Changing Art Styles in a Sequel

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Mammon
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Re: Changing Art Styles in a Sequel

#16 Post by Mammon »

Looking at the different style you want to make, I wonder whether this is something you want to do or something you need to do. The first photorealistic one looks amazingly well-detailed, but I cannot fathom how long/expensive it must be compared to the other one. Plus what others already said in regards to finding another reliable artist who can copy such a style. And I bet expressions are exponentially more time-consuming as well.
The people here say that a different style will be jarring, but do you intend to make this shift to accommodate to the feedback or desire to make more/diverse sprites? That's always something that some fans may desire, to have the best possible sprite quality and a lot of movement and immersion. It's just not that realistic. If you want to add more sprites, more poses and more CGs, it can't be this detailed. (Unless you're okay with releasing it in about 1000 years from now.)

So I say, take the other factors you're considering as well and see if the current is acceptable in that regard. If you want a story with more characters, without the sprite crossarmed the entire game, or with any CGs at all, then put your project before the style change.
Also, I didn't see this particular sprite style in one of your three projects, so is this actually a sequel you're replacing the sprites in? If not, that photorealistic one might be a real neat background portrait but not actually something the audience is already familiar with.
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Re: Changing Art Styles in a Sequel

#17 Post by Aviala »

Mammon wrote: Mon Dec 11, 2017 3:03 am Also, I didn't see this particular sprite style in one of your three projects, so is this actually a sequel you're replacing the sprites in? If not, that photorealistic one might be a real neat background portrait but not actually something the audience is already familiar with.
I think the sprites in question may have just been examples; I'm pretty damn sure that is one of the characters from Coming Out On Top :'D https://obscurasoft.files.wordpress.com ... .jpg?w=900
And since Coming Out On Top was actually drawn in that cartoony style, I imagine the first one is fanart (maybe the OP's?) and the images are used as examples of a style shift.

Btw, OP asked for opinions, but since I'm a fan of Coming Out On Top, I can't subjectively compare the two sprites. I really liked the art style in the game so I actually kinda prefer the cartoony sprite: I mean, the first one has clearly taken a lot of skill and time to draw but somehow I like the expressiveness of stylized characters? So I might actually be happy if a game went from realism to cartoony. BUT I would be extremely baffled and most people probably wouldn't take it so well :'D

But as it was mentioned, if you don't care about what people say or about the money.... just do what you want! Do what feels good to draw and good to look at. Just be prepared for the cries of angry fans...

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Re: Changing Art Styles in a Sequel

#18 Post by illuminate001 »

@Mammon: Hey there Mammon! Yes, you must've sensed something, since there was a reason I made this post...the possible art style change is something I both want but probably need to do. I received many comments that the CG's not being painterly was strange compared to the painterly sprites I did. Truthfully, I would've loved to have painterly CG's. However like you mentioned, to do so would mean I'd be releasing the sequel in 1000 years lol. Yuck!

So I ended up brainstorming and think I can develop a style I love that would match the Sprites AND CG's, but wouldn't bloat my art workload by 1000%. Of course, this style is different from the original VN. Thus the creation of this post. :)


@Aviala: The character was from "Coming Out On Top" and yeah the painterly image is fanart I found online and I threw the side-by-side comparison as an example. :)

I think you can definitely be more expressive with cartoony as you can push their expressions further, and that's kind of why I'm thinking of going a more cartoony route in my sequel. Like I mentioned before, it's mainly time constraints...but I'm also really curious as to how the final result will look. I have it in my head, but I never really know until I've laid down the last digital paint stroke if I like the end result or not.

I will def do what I want, but I'll temper that with what I think is right for the game. I believe that although I may be the creator after awhile the game has a life of its own and it's own integrity...and despite what I want, I should also keep in my mind what would honor the game (do it justice in its sequel).
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Re: Changing Art Styles in a Sequel

#19 Post by catgame21234 »

I don't have too much to say, each time I attempted to type a response my mind went blank.
However I do want to say; artstyle, changes, changes,are tropes in of themselves and should be used to help aid in telling the type of story you want to tell.
The most "on topic" example I can think of is the American Dragon Jake Long.
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Re: Changing Art Styles in a Sequel

#20 Post by Zelan »

I think that spinoffs vs. sequels is something that's really important to mention here, as runeraccoon brought up with that example.

I know that GB Patch Games is releasing a spinoff to XOXO Droplets (which was a stat-raiser otome and had an anime-ish art style) called XOXO Blood Droplets (which is horror/comedy and has this... cartoony/crayon looking art style). Their fairly sizeable Tumblr fanbase seems pretty okay with this shift.

LateWhiteRabbit mentioned HuniePop and HunieCam Studio. IIRC, HunieCam was called a spinoff multiple times by the dev, which was the reason behind the art style change - in fact, it was an entirely different genre of game. The fact that it wasn't "HuniePop 2" was what I thought upset fans the most, not so much the art style. (People who did like the game seemed to love the art style, I remember seeing some HuniePop characters redrawn in HunieCam's art style by fans.)
catgame21234 wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 4:44 amThe most "on topic" example I can think of is the American Dragon Jake Long.
My god I'd almost forgotten about this show but YUP. Very relevant.

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