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Artist Blog 04 - Drawing Drawing Drawing

Hey chaps!

First of all, I'd like to wish you all a happy holidays! Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Dongzhi Festival, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Festivus and (for people like me), Happy Winter Solstice! I'll keep this blog post short and sweet. I have three weeks of vacation time off work (technically, it's more like two...) and I'm spending it drawing like a madman. Here are some miscellaneous tidbits for all of you:


-As some of you may have noticed, we have removed our old demo (there goes our 9,000... ;P) from our game page in preparation for our next build.

-I'm currently waiting on the delivery of some software which will hopefully allow me to take our graphics to the next level. There's no ETA on it at the moment, but hopefully it will be soon.

-William and I will be posting something important regarding sprites and parallax maps in the near future. (I keep saying "soon"... sorry, its the holidays after all... all I can do is eyeball and ballpark.) Stay tuned for that!

-The number of UNPC portraits in the game is no longer hovering around 300... its about twice that now, if not more. (Eek!)

-The world map has undergone some minor changes. A few locations have had their names changed while a couple of new locations have been added. These new locations are the Pirates' Hideout and Wutai Valley. An updated world map will be posted sometime later in the future.

-#JanuaryGoal is rolling along. I can't give you any exact estimates, but know that William and I are working quite hard. Hopefully we can provide you with a pretty enjoyable experience with our next build.


Finally, in an attempt to be much more transparent with all things artwork related, I've left a holiday sneak peek for all of you awesome and patient subscribers! Kudos to you hardcore FF fans who can correctly identify over 80% of the characters below (some are originals). Feel free to make some guesses. Almost all of them will make an appearance in our next demo build!

I hope you're all spending your holidays in good health!
Enjoy!

(Warning: large resolution)

~ ~ ~




Posts

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Oh, watching people guess a few of these is gonna be fun. :D
Alright, guess round 1:
  • Alba (from Dimensions) - Oerba Dia Vanille - Bahamut - Aria Rurikara (from Type-0) - Barbara (from Dimensions) - Barras Lehr (from Bravely Default) - Brother
  • Choco Billy - Zone (a big guess) - ???? - Edgar Rene Figaro - Elder of Mysidia - Oerba Yun Fang - Figaro Guard - Yevon Warrior Monk
  • Leon Oakes (that Paladin from this game) - ???? - Seifer Almasy (not really sure but I'm sure I've seen a man resembling this one somewhere in the series) - Horne - Jihl Nabaat - ???? (I presume it's someone from Fishermans Horizon) - Lyra Tycoon - Matoya
  • ???? (it's either Jenica from FFV or Keren Farabrant from UPRC's FFBPII; her resemblence to Keren is striking IMO) - Gogo - ???? - Bikanel Merchant (from FFX-2) - ???? - Nora Estheim - Owzer - Card Club member (from FFVIII)
  • Paddra Nsu-Yeul - Deepground Soldier - Parker Gabbiani - Ramuh - Reeve Highwind - Rubicante - Scarmiglione
  • Seymour's Mother - Shinra (from FFX-2) - Yevon Warrior Monk? - Ultros - Vicks Farron (not really fond of the head here actually; hairstyle kind of like these reminds me of women in their 40-ties and the forehead is too big IMO) - Vossler York Azelas - ????


For 80%+ correct guesses I need to score at least 36 characters correctly; 37+ characters to be guessed correctly if it is to be above 80% of correct guesses. I think I have around 80% chance to score that 36/37+ correct guesses.
Don't know why it double-posted. Had "system's down" message for a moment.
janussenpre
愛・おぼえていますか
1274
Nice work Noel! You've always been our biggest and most hardcore fan, haha. :)

I kind of pulled the 80% out of my thin air not realizing how many of these characters were of my own original design or were creatively interpreted from *extremely small* 16 bit/blurry low-res 32 bit graphics. You did a pretty awesome job (although you had some a little help from a few months ago, haha) considering that. I'm not going to say which ones you got right or wrong though (or half right/wrong) in case anyone else wants to hazard some guesses.

P.S. Too bad you're not that big of a fan of the new Vicks. I think she looks much improved now over her past version. Maybe it'll look better once the portrait is colored. On the brighter side, Lyra looks more attractive than ever! (Same with Jihl and Fang... I had a great time drawing them)

William's favorite might still be the guy who *may or may not* be King Edgar Figaro. :)
I suppose that if Vicks's portrait gets coloured I might like it more (still, I love her personality-wise).

Yes, Fang and Jihl are pretty kickass characters (even though Jihl had so little focus >.< in the two games she appeared in ).

The guy I guessed as this "Leon Oakes" is pretty damn attractive in the artwork.
The lady I guessed as Lyra Tycoon has a weird hair ornament.

I'm quite certain that the lady next to my guess of who appears to be Edgar is someone from Final Fantasy X lore. I first considered her to be Yuna, but given the little help I received from you a few months ago I decided to lure it out. I suppose it's the dress that gives me that idea, to be more precise: the sleeves. She has a really pretty chest piece as well!

Since Yeul is set to appear I hope that Caius is too. Oh! And I hope for Lumina to have a role too! I really like her!

The last character in the last row reminds me of someone, I think. But for the love of Crystals I can't think of anyone. Also, he has mesmerizing hairstyle, just like my Leon-guess.
I still await the day that I open up my inbox to see a colored Leon art. That one has always been my favorite (it's NOT Leon in the image above, BTW). :D
janussenpre
愛・おぼえていますか
1274
Yep! That's not Leon, haha. If it were, he'd be wearing heavier armor (as is customary for the knights of Ivalice). That character is from Tycoon, which is a real fancy pants kind of baroque influenced kingdom. (Just look at Lyra's clothing!)

The woman next to the "Edgar" isn't from FFX. :)

One thing to remember... and its something I mentioned from before. The cameos are their own characters within the world of Gaia Discovery. Sure, there are a lot of visual similarities (in some cases, glaringly so), but they're all denizens of this particular game world that we've crafted and they all have specific roles that exceed that of throwaway cameos.

Hahah... take a closer look at the last guy. He's using a base art from an already existing character. I'm glad you used the word 'mesmerizing' since I think that adequately sums up his ability to woo women.

author=WCouillard
I still await the day that I open up my inbox to see a colored Leon art. That one has always been my favorite (it's NOT Leon in the image above, BTW). :D


One day my friend. One day, haha. :D
Do I spy a Yuna? Second row?
I forever love your art <3

Edit: Holy fuuuuck that Jihl <333
janussenpre
愛・おぼえていますか
1274
@Amaterasu Thanks! That isn't Yuna, haha.

@WCouillard Oooh, level and job class at the bottom right now. Very nice!

@Noel Well, I guess its about time to see how well you did on your first round of guesses.

Here are the ones you got incorrect or were missing (with hints in parentheses).

Row 1 - #2 (FF Discovery)
Row 2 - #2 (FF8), #3 (Dimensions)
Row 3 - #1 (FF2 + original twist), #2 (FF14), #3 (FF2 + original twist), #6 (FF4)
Row 4 - #1 (FF6 + original twist), #2 (FF6), #3 (FF6 + original twist), #4 (FF6), #5 (FF2 + original twist), #8 (FF8 - which member?)
Row 6 - #3 (FF9), #7 (FF Discovery)

Good luck!
That status screen looks stunning.
I'm not going to take away fun for others of this well-decided distraction. ;)

But damn... Both Parker and Lyra are so much fan-service with their visual assets that I think that two characters with fan-service is too much for me.
janussenpre
愛・おぼえていますか
1274
Hah. Lyra's chest ended up a bit bigger this time around after I decided on giving her a corset. I literally rewatched some clips of Disney's 90s Three Musketeers to get an idea of how explosive those things can make a bust seem. :O

Speaking of explosive, I've been trial and erroring some new graphics for the last two days and my eyeballs feel like they're bleeding. I've gone back to parallaxing some unfinished maps for the moment to give my poor retinas and psyche a rest.
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