

#($&#*&$#&$#

Cody (Brett?) Coloring Complete

Ok, obviously some problems here with placement, feathering around their bodies, and numerous other elements.  But the basics are in place!!!  I think I've got enough to start building the demo.

The big question is whether I need to make the main character or not.  I've got his line art...but will I even need to show him yet?

Needed for My Barebones Short Game Demo

• 4 character sprites: Penny, Mark, Alex, Cody (probably without expressions for now)
• left to do: clean up and color Mark and Cody, clean up Alex
• at least 4 backgrounds: apartment, bar, class, hall
• left to do: recolor class, make just a black bg?
• coding
• script outline and basic dialogue complete, left to do: code it in Ren'py

I'm estimating I still have about 2-3 weeks left of work before I can get my game up and running.  It will be very flawed, and I probably will want to redo all the art, but I'm hoping it will be playable.

At the moment I'm spending about 5 hours a day on coloring and drawing.  On the weekends I'm spending about 8 hours a day on those things.

I've noticed that I originally planned to do all the coding and writing first, but it seems things have actually unfolded in this order:

• outline and map of game
• basic drawings
• backgrounds
• character sprites
• coding ?!?

Coloring Penny

This was easier than Alex.  Learning about shading, coloring hair, etc.

Line Drawing of Penny

Penny is the main character's best friend.  This line drawing took me about 1.5 hours.  The battle continues with hands.  Thankfully the google image I was using for reference had her hands shoved inside the pockets.  Hurrah!

Otherwise this drawing would probably have took me another 8 hours.  I swear...I will practice hands and arms...any second now.

Time Spent on Hair and Hands = Too #*$&# Much

This guy took me ALL NIGHT.  His hands and hair were driving me nuts.  I think I spent about 7 hours on him total...and its funny because he is supposed to be the main character...which I don't even think the player ever sees except once or twice.

Coloring Tribulations

Worked on coloring Alex today.  Have to redo the backgrounds because they are far more colorful than my sprites will be (my sprites will probably be very close to two-tone.)

Here is a test shot...the dialogue is from a different scene...just seeing how this looks.

I realized what keeps me motivated today, when it comes to art.  When I draw and color, it "looks" pretty good to me.  I'm like, "oh yeah, baby!"

It's only a day or two later that I think, my god, this is all wrong, "wtf was I thinking?!?", and start over again.

I guess that's a good mindset.  If I actually knew it sucked as I was drawing it, I would probably be discouraged and give up more often.

I gotta learn how to clean up around the sprites.  For some reason Sketchbook Pro on my ipad doesn't seem to export the images with a transparency (though I'm probably just ignorant about how to do this.)  So I try to pick everything up with the magic wand and end up leaving all this white detritus around my character.

Coloring hair freaking kills me.  Even worse than limbs and hands.  Just another thing on my long list of "I dunno how to do this."

One thing about clothes.  It seems like well-drawn clothes are so overlooked.  Most people only notice them if they're done poorly.  It makes me not want to work on clothes at all, but surely all my characters can't be wearing plain short sleeved tees throughout my entire game...can they?

Another Character and Backgrounds

Redid main character's roommate, and did all the backgrounds for the demo.  "Did the backgrounds" pretty much consists of outlining stock photos, and throwing a blur filter on them, as well as desaturating them.  I think I overdid it on the blur.  These will all be revisited later, perhaps!  Especially since the perspectives are entirely whacked!!!  Example:

Right now I have to focus on the toughest part of making this game: which is getting my character models cleaned up (effing arms & hands!), colored, and shaded.  I don't know if they'll have any expressions outside of their normal ones.  I really just want to get the first version of my game up and running.

I can't believe how much time I've been putting into this.  I dunno how many people out there want to play a non-Anime-style boy/boy visual novel.  So far there's just me.  :-D

More Characters

For my demo I need at least four characters.

I tried doing two more today...not sure how I feel about them.  One guy has a very "homeless" thing going on, and he's not homeless...he's the main character's roommate.

As you can see arms and hands continue to throw me for a loop.  ARGH.  Gonna have to sit down and practice arms for a day, I think.

Update!!!

All righty!  First thing's first, I'm ditching Tumblr and going back to Blogger.  Yep, out with the new and in with the old.  Main reason is, my husband can't even see my blog.  I think you have to register to see Tumblr blogs?  Which I feel is sorta strange, right?  Not something I'm used to when it comes to blogging.

So anyways, I've migrated my posts back to blogger.  Ah, that familiar, so-very-90s orange B.

Secondly, I've made some changes to the game plan.  I thought I'd write a complete relationship within the span of two weeks and start working on the art work, but honestly, I'm really worried my art work is what's in need of the most TLC.  I'm just going to make this game "demo size" and start worrying about the art work NOW.  So I've done most of the writing...all of which will now need to be coded.  But since it's pretty simple, I'll be able to devote more time to drawing.

This maaaay be the main character, Mark.  Not quite sure yet.  As I mentioned in the forums, my secret wish is to be able to keep his hands shoved in his pockets and stick with that one expression the entire game.  But realistically, I suppose that can't happen.

Right now I'm practicing my figure drawing from Characterdesigns.com, which has a bunch of great photosets that shows male figures in action poses.  I dunno if any of my characters will ever be wielding a katana in their everyday college world, but you never know.

I haven't totally settled on a style either, e.g. what level of cartoon-y I want to characters to be.  The main thing is I hope the player can connect and feel empathy for them, and you know, maybe crush a little over them too.  Hrm.

Writing (Week 1)

Yay.  Weekend.  Now I can fully devote my time to finishing the writing, before I get into the coding portion.  As I lay out the plot in my mindmapping app, I’m trying to figure out how detailed I want to get.  Right now I’m just mindmapping the “main” story line, and not where any extraneous branches might lead.

I also can’t stop practicing drawing.  I feel like I lack so much in that department…that it takes YEARS to get really good.  I would consider trying to recruit an artist, but some wanna-be-artist inside me wants to give it a shot.  I dunno if that’s good or bad.

Writing (Week 1)

I’m continuing to map out my story, and now starting to write direct dialogue into my mind mapping programming. Haven’t even’t gotten to day 2 yet (there are about fourteen days altogether?)

Writing (Week 1)

Ookami Kasumi from the lemmasoft forums recommended using a mindmapping app to outline a game.  I went on a shopping spree this weekend and download a couple of different things for my ipad, one of which was iThoughtsHD.  It looked a little intimidating to use, but as soon as I opened it up, it was a cinch to start mapping out my game.  Very smooth, easy, and fun to use!  Works well with Dropbox too, which is fantastic.

The tough part now is keeping the game simple enough so I’ll be able to complete it by my deadline.  The storyline I came up with involves an additional character and of course, additional backgrounds.  Yikes.  I’ve been told how producers look at scripts differently than writers: how each person and prop and effect and scene imposes a new $$$ figure.  I definitely get it now!  Each new element I bring in means much more work for me.  :-/

The other tough part is trying to figure out how double blackmail is going to work in the storyline.  Without giving away too much, the player does something to save somebody else, but I haven’t found a creative solution yet of how this is done.

"Art"

Coming along with backgrounds and character art.  I didn't include Cody in the second background, but hopefully you can see how I'm improving (?)

Learning GIMP as I go.  I hate arms and legs.  Why you gotta be so hard to draw, limbs?!?  I've check out about a dozen different arms and legs tutorials on Deviant Art, and they are all completely different.  

Deadlines!!!

Well, as it was suggested to me by a member on the forums (thank you, ffs_jay), keep my first game short and sweet, and give myself a deadline!

That I will do.

Project: Finish the first relationship in my vn, so it’s a standalone game.  Will need to produce backgrounds, three character sprites (and possibly relevant expressions).

Deadline: Sunday, April 22nd (approximately one month) for prototype

My pie-in-the-sky schedule:

Week 1 & 2 (this week and until April 1st) - write and code relationship to completion

Week 3 (April 2-8th) sprite linear drawings

Week 4 (April 9th-15th) color sprites

Week 5 (April 15th-22nd) color and tweak backgrounds

Post prototype: Week 6 (April 23rd-29th) testing

On May 1st I should have my game available on the forums.

Figure Drawing

Out of all the skills I'll need to make my first vn, my art skills are probably the least adequate.

I'm a decent draftsman, but my figure-drawing-from-scratch skills are clunky.  Different parts of the human body continue to befuddle me, specifically where the limbs connect to the body, and the different muscles in the legs and arms. 

I need to get comfortable enough with drawing the human figure if my game will look halfway decent.

I'm starting with a bunch of tutorials on deviantART that show you the basics of figure drawing.  There are dozens of great tutorials on the site, all with different techniques.  Today I think I'll tackle head, neck and shoulder proportions.  These have always given me much grief.

But first, here's where I'm at with figure drawing without use of any reference material.

Soooo, not sure what's going on here.  He should probably have a penis, first of all.  But we'll tackle that area later on, when I'm feeling more confident.  Or maybe never, since I didn't plan my game to be showing off wang.  :0)

I AM planning to make the sprites somewhat cartoony, but not this cartoony.  In other words, his head is too freaking big.  I don't know why his hips are so small, his feet are so mutated, and his arms sit so weirdly against his body.  (Note, the figure's right arm and its position against the right side of the body ALWAYS throws me.)

Anyways, hopefully in a few weeks my figure drawing will be much improved, and I can draw a male figure from scratch without too much embarrassment.  I'm hoping compared to this "BEFORE" drawing, my "AFTER" drawings will make me proud.

For reference: I'm using an ipad2 with a Bamboo pen, using an app called Sketchbook Pro.

Best tutorial I found today for neck drawing!

Steven Sanchez's neck tutorial