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So, Doomfest suggested that we all give little presentations on what we do and how we do it. He already went two posts ago, so I suppose it’s my turn now.

The problem with writing is that there is nothing to say about the physical process. With drawing there is technique: use of layers and brushes, pressure, etc. Not true with writing. I’ve just got buttons on my keyboard and when I press them I get characters on the screen. That’s my physical process.

So, I suppose with writing it would be better to talk about the creative process than anything to do with actually putting it on paper.

I’m of the opinion that if you ever want to write anything (good), you have to be a daydreamer. I really don’t think there is any other way to go about it, unless you are going to write boring non-fiction.

Usually I go walking for a few hours, fantasizing and listening to music. I imagine possible events and characters’ reactions to said events, I imagine possible ways to set up a scene, I imagine situations that would be particularily interesting for a certain character, etc. By the end of it my brain is often thinking of a completely different storyline with completely different characters. That’s okay though, I just take the progress I did make and put the rest in my imaginary mental tickle trunk for future use.

It seems most writers I know like to write down ideas that occur to them. I don’t really, I like to keep it in my head. I find over the course of forgetting and remembering an idea I had, it improves a ton over time. I don’t generally write anything except full draft script. So lets talk about that some.

Currently, I use Open Office with all the special formatting turned off (for ren’py’s sake) as my word processor.

See, we writers actually write in ren’py script, not in normal english. There isn’t a whole lot of difference though, thanks to the simplicity of the scripting language.

Anyway, once I’ve written a decent chunk, I’ll put it up on the development forum and Swiffeh will edit it. Usually it will stay there for a while as required changes occur to both myself and Swiffeh. After that, it goes on to our editor Null Dizzy, who goes through it until she thinks it’s finished.

Then it goes in the game.

Exciting.

I’d like to put a relevent picture in this post, but I can’t take a screenshot of my mind, and a word proccessor is kinda boring. So, here’s my desktop.

Also, as for Cradle Song updates:

2/7 route character sprites coloured and finished, and 1 with finished lineart.

Us writers have been working on improving demo script mostly, but we’ve also managed to get two days into Rose route script.

We probably have enough music for the demo.

The only thing really holding us back from releasing the demo very soon is art. So if any of you out there are artists and want to help, or know an artist who might want to help, let us know!

Here’s a new pic of San as a parting gift.

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Brought to you courtesy of Doomfest.

Karin puts on her cape and wizard’s hat (or witch’s, maybe?) and goes trick or treating.

Characters in order of appearance (excluding Karin herself, of course) are: Anna; Rell, Nathan, and Artemis; fabulous Rence; San’s door; and finally Alex.

If you don’t know Alex, that’s okay because he isn’t important.

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Today, I write about how our group makes sprites for Cradle-Song. This post covers communicating character details, drawing concepts, discussing and planning expressions, and actual sprite production.

(Maybe) First in a series of how we do things around these parts.

*deep breath* *shudder* Okay, I’m prepared to show old art for the sake of the post.

First, the descriptions / rough path outlines for the characters are written. Then, to help communicate the characters, I asked Dani and Swiff to draft answers to ten predetermined questions in the characters’ voices (And internal monologue, if applicable.) Here are some examples of the type of questions they were:

• What is your goal in life, and what might prevent you from achieving this goal?
• Name five items you currently have in your refrigerator.
• Describe the biggest mistake you’ve ever made.
• Describe the best meal you’ve ever had.

Like those embarrassing journals you wrote in school. After that, a bunch of artists (including myself) drew up a bunch of concepts for the characters. For this post, I’ll use Ciri’s concept art as examples.

After some discussion, we decided that kekekeke’s uniform design was too frilly, my design looked too much like a certain railgun, and I liked the feel for Ciri that was in Atashi’s design. When it came to actual Ciri sprite production, I was the only artist left in the group, so I changed some bits in my design, namely adopting the hairstyle from kekekeke’s initial design, and the eyes. We also decided on a uniform.

After the concept art comes the stage where we plan the expressions the characters will have. I asked the writers for snippets of dialogue with the heroine in question, and the discussion starts, eventually yielding a text file with contents like this:

X small smile hint of emotion
X slight blush
X      neutral (meh)X neutral (slight blush)
X downcast
X repressed crying (that kind of twisted face)

The X was for marking down which ones I have sketched out. The list also gets mangled and rewritten throughout the planning process, and sometimes throughout the production.

Then, I draft a bunch of little gesture drawings with faces (fancy words for stickfigures), of the expressions in the list. I will use Karin’s for this one.

In hindsight, I think Karin’s had the least efficient planned sprites:actual sprites ratio… I’m getting distracted. The list gets modified, things get added/removed, until it is (mostly) okay with everyone.

Then comes the drawing. I used San up there- she doesn’t talk very much. The nude is drawn first, then the face on its’ own layer, then the clothes- on their own layers as well. Then, I throw everything in a folder, make it transparent, and draw the next pose on a layer above that one. Repeat times poses. Photoshop for this. Then, I throw everything into SAI, and draw the lineart, keeping the outlines for the face on a different layer.

At this point, I split the file in half – a .psd for each half number of poses, and delete the sketch layers. Otherwise the file would take up an ungodly amount of memory, and most importantly, Raide’s computer would die. That would be unpleasant, because he selects the areas where colors will be.

Coloring is just a matter of locking the transparency of the layers in photoshop(or SAI), using masks where applicable, and eye-dropping your first satisfactory attempt for every subsequent sprite. After coloring, the layers panel looks like this:

Then, I use Layer Comps to make the list of expressions, so that photoshop exports them into their own PNGs. (If you were wondering, Layer Comps are basically just different sets of layers.)

Then, I do this:

Photoshop works for a few minutes, spitting out files in the folder you requested. I take those files, put them all in a new onion roll .psd file, and adjust the sizes. Then, I crop that file, resize, and this time, do this instead:

I make sure to uncheck “Trim Layers”…

Finally, the files are just renamed and inserted into Ren’py, where wizards make shiny games happen.

-Doomfest

P.S.: A screenshot of the workspace.