Hello!
Much has been said about the art style, our pipeline and graphical process we use in making BoT. Today we're sharing a peek at some of our most recent assets - ones that we are now implementing in the game. It’s really important that everything you see in the game is carefully handcrafted and painted manually. This takes a team of four 2D artists working full time on the project. Some assets can be painted in a day, others take up to a week for one artist to paint. Below you can see two ancient trees that only appear in one place in the game world. Their names are Kesnan and Kham and they stand tall in one of the areas on the western side of Braided Shore. You can also see a tipping lantern, which can be interacted with via an Endeavour event and has to be created in several parts to be able to animate.
Nerdy Art Trivia
(Or scroll to go directly to the images)
In order to make all the painted assets of the game coherent we've created a meticulous 2D pipeline that ensures that the style is consistent and that all things visual are in sync. We use a specific brush for all assets and never stray from it or its size (15px). We also use a tricky hatching technique for the brushwork. It gives the art more of a textured feel and adds detail and variation to each piece. Besides that, we have also adapted a rather unusual way to underlight the objects, using brighter values low and darker ones high. This was inspired by A.J Casson who’s unique style is one of our major influences. The underlight helps to create an unpredictable and odd impression that we really love.
Once finished, our game designers can start drafting and implementing events that take place at or near these unique props.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this first dive into our process. We’d love to hear any thoughts, feedback or ideas about this or suggestions for things you would like us to feature here. Let us know in the comments section!
Thank you for your time!
Jakob, Marcus, Charlotte, Olle and the rest of the team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1152340/Book_of_Travels/