Gii

secret project: january update

Monthly update for my game Sugarplum Cafe!

Prototype feedback and future plans

Thank you to everyone who played the December prototype and sent me feedback! You can still send me feedback if you like, but I think I have a good idea of what needs to be improved now ^^

Between Patreon backers and personal friends, 14 people received a link to the prototype and 8 people sent me feedback. Overall the consensus was that the game and characters were really pretty,...

Sea Fairy Cookie fan costume

Throwback to my Sea Fairy Cookie costume for the Cookie Run costume contest in 2019! Wanted to redraw her and the costume itself. I included the old posts in the slideshow for reference!

Why did I give the gijinka boots instead of the seashell dress? I just liked both the boots and the dress and wanted to show both designs 😅⁠

I usually care very much about making designs that can exist IRL but tbh I have no idea how this design works and how she'll move with the giant seashel...

Sea Fairy Cookie: sparkles or no sparkles?

Redrawing this custom costume I designed for the Cookie Run costume contest a few years ago! Debating if I should add the sparkles or not.

OC Gala 2022 (full art process)

Since I already shared The Vampire here, this is a retroactive post. But I figured why not write up something anyways! 

For $10+ patrons, I have a timelapse video of this dress saved on my computer - if you want to see it, say the word and I'll upload ~

---

The OC Gala was announced on Twitter in December, with the theme "vampire masquerade". I wasn't going to participate at first, because I'm trying not to draw things for other people unless I'm asked to which includes...

Sneak Peek: OC Gala 2022

I was going to take a longer art break but something called the OC Gala popped up on Twitter, supposedly inspired by the Met Gala and encouraging everyone to draw their OCs with the theme "vampire masquerade". I wasn't going to participate at first, but suddenly I got a stroke of inspiration:

Vampires -> Gothic -> Cathedrals -> Stained glass -> Stained glass dress?? 

So I've come up with this vampy gown inspired by stained glass, and also Venetian carnivals becaus...

Various "redraws" + general update

They aren't total redraws but I did slightly update some of them, or at least add backgrounds. Either way I've posted these on social media and it's only fair Patreon backers get the nice hi-res versions! If you're interested, I can add old versions of each of the drawings so you can compare - just comment below.

For the first two in particular you can see that I've started adding etching lines, and I think I like the look a lot! So I'm excited to continue exploring these.

That sa...

The Pantone Series, in full

Complete with updated layouts for the older designs! (Basically a shadow instead of the white glow lol) 

I apologize for the lack of new art this week. I spent this week collecting feedback on the Sugarplum Cafe game prototype, which is now available for all patrons to play! If you want to help test this game out for me, check out this post! 

secret project: ready to test!

That's right, I've been working on a playable prototype of Sugarplum Cafe! Above is a brief video that captures some of the gameplay, but if you're interested in playing this elegant cafe game in full I would LOVE your feedback. Scroll to the bottom of this post to learn how to gain access!

Updates to the game

The user interface for Sugarplum Cafe looks a little different now! But also a little familiar?

I recently came across a game in the App Store that ha...

Pantone 2021, Illuminating & Ultimate Gray (+ prints update)

She's done! You can check out the full art process in this post, where I also ramble about my thoughts on year's Color of the Year and how I came up with the design.

It's not my favorite design, and I totally acknowledge that the soft elegant frills clash with the rigid suit. But it does represent how I feel about these two colors, tbh. It's the kind of design that's meant to appeal to people who have a diffe...

Pantone 2020, Classic Blue (updated + poll available!)

This one wasn't redrawn too much, but I decided to replace the white outlines with a more fashionable drop shadow for all the designs in the series. It was mainly to prevent clashing in the Living Coral look, but I think it has a bit of chic-ness to it!

I've also made a form where you can sign up to be reminded when the Pantone Kickstarter is available: 2021-11-27 20:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post

Pantone 2019, Living Coral (updated)

Lowkey procrastinating on the 2021 look by updating some of the older Pantone looks, including 2019's Living Coral! You can see the old version in the second pic. 

I didn't change the design too much for this one because it seemed to be a big hit and I liked this design a lot too. It was inspired by the surreal Bauhaus Ballet, but definitely more femme and glam.
But I did fix some anatomy things (like the hand and the size of the head), and I recolored the skin to match my new a...

Pantone 2021 (art process)

This was originally intended for $5+ patrons, but I'm publishing this for all patrons instead because this is the only art I've been able to work on as of late 😅

I'll be writing about the process behind my design for Pantone Color of the Year 2021. As the artwork is still in progress, this post will be regularly updated so keep your eyes peeled!

I've not enjoyed most of the recent Pant...

Pantone 2021 WIP

The Pantone Color of the Year is Ultimate Gray + Illuminating and god I do not enjoy this color combo one bit. But thank god I don't post these looks until the end of the year, because it took me eleven months to figure something out. 

The idea is that in the monotony that is gray, illuminating yellow finds a way to shine through. Or something like that.
It's less extreme and costumey than my typical designs, but I think it's the kind of design that high fashion aficionados mig...

secret project video

short gameplay video to give you an idea of what the prototype is currently like! i've posted gifs from this video before so a lot of this is deja vu if you've seen my past posts, but i figured it'd be nice to show how the full gameplay looks.

the music is not final...actually, figuring out music for this game has been quite a long story.

composing music is something i am very confident that i cannot do, so i always knew i would have to find a composer. the good news is that there...

Sea and Sky (final)

I guess this is the first illustration for my Sailor Moon artbook! It's not the most fashion-y fanart but it was nice to get it out of my head.

$5 patrons can see the full art process with WIPs here!

Sea and Sky (full art process)

I just finished my "Sea and Sky" illustration which I teased on Sunday, so here's the full process from sketch to final!

1) The very rough initial sketch. Unfortunately I deleted my Uranus sketch by accident so I have the more finished sketch here as a placeholder, but you can see I was toying with the idea of a more celestial backdrop for Uranus with rays of stars. I knew Neptune was going to draw a lot of f...

Sea and Sky (sketch)

I've had this idea in my head for a while, drawing Sailor Uranus and Neptune but themed as their elements (sky and sea). So Neptune's hair is going to look like ocean waves, and Uranus is going to have an evening starry sky pattern on her uniform. 

This is a *very* rough sketch, but I'll be rendering this into a proper illustration and sharing the process with $5+ backers over the next few days.

As much as I love series, I don't think I will be drawing other sailors like this...

Witches of Oz Speedpaint

For my $10 patrons only, here are the timelapses of my witches series! This is only the final rendering which is why you see some art drawn already. Because this series was a redraw, I had experimented by repainting over the old drawings to figure out exactly what I wanted to change in the new version - this is why you see me tracing over sketchier versions of the witches and using old art as a comparison guide.

Prototype Fashion Poses

I came up with two possible compositions for my Prototype Sailor Scouts fashion series. Figuring out poses is hard 😭

Pose 1: Girl Group
Literally referenced a K-pop girl group for this haha, it is STAYC if you must know (and their latest single is excellent).

Pose 2: Fashun
Based on the poses that the...

Fashion Scouts

One of the ideas I had for the Sailor Moon artbook was to assign each Sailor Scout a fashion designer and decorate their sailor uniform with the designer's brand. These were a couple of mockups for Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury, who I assigned Louis Vuitton and Guo Pei, respectively. 

I still like this idea and want to see this through, but these might not be the final poses. I'd like to put all the Sailor Scouts together in a group pic eventually, but I'm not sure how I want the ...

Witches Collection 2.0

Added backgrounds to the witches! I'll start to post these publicly this week.

Prototype Sailor Fashion

The first batch of Sailor Moon artbook designs! (I know I shared the nautical sailor fashion a while back, but I have to revise their colors + this is the first set of designs that I think is ready to go)

These designs are based on the "prototype sailor scouts", which are Naoko Takeuchi's initial designs for the Sailor Scouts as seen in concept art. From left to right: Moon, Mars, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter.

The original prototype designs are not great imo - some of those elements de...

secret project google doc

I've put together a game design doc for Sugarplum Cafe! GDD for short. A GDD is supposed to be a document that describes in detail what your game is going to be like - every type of gameplay, every setting, etc. The intention behind making a GDD is so you can get a clear vision of what you want your game to be. 

To be honest, I've never liked making GDDs for that purpose - you know how making a to-do list makes you feel as accomplished as actually doing the tasks? So I feel like ma...

Photoshoot of my stickers

My sister is a hobbyist photographer, so I finally asked her to take some pics of my stickers since I want to advertise the Witches Pack again in October. They turned out okay, I think! I've been using my phone to take all photos and videos of my stickers and the difference is glaringly obvious, lol. 

Although I am planning to advertise my shop next month, I'm planning on moving it. I am shutting down thelettergii.com/shop next week and will most likely set up a new shop on ko-fi.c...

Lilypichu (Patreon Exclusive)

Unfinished fashion designs inspired by streamer Lilypichu's two vtuber models (see below). I also included a sketch so you can see what the designs were intended to look like. 

Lilypichu was holding a fanart contest to draw both of her vtuber-sonas (vsonas? vtubesonas? what do you call them), and I thought could be a fun spin on the theme. I tried to capture both of her characters' essences in a fashion forward way and gave them little wands so they were like fashion fairies.

Introducing my new project!

Sugarplum Cafe is a merge-3 cafe game for mobile and PC. You merge ingredients to make desserts and try to attract customers whose designs are inspired by different cakes and other desserts. 

This is the game I'll be developing for the discernable future! I've actually been working on it for quite some time; I didn't share until now because I wanted to make sure it was The One.

What happened to the fashion game with the Glams?

After sitting down and wri...

Help me pick a color scheme?

This is for another series in the Sailor Moon artbook, I'll provide more details and a closer look next month. In the meantime, can you tell me which color scheme you prefer of the three? 

A couple of mockups

A very rough prototype to test a smaller game idea: Customers come in to your cafe and order desserts. The oven in the center spawns a basic (vanilla) macaron every 2 seconds that you can merge into other macarons. The customers leave you money when you fulfill their order. 

This prototype was made a while ago, so I've made quite a few changes since then. Consider this a teaser for next week...

New Twitter banner!

I felt like the pinned post was taking up too much space and I didn't have any banner ideas so I decided to make the banner into my Patreon shoutouts instead :)

Which of these designs should I use in the Sailor Moon artbook?

Hey all! I've started thumbnailing designs for the Sailor Moon artbook this week and it's been really fun brainstorming. I plan to have multiple series in the artbook, but there's one  particular series of designs that I need some feedback on.

This series is inspired by the "Sailor" part of Sailor Moon - sailor-inspired fashion. I love the silhouettes, but I'm having trouble choosing from these three versions. 

Version 1: Celestial

2021-08-14 07:33:42 +0000 UTC View Post