Ten days ago, we made a post where we showed our models of the main characters and those of the NPCs. And today, we want to introduce you to some of the already textured models, as well as a descriptive preview of the vision we have for the textures of the rest of the models. But before that, I would like to first explain a little about the artistic vision of our project, to better understand the reason for the visual style we are taking.

Our artistic vision.

As mention in the 3D models post, we want to replicate the early 3D art of some video games of the early 2000, especially the style and color pallet of the Animal Crossing series, to make this satirical contract between the colorful and child-like style of the art, and the theme of bureaucratic burden in our micro games and narrative design. To archive this, we passed our 3D models from the software of maya to blender software, this because blender give us more tools to make hand draw textures, we decided to take advantage of this change of programs to make the rig, weight painting, and animations, also in blender, but more of that in another devlog. For now, let's take a look at three of the characters with texture, and discuss the process of making them, and the ideas we have for the rest of the characters.

The textures.

Player type "F" (Transfem).

Player type "M" (Transmale).

Player type "NB" (Non Binary).

We preserved the facial characteristic of our 2D concepts, and try to preserve the color coding to, in a more subtle way, making their hairs of the selected color that reference their gender flag. For the design of the rest of the body, we use some color pallets of the website Color Hunt, that have a similar color to the ones used in the concept, but in other tone, accompanied by another three color that we use for the rest of the model.

Ideas for the rest of the characters.

The next three types of characters use the same base model but have different texture proposals.

Player type "idk" (I don't know).

We have the idea of making a falling or blend rainbow kind of shader, and preserve the common facial features that have the other three textured characters. This in a way to reflect the character state of being "no determined", but yet, in the way of becoming more "themselves".

NPC type "pedestrian" (aggressive).

These types of characters are going to have one shade for all the body, with accents in the facial characteristics, but they may appear in different color shades. To give an example: one pedestrian could appear in a green shade, and the other by their side could appear in a shade of purple or yellow. This simple but effective way to diversify the crowd in the streets of our game, without making too much visual noise and taking away the protagonist of our playable characters. 

NPC type "pedestrian" (non-aggressive).

These are going to have some more distinguish characteristics, like some design in their clothes and a simple hair design that consist of only a paint texture. This serves the purpose of catch the attention of the player to take a closed look (discovering that they can interact with them), having the enough details to distinguish themselves from the other passerby NPC´s, but not enough to steal the protagonist of our players characters.

NPC type "scr" (secretary).

We want to go with a design that preserve the pink of the original concept, as a way to symbolize the gender normativity of the character and their status as a person who stands for a regularized system in a bureaucratic level.

NPC type "dr" (doctor).

We want to go with a design that preserve the blue of the original concept, as a way to symbolize the gender normativity of the character and their status as a person who stands for a regularized system medical level.