[DEVBLOG#143] Working on a cool storyteller!

Hello guys!

Let me preface with the fact that just because I'm making such a storyteller and preview image does not mean such mod is or ever will be in development.

Sometimes I do creative briefs for myself to get my mind jogging, I design a mod, write a comprehensive doc for it, create some assets and then shelf it. In most cases, such mods never actually come to existence - in other cases, such mods are later picked up and completed (Vanilla Factions Expanded - Mechanoids was one of them).

So, after watching the Rick and Morty episode this morning, I thought to myself that I should really design the whackiest mod out there.

And to begin, I needed to make a storyteller - I always start my design process by creating a Preview image, and for this one, I simply thought I need a storyteller.

Obviously googling Rick and Morty does provide me with a lot of reference material to go by, but the one image that really struck me deep had to be this one:

I immediately thought to myself: How dope it would be to have a RimWorld Rick. And with this semi-realistic image, I can use it to draw inspiration and make the RimWorld style storyteller.

I opened up Photoshop and began drawing.

RimWorld storytellers are made using a very fine brush, set up so you can change the thickness of it based on pen pressure. Of course for such a task a drawing tablet is required. In case you wonder, I sport Wacom Intuos Pro, they are pretty good, but god they are expensive when the tips wear down. I am working on incredibly high resolution here, 8k pixels by 8k pixels, for maximum precision and detail.

Our Rick needs to feel rimworldish - so a normal lab coat wouldn't do. However, a wild-west style attire just might!

A thing that happens next is applying flat color on everything. It's very simple, it's like doing those old coloring books. 

So far, there is almost absolutely no shading on it. It's just flat colors. It already started to come alive.

What's happening next? I start of with shadows. I create a new layer and use absolute black to paint where the shadows should be. This is the effect.

You can feel free to use soft eraser to blend in the shadows slightly. I then do the same for light - if something is exposed to more light, it should be evidently whiter.

Now I change the Lights layer to 60% Overlay setting, and the Shadows layer to 38% Multiply setting. This is the final outcome:

Alright, one thing missing is the particular 'thick' outline around the storyteller. Lets add that lickety split!

Fantastic. But that isn't a preview image now, is it? Preview image is an image that represents the mod, consider it a 'box cover', a first thing people see.

Lets try and find some inspiration from actual Rick and Morty posters and artworks, we're going to need those.

Ok, lets break this poster down. Alien landscape with bizarre plants and rock formations, space background, a portal, Rick and Morty jumping out of it, and the logo at the top.

It just so happens I had one desert landscape lying around so I decided to re-use it. It's not as alien as the Rick and Morty one, but at least it looks more like RimWorld. I just had to add some planets on the sky in the background.

Alrighty then, we need a portal. Getting a portal is quite easy - one google search later I was able to find a portal that's easy enough to trace in Illustrator.

Now, as for the logo - sure, the Rick and Morty part is easy to re-do in Illustrator, but we don't want to settle there, we need a word RimWorld in the mix. After some experimentation I came up with something I was quite happy about.

But just the black letters won't look good enough. Let's try and imitate the actual Rick and Morty logo with it.

Alright, now for the final trick, let's put the portal, the Rick, the logo and the background together...

And voila. We've got a colorful, engaging mod preview that also shows people what they can expect from the mod!

I hope I was able to provide you with some indepth look into how even simple things like previews are made. Next devblog we will resume talking about Ancients!

Stay safe everyone!