Hey everyone ! In this devlog, I'll show you how I create stylized characters for my game.

Everything is made in both clip studio paint and Blender 3D. It will be exported as a pre-rendered sprite, so my technique may not be applicable in all situations.

Unlike realistic graphics, stylized characters are drawn with exaggerated proportions and features. Since I’m inspired by Japanese animation, the camera is set to orthographic view because it aligns more closely with this approach than the perspective view.

The head is a simple low poly mesh with a sculpted nose and a subdivision surface. The hair, eyes, ears and mouth are planes with a transparent PNG texture made in Clip studio paint. This is how the borders are not sharp but rather organic. It means , when you turn around, you see the trick. Depending on the camera angle, you may need to activate and disable certain planes. This technique works best with 2D animations or 3D camera plans where you don’t need to turn around the character.

The skin, shadows and black hair, are painted in Blender. I use a one-dollar addon called "PSD Layers" to separate my colors onto different layers. The outline is the only generated effect.

And that’s all. This is a simple technique. I had this idea because I wanted my 3D models to look exactly like my drawings.

I hope to share some in-game results soon.

Thank you for reading!

Welcome back for another devlog about Nosun! It’s my own professional project that I’ve been working on for almost 3 years now, day and night.

"In a world similar to ours, massive creatures emerge from giant pit caves across all the continents, laying waste to cities. Nosun, a young unemployed man, finds himself embarked into the first exploration mission tasked with discovering what is happening underground." The game will be a story driven adventure.

Pre-rendered graphics are used for stylistic reasons, similar technique in Final Fantasy 9 and Disco Elyseum. This involves transforming 3D graphics into 2D images. Depending on the scene, I may incorporate some isometric 3D elements. I use both clip studio paint and blender for painting, the game engine is Defold.

I’m currently working on the starting city. The architecture is directly inspired by my country, Belgium. The buildings in my city, like many other places here, are a mix of traditional and modern features. What I like is that laissez-faire where everything is so mixed up that it makes them very unique 👇

I work with Google Map to streamline my reference gathering process. Sparing the need for travel. I draw and paint the texture of each building in Clip Studio Paint. Despite the diverse designs, those architectures often share a common structural foundation, with variations in details contributing to their distinct appearances (picture below).

Process

In Blender, I create the blockout of the level. Shadows are painted in Clip Studio. I add a sun light source to enhance the depth. To transform my 2D drawings into 3D, I directly apply my textures onto each cube.

I use the knife to cut out rectangles for doors and windows, pushing them back also for more depth. As it will be rendered as an image, the alignment of the meshes is not important as long as it looks like a street. While the camera is orthographic for the characters, it is on perspective for the level design.

That’s pretty much everything for now. Thank you for reading!

I don’t have a job as I’m fully focusing on this project. Despite getting very little sleep, Nosun is still in the early development. I am currently working on the demo and planning to release it through a kickstarter campaign, hopefully next year 2024.

Welcome to my devlog series, where I share my progress in developing my own video game project.

Nosun is a hand-drawn game I've been working on for two years now. It is a story-driven adventure where you play as a boy exploring the depths of an underground world. This is a solo project and I'm dedicating my time day and night to its development.

Most of the time spent on this project was establishing the graphic style (whether to go with 2D, 3D, realistic, or stylized), thinking about the story, seeking inspiration, and learning various software tools while experimenting with different game engines. This process took almost 3 years, during which I constantly discovered and learned new things, leading to frequent changes of mind on various aspects. However, the concept of an underground world never changed. Let's say my project truly started some months ago.

The evolution

↳ Spring 2019, made with Unity. My very first attempt at creating a 3D game.

↳ February 2021, made with Visionaire Studio. Hand-drawn (ink) horror game, the name is SILICON.

↳ February 2021, made with Unreal Engine. Low poly and hand-drawn textures (pencil).

↳ April 2021, made with Unreal Engine. High poly and PBR textures. It was the moment I was striving for more realism.

↳ March 2022, made with Unreal Engine. Stylized 3D, NPR textures and new name: Ren:Escape.

↳ July 2022, made with Godot. I've returned to a low-poly style with hand-painted textures (pencil, watercolor, and digital techniques). The project now has a new and definitive name: Nosun. The genre has shifted away from horror.

↳ June 2023, made with Unity. Everything is digital painting.

About me

I'm a 32 years old Belgian. I spent almost 10 years making horror stories in the French speaking community. It was experimental, writing and telling stories with illustrations or animations. I made it for self-learning and build the base of my own universe. One of the reasons why I created Unlit Color was to discover new things, making something more professional and focusing on my world without the boundaries of horror.

↳ 2018 stop motion animation.

Thank you for reading my blog!

This is an older devlog update, a few things have changed: The game engine is now Defold, and I'm mixing 2D and 3D graphics. I'll provide more details in the upcoming devlogs 😉