Lemma Soft Forums

Some generalizations I've been thinking about... I need people to confirm / deny / elaborate some things...

1.) Cel-shaded

Pros:
Easier to make sprites... easier for multiple artists to arrive at a unified style (just share the same color palette and make sure one person finalizes the lineart)

Extra poses are easier to add since you grab the lineart, snip off arms / heads and redraw new arms in new pose... then fill in the missing gaps in the graphic.

Cons:
Cel-shaded sprites need really crisp backgrounds. Those backgrounds, even when you're using 3D assistance, still take forever to make.

There are many off-the-shelf packs of cel-shaded sprites and pro-level backgrounds, it might actually be harder to have the correct atmosphere for a game since they seem quite generic.

Event CGs that are very accurate to the background are also hard to make.

2.) Watercolor / Sketchy

Pros:
It's easier to get into 'moody' type of works, since the way the brush strokes work, the specific blending of the colors, all contribute to an experience that is furthest from 'factory-made'. Backgrounds especially are a cinch since you generally stroke the general structure and shadows and don't have to fill in the details.

It's also easier to make event CGs that match especially if the event CGs have quickly-drawn backdrops. There won't be such a jarring contrast between a rougher event CG and a normal sprite+rough BG compared to a rougher event CG and a normal sprite+crisp BG.

Cons:
Sprites seem harder to create and to edit. The painterly approach seems to have many more layers... if you flatten as you go along, you lose the flexibility of editing the sprites later on. But if you don't flatten, it looks like it may become a resource hog.

crap-looking chibis... well at least the few water-color type chibis I've seen don't look nice compared to standard cel-shaded Chibis. I think you'll need to go the Vanillaware route and really define the heads and limbs.

Conclusion:
It will depend on the work in question. Plot-heavy/grim-dark/movie/OVA/miniseries/kinetic novel type stories will probably shine using watercolor, while Fluff/light-hearded/romantic comedy/TV series/4-koma type stories will be most flexible using cel-shaded.

Advance thanks for any feedback/elaboration to these thoughts.

I would think it would be reversed - watercolors are done over a white background, so colors are much more pastel and light, conducive to fluffy/feel-good type subject matter. Noir-style or dark settings are known for a lot of shadows and harsh lighting, something hard-edged lines in cell-shading are conducive in recreating.

It still depends on the artist though - a sketchy, loose, watercolor art style can appear dreamy, unreal, or disorienting, so it can be used for the darker subject matter, and pastel colored cell-shading can be very evocative of bright summer days and happiness.

Different artists may be faster in one medium or the other, but I don't see definitive pros or cons one way or the other.

I think cell-shaded art can be used for all the type of games you listed. If you look at the art for Death Note, Persona 3, or even Durarara, they're all cell-shaded but can easily fit in a dark themed VN. Things like mysteries would work with them too. The mood of cell shaded art depends on the palette used, so the colors themselves can be manipulated for it to be suitable for a wide range of themes. There's even soft cell shading, which gives you another flavor to try out.

As for watercolor, I'm not really sure if it's suitable for grim media. The colors tend to be washed out and light, so you'll have to use a lot of dark colors to get it to look grim enough. Even black tends to end up grayish or looks like someone's repeatedly soaped apron. For dark, horror themes, some other painterly media might be suitable. I assume your artist will be working digitally, which means there's a lot more media they can use instead. Grunge, rough textures, oil paints - just to name a few - can create a dirtier, grimmer environment for your game.

All this really depends on the game you're making though, and your artistic resources I have no doubt that if you can net a talented artist, they can use any media to bring your vision to life. Otherwise, if you're on the 'barely-scrapping-by' kind of artistic resource, cell shading will probably make your life a lot easier. If someone quits, it'll be much easier to replace them too.

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This is precisely the reason I'm thinking of going the watercolor route for the kinetic novel I am working on. It is a moody story and takes place in a slummy polluted city. I am also bad at backgrounds, and sketchy, vague lines combined with murky colors that run together will not only be fun and (relatively) easy to do, but also contribute to the mood of the setting. Really a win-win, at least in theory (we'll see if I can pull it off).


If I watercolor my sprites, I most likely will be using traditional media, so there won't be any layers. Unless... I've been thinking of sketching my lineart, inking it on cels, and then painting with watercolor on a separate sheet of paper to match the lineart (this will require lots of patience on my part and/or a lightbox of some sort), and altering the lineart as needed without having to paint much more. Then scan the color layer and lineart layers separately (lineart over white paper) and use Photoshop to make the lineart images transparent, overlay onto color layer, and presto. Repeat the process for multiple poses. Obviously this method has its flaws but it's the best I can think of at the moment. I'll probably get a better plan when I actually start the illustration work (right now I just have to worry about writing the darn thing and finalizing character concepts).

And I don't like chibi's so I don't have to worry about that aspect.


I think you're probably right about one style being more suited to some story types over others. And I'm glad that I seem to have picked the right approach for mine ^_^

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