On to the magic – we’ve told you about the concepts last time, but this time, you’ll see how they take shape on the screen!

Mining Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton for inspiration? Always.

COME ON NOW, OUT OF MY HEAD, LOVE

The process of taking a character from the script and creating their sprite is technically the same as the creation of backgrounds (less the 3D-modelling): j.s. draws the rough sketch with the concept, and Ami skilfully brings it to its colourful perfection! Before that, however, there’s more thinking still.

It seems like a responsible step: to finally draw a character that’s been in your head since age 11, even when you think you know everything about them. You don’t want to screw up, because, ideally, you want a sprite that’ll be usable from Scene 1 and through to The End and credits (and bonus stuff!). So, you’ve got to predict, as much as possible, what your character has to look like so that they’re consistent throughout the story, but also have all the hints at their backstory already embedded into their look.

Take Sandris (our guinea pig today): initially, he is the type who’s walking through life laughing and picking up ladies (and not only ladies!); someone who has just met him would perceive him as youthful and unserious – a mix that we can’t wait to show you in Scene 2! But that’s just scratching the surface: like any person, Sandris has his vulnerabilities and we’ve got to reflect them in his face and posture before he gets to talk about them.

The original Sandris: for safety reasons, we had to drop the bow, arrows and tiger, and leave him with one weapon - his charm

As a result, the rough sketch has to come with a set of notes so that not even one smallest detail slips away. These were the instructions for Sandris’s sprite:

• he’s very skinny, all angles (cheekbones, shoulders) - he has a sort of an eating disorder
• he’s tall, but shorter than El (he seems tall bcs of the ponytail)
• he has a longish, foxy face
• the belt buckle has the Night City emblem on it, the one we had on our first poster
• let’s add some texture to his coat so it seems warm - it’s winter, and while Agatha doesn’t feel it bcs the girl is fire, he does (that’s why he’s wearing a scarf with this look and has a hood!)

And even though this ‘shaping’ process isn’t too meticulous (and we don’t really have any questionnaires for each character with the minute detail on their look and personality), it does deserve a drumroll. Behold: the step-by-step making of our boy Sandris!

Sketch to basic nude! Took us a while to figure out just the right amount of skinny-not-scary (like we said before, we don’t want our characters to be supermodels, yet the uniqueness of their body types, faces, etc. must come across as a deliberate choice, rather than as lack of attention, skill or taste).

Dress that elf! For WINTERSANDS fashion, we are usually trying to come up with clothes that are different from what we all wear, but are not your classic fantasy look. Inspiration comes from everywhere: traditional Asian clothes (kimonos, hanbok and whatever the yifu on The Untamed is called – historically accurate or not, they’re beautiful), Met Gala costumes, sportswear, sci-fi looks and even Ancient Roman togas. If we’re stuck with the palette, we use A Dictionary of Color Combinations based on the work of the famous kimono designer Sanzo Wada.

The best part is when the expression and the body (and clothes) of the sprite come together and we dab them with some shades and blush. Then it’s hello, gorgeous!

Next, we draw the various expressions for the sprites, meaning the faces for secondary characters, plus arms and hands for primary characters. It’s sometimes hard to hit the exact expression or to withstand the temptation to create all 50+ shades of ‘annoyed’ or ‘surprised’, so the notes and helpful dialogue lines strike again!

… And pose!

FAIL. FAIL AGAIN. FAIL BETTER

This quote from Samuel Beckett, the Irish author of bizarre plays and novels, could not be truer when it comes to the process of figuring out just how you need to draw your sprites so you don’t have to redo them later. On WINTERSANDS, we found out that to be super-efficient from the outset is hardly possible and mistakes will be made and learned from.

Before WINTERSANDS, trickster.kaja and her good friend and artist arashelle created a fan-novella to one very popular dating sim. But, oh, woe! The sprites were drawn body, clothes, face and shades all on a single layer – to correct them later, they had to redraw everything from scratch!

Alack, that sad experience taught us only half a lesson: we started out drawing the face (or face + hands) separately to then combine it with the dressed-up body. That is far from ideal as it turned out, because what we should have done from the very beginning was draw the nakey body, the clothes, the expression and, for special occasions, the hair, all on separate layers. More layers, moar!

Ami: Sandris’s sprite is built from over 18 layers and three folders (help). That is just the beginning, which gives me the chills and a solid impression that soon, I’m going to need a new computer! We are trying to be efficient, though, so it’s the case where more work now means less work later.

Even then, there are things to correct: for instance, Nimeire’s first dress is banging, but how the heck are you supposed to stick her arms into those sleeves?!

Apparently, we’ve still got loads to learn - and we’re looking forward to that! 

Creating sprites with their many expressions is one of the most satisfying and precious parts of the game development. It is an act of love, the delicate crafting of emotion: this is how they’ll look when hopeful, this is how he’ll look when conflicted, and that is how she’ll look when... smitten. 

Imagine bitten lips, pleading eyes, beads of sweat, the wringing of the fingers. And with that mental image, wait for our next post.