A Peek Behind the Curtain at the Art Work Process

Hey everyone,

I wanted to take a moment to address something that came up recently. I saw a couple of posts over on the TF Games forum, where one user took issue with the paper doll used in-game — claiming it was stolen from You Throw Like A Girl — and went on to say that the artwork I’ve added was just low-effort, modified assets or even AI-generated.

Fortunately, the artist, Danielle Dennett, who worked on YTLAG for Vim got in touch. They let me know that the paper doll in YTLAG was itself a modified version of a free asset pack, and they were completely happy for me to continue developing and adapting it for this project. That was a massive relief — and I’m very grateful they reached out. They didn't ask to be, but I have added them to the Credits page of the game.

But I’ll be honest — the accusation that my additions were “low effort” or implying just because this Patreon exists the game is just a lazy cash grab really left a bad taste in my mouth. I know not every image in the game is a masterpiece, but for the art that matters, I do put in the work. And since I know others have had to do this too — like comic artist AnyaArt, who had to prove their work wasn’t AI-generated early in their career — I figured I’d show a bit of my own process.

The image in this post shows the different stages of one of the poses coming in the spa update. Here’s how it comes together:

• First, I line-draw the body using a photo reference — usually of a real model. If I can’t find a good one for the pose I need, I’ll use a little posable plastic model I keep on my desk, or in tricky cases, I’ll reference an AI-generated image strictly to guide the pose — never as final art.

• Then I fill in the skin tone and build up shading and highlights. For close-up details, I layer in extra shading at different opacities and soften the edges for depth. In this case, I only softened the highlights to keep things consistent.

• I have a few pre-made body part assets — some made by me using the same process, some carried over from the asset pack and used in other games. For this particular image: the breasts, feet, and left hand are mine; the right hand is from TMOAS (tweaked to have painted nails). These are adjusted to fit the pose naturally.

• Finally, I add the head, facial expression, and hair from the asset pack (although eyes have been modified from it to include the eye shadow colour I wanted), again tweaking to make everything sit naturally.

So how long did this pose take?

• ~25 minutes for the base nude pose

• +5 minutes to add a towel version

• +a few minutes each for variants:

  • Cold room: Shivering lines, a cool tone overlay, and red nose tinge

  • Sauna: Sweat drips, a warm glow, and red highlights for overheating

  • Steam room: A subtle plastic wrap filter for a steamy sheen

So all in all, this pose and its variants took about an hour including export time— and that’s without additional outfit versions, which can easily push the time up further (e.g. all the poses in swimwear at the beach or pool).

So yeah… seeing my work dismissed as "low effort" stung. This game is a passion project. It’s written, coded, illustrated, and patched together by just one person: me. And while I don’t pretend it’s perfect, I do care deeply about making something thoughtful, engaging, and fun — even if it means making a towel fold sit right on a character's hip for far too long.

Also… I just want to say sorry. This game has received an overwhelming amount of praise and I know I shouldn’t let one person being harsh and over critical get under my skin like this, but it hit me harder than I expected. Maybe because I was so nervous about sharing the game in the first place, and moments like that tug on that old fear that I shouldn’t have posted it at all. Plus, I woke up this morning to find out Ozzy Osbourne died, so I feel like a big chunk of my childhood has died with him.

Anyway — thank you for reading this far, and for letting me share a bit more of the behind-the-scenes. And thank you, sincerely, for your support. It means more than you know.

— Project.Mahila