your pal Kaive

Drawing HoT Side Characters

October 27, 2017 in Games, House of Tail

test render of house of tail side character cats

sketches of house of tail side character cats

Side character sprites!

Included the sketches of the characters as it’s neat to compare concept to finished sprite. All of these are cut to be animated.

These are only 3 of House of Tail’s 100+ characters. They also each get their own ‘special scene’ image. Absolutely insane.

But hey, should make for a fun game. Between you and me, it did feel kind of lame to have to dance around not having a larger support cast for Common Grounds. No excuses this time!

Art Direction / Production

I hope the art direction will be cool with you. Wanted to try something different: expressive and cartoon-ish, but tangible. While it has it’s pros and cons, I’m digging it. The hope is that it’ll all come together for a really unique experience that will hit all of the right RPG spots. A game you can really get into. At the very least, it shouldn’t feel low-effort. Going to have some real heart to it. Am feeling it so hard it’s like I can’t let them down, not just you but the characters. Their existence is counting on us to finish. A good sign, right? Or could be further insanity. Maybe a hot mix.

My method to madness is doing several passes to tackle it all. The characters above were taken through all the passes to make sure the end results looked okay. All the sketches/designs are finished. I’m halfway with line-work. Then coloring (all that preschool experience coming in super handy), rendering (light and shadows), and animation. Just a matter of time. Still unsure on some of the color choices (you can notice the change in Hextilda’s dress above), but I’m sticking to an overall color palette so it shouldn’t be difficult to narrow it down.

Wouldn’t believe the stuff we’ve had to go through privately, by the way. A story for another time.