The Story:

Welcome back for another blog. It's been a while since my last post, but I didn't want to share something until I had a topic I felt was worth the wait. I've been quite busy, but now I'm excited to share my latest post with you.

As part of my world-building and game design process, I realized that in order to create a compelling story, I needed to develop a set of characters with unique backgrounds and detailed biographies. In doing so, I aimed to craft well-rounded and relatable characters. By taking the time to flesh out each character's history, personality, and motivations, I hoped to create a rich and immersive narrative experience that would keep my audience engaged from start to finish.

The Merchants:

As I was writing the story, I came up with the idea of introducing three merchants into the narrative, each with their own name and personality. The three characters are named Henry, Roberto, and Fionn. In the game's lore, these three men will be your merchants, and you can trade with them to obtain the necessary items. Apart from their role as merchants, We will delve deeper into their friendship and individual stories in the game lore. After a while, I began making a list of characters and ended up with 29 characters, including the main protagonist. We will discuss them at a later stage.

Aside from their biography, I will create a character sheet for almost every character in the game.

(This shows part of the process of "The Making of Henry and Roberto.")

(When I'm finished with all the characters, I will post each one in a separate post.)

Information fanatics:

If you enjoy delving into the characters' backstory and world, this project will be perfect for you. There will be plenty of intricate details to explore in these blogs and final concepts, so keep an eye out for it, ranging from blueprints, personal facts, and coordinates to unique locations and sometimes herbalist recipes that will eventually be usable in the game.

(Henry's concept sheet into the finishing stage)

Other characters:

While working on Henry, I realized that creating the other characters from scratch would be extremely time-consuming. To speed up the process, I used the Midjourny tool to generate multiple faces that would closely match the desired style. This allowed me to choose from a broad range of options and create diverse characters more efficiently.

(A large variety of female faces)

(A large variety of male faces)

(A quick example of what I do with the raw image)

I will create a separate blog post detailing the process and differences for the characters.

While working on the characters, I created a catalog for all of them, with the necessary information about their role in the group, name, age, marriage, etc.

(Image showing the catalog)

As I delved deeper into my project, I began to outline the intricate details of The Triangle, the largest group. They are a cult, and my focus is establishing their specific customs and practices. I am putting in great effort to ensure that every aspect of their actions is well-considered and accurately portrayed.

(Hierarchy of the triangle group)

I'm also making the cult visible on a pinboard like in one of those detective series.

This particular piece will be a 10k by 8k to ensure I can create intricate details on and around the board.  (I was brainstorming what the pinboard would look like.)

Finally:

As a sneak peek, I have a map with three of the seven areas visible. These locations will serve as focal points for some awesome concept art.

(A small teaser of the location for the concept art.)


For now, I'm in talks with an great artist regarding the creation of environmental concept art. Further details are still pending.

I hope you enjoyed this blog post, and I'll see you in the next one!

The making of

For this blog, I will show how far I am with my model and the journey in creating my character model for my game.

1. Styleguide

I began by gathering inspiration and putting together a style guide. Luckily I only needed two images because my game is heavily inspired by The long dark, and I wanted my character to look like it came straight out of the same universe.

2. Creating the model

After gathering the images and my own concept art, I began sculpting his head. I started with a base model from the internet (I've searched everywhere but couldn't find where I got it from). With the base model, I did a paint-over to get more of a feeling of how he should look and get a sense of his basic facial features.

After the paint-over, I began sculpting. After 2,5 hours, I had something I was satisfied with.

The next day I did the hair and some tweaking, and the sculpture was done.

The next step was for me to retopo the head. In the end, I was quite happy with the result.

With the head done, I bought a base body from Turbo squid (Made by Lurisay), stylized feet(Made by Snscgworks), and stylized hands from flipped normals (Made by Joao Sousa).

With these models, I began merging them. Because I'm not using normals for baking in the details, I used the high poly models of the hand and feet and reduced the poly count to connect the vertices better, so It kept the higher poly shape.

I probable will revisit the model to improve the topology.

After I was done merging all sections, I started unwrapping the character. 

3. Time to paint

For the texture, I wanted to experiment with how I textured my model, so I used "Texture paint" and began to lay a foundation.

As you can see, the skin tone is inhumanly white, almost pure white, But that's what I liked about the stylized look from "The long dark." that's the style I fell in love with.

I added some shading for muscle definition and chest hair for more detail. Originally I wanted to make his hair black, but when I was shading it, it looked more like he had gray hair. So instead, I changed it to brown. But brown didn't do it for me either, So I returned to the drawing board and searched for some image references from "the long dark." I took some Images and saw that nothing in their game is pure black but more of a gray-blue-ish color. So I color-picked the colors from the bear and used them for his hair.

I still need to finish the hair, but I added a base layer and will finish it later.

With the base texture done, I wasn't satisfied with the underwear, so I googled references for underwear.

I'm still unsatisfied with the backside, but I'll fix that part later.

4. Scars of the past

And for the last part, which has taken most of my time researching and developing. The backstory for the scars and burn marks. I love making a backstory for my character to step into their mind about what happened to them in the past, like physical and mental trauma. About what they like and dislike. What their hobbies are, and what motivates them.

For all the scars, I'll tell you my general thought process. This way, I won't spoil the story/game. Later, I will make a biography of him and flesh it out further. I love that the player will discover the history and small tidbits of the main character.

These two scars were created when he was doing one of his pastime activities. I googled the injury based on the activity to determine what the scars should look like. After the research, I would do a paint-over to experiment with different shapes.

I already knew what I wanted the leg scar to look like. Therefore, I didn't need to draw different shapes.

Without spoiling too much, there was an explosion. And I created a visual simulation in Blender to see where his injuries would be. I just made a store with a front shop, angled the characters in the position I wanted, and drew some lines to estimate where he would be injured.

After that, I researched the different types of burn marks. But I didn't find many examples when researching burn marks drawn or painted, so the picture below is the only good one for my style guide. I did a quick paint-over to see how it would look and was satisfied.

I did the same thing as in the example to see where the burn marks would form. I made a visual simulation to show where the burn marks would be severe and where they would be less severe.

5. What's next

I will texture his hand and feet and finish the burn mark on his back. At last, I will fix some topology and tweak minor things like the texture and model. Lastly, I will complete it by giving him an armature.

Hello guys,

This week I was experimenting with creating concept art with an AI for my game concept. I am trying to make the pipeline quicker and more efficient. In this blog, I will show the raw images I have right now, and in the next blog, I will show which pictures I've chosen and how to clean the image up.

Generate words (A lone survivor is exploring a snowy apocalyptic backCountry)

Generate words (A backpack filled to the brim with all kinds of stuff)

Generate words (A post-apocalyptic city in the snow)

Generate words (A lone survivor is exploring a snowy apocalyptic abandon)

Random images

This last part is a quick cleanup test.

Because I increased the image size to 1080x 1350 from 540x 690, you will get pixelated lines in some areas.

In some areas, the AI created some artifacts, so I need to clean those up or fill them in with something new.

This piece is not finished. It is just for demonstration purposes.

So I was scrolling through Artstation and saw some cool vehicle designs by Sheng Lam and I got inspired to make my own design. I first went and made some black silhouettes. After making the silhouettes, I choose the fourth one because it had an interesting and unique design.

After I had decided which silhouette I would use, I went and made a 3D model that I could use for the perspectives.

 

And for the 3e view, I did a High Angle shot. But it is in the first stages.

And for the final shot, I had a cool idea. I wanted to make an action shot with a Frog eye perspective.

I only have spent time on the wheels and the background but this shot is also still in its first stages.