The Art Style

These last two weeks have been devoted to background art. The demo of Little Ghosthunter will have about six scenes, and so far the number of backgrounds completed is… 3 + 1/2 + 1/2. I may have given up on Background no. 4 halfway.

I still have a bit to go, but I have gotten into the flow of creating art in the style of the game.

I love playing with art styles. When I was deciding on one for the game, I went on Pinterest and pinned all the art that I thought would fit. I needed something that was organic and flowy, and would not take a century to get done. That meant either a line-less painterly style, or some really sketchy lines. Both would have been nice I think, but I felt that lines would have added a little too much structure to environments with a lot of nature. And I knew that this game would have a lot of nature. Too bad, you rarely see sketchy art in other games or animations…

I’ve seen other artists use soft brushes to blend colours together, and I think it looks so pretty and smooth, especially for skin. Maybe I was doing something wrong, but I just couldn’t figure out how to do that without making my art look weird and patchy. So I decided to use a hard brush instead. If you’ll notice, every brush stroke is only one colour, no blending at all. I use two colours for most objects: the base colour and the shadow. When I’m feeling extravagant I add an additional highlight colour, to make it pop.

I don’t have a lot of experience drawing without lines, so I feel a little clumsy with painting, even if it’s digital. There is a lot about the art I would like to improve, and given the chance I would, but I have to remind myself to prioritise. It’s much more important for the game to be completed than for it to be perfect.

…Okay, I will finish Background no. 4.