dev diary: art process for Night with Timber

i've been going wild on this game. the other day i posted an 18+ scene from it on my nsfw patreon (that i had to make because of itchio's policy change a few months back) ((please don't kill me for linking that post patreon, they are a hair's breadth away from banning this stuff too))... but um, it's mostly a sfw game, you can turn the mature content off if you want. i just wanted to write it, so i'm keeping it in. NO ONE CAN CENSOR ME WHEN IT COMES TO TIMBER WAHAHA

anyway, quick synopsis, you choose your character name and whether you're a rabbit, human, witch, whatever. there's a random name generator in it with names like Yaoi Boy, so that's why it says that in the corner in the screenshot above. there are many endings. i have written... 13k words. i should be working on syrup 2 but i'm trying to get this out of my system at least a little... you'll see why when it's finished i think.......

so yeah, today i though i'd explain how i'm doing the art for this game since it has a unique look!!! i wanted to make it pixelated cuz it feels gritty that way, but i didnt want to just do the same brush as bad end theater or anything. so i looked up pixel brushes for clip studio and found one that basically just filters any brush you use to make it all dithery!!!!!!!! it's so cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this was the doodle that convinced me... (he's so cute i love him....)

step 1: DRAW TIMBER

this is what it looks like while i'm drawing. the layers are set up like this:

when the lineart is moved out of the folder, it looks normal (messy)

i've been drawing the character art with the default mechanical pencil brush, the canvas is only 540x420

next, color!

it's all on one layer and doing the fills is a little annoying since the lines are so rough the bucket tool struggles a bit with them.

and last, i put a very subtle effect on his outline... it's the watercolor edge, but only one pixel wide. just helps the line color stand out from the background

RESULT

when you draw with transparent brushes or use gradients, that's when the dithering comes in really strong. it's fun to paint like this!!! the bg is way more layers though because each color needs its own dithery folder argh...

here is a bonus screenshot

i love this wolf and am ready to draw him 1000 more times

once i finish more endings/features i will put up a WIP build, definitely at some point before the end of the year (i should really get back to syrup 2 before that tho)

thanks for reading!