Devlog #14 📚 Illustration

Hiiiiii devlog time

In case you just stumbled upon this devlog, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I am the creator of timeloop RPG In Stars and Time, and now am working on my next game, memory visual novel Truth Scrapper. It’s gonna be a good one.

For this month, I’m gonna talk about my illustration process!

This is my illustration template for Truth Scrapper! I always start with my template, which contains many things i need always. It’s a 1920x1080. I work on Clip Studio Paint, which has everything I need!

Let’s go through each layer in the template.

First, we have my guide to figure out where the middle/thirds are. Helps with composition!

Then, in overlays, we have the game frame (the page!), so I know what’ll actually be visible in game. We also have the text box (so i know what it’ll hide), as well as Amour and Betz! Very helpful for backgrounds, so I can figure out if the perspective looks wonky. The background can move, Amour and Betz can't.

Next is “doodles”, which is where i draw my placeholders. My placeholders are sometimes close to done, and sometimes they are. PlaceholdersSteam post image

Then we have four textures, so the characters get that yummy paper texture like this, as well as a Drawings folder, where the characters live when their illustrations are done--

--and finally, a dark grey background! I tend to use lighter colors for the characters, so the dark gray background helps them stand out.

Finally, my template has “record timelapse” turned on, which means i don’t have to remember to turn it on. For fun timelapse videos. Yippee!!!

Let’s look through a timelapse together. This one is of Lilou, a child who loves lizards. Lilou’s pronouns are lizard/lizardim/lizardis!

Ok now follow me and my process.

I usually start with a placeholder like this. Helps with knowing where the character will be in the frame! The background is basically done at that point. Since the focus will be on Lilou, no need to spend too much time on background details.

The idea for this character was “child with a Saturated Plushie”, so you can see me try some designs.

With the design somewhat figured out, I try some different colors! A palette, and then I just mess around for a bit until I get something I like. I start with some grey/colored shapes first, done with the lasso tool.

Shapes figured out! I add some details with a pixel brush, and add a white outline to make the character stand out even more. A little after that, I gave Lilou a blue cloak instead so lizard doesn’t have the exact same colors as Sosotte lol

Ok so I have a somewhat finished pose. But every character has a couple different poses, so I start making more, using the first pose as a base! If I know one body part will be annoying to redraw, I copy/paste it and skew it a little so it doesn’t look copy/pasted (here, the glasses+plushie)

Colors for another pose, using the first pose as a base.

You can barely tell, but at some point I have to draw all the different expressions, which for Lilou means drawing many mouths in closed/open positions.

This is the code to make the characters yap– So for Lilou (previously was named Pascale)’s neutral talking, lizard opens lizardis mouth in an “ah” position for 0.05 seconds (TA for Talk Ah), closes it (S for Silent) for 0.05s, opens it in a “oh” position for 0.05s, and closes it again, and it repeats until lizardis line is done appearing. Yes it’s a bit of a pain to export and code. BUT IT LOOKS SO GOOD!!!

After that I export every single piece. Thankfully, Lilou wears glasses, so I don’t have to export any eye animations!!!!!

After implementing all those images in the game, in a process so boring I don’t even want to talk about it, Lilou is REAL AND IN THE GAME!!!!!

Thank you for reading my beautiful mind.

DON'T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THATS THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!!

Links! 📚 Official Website 📚 Join the Discord 📚 Sign up for my mailing list 📚 Follow Truth Scrapper on Bluesky 📚 Follow ME on Bluesky