Hello everyone! Busy days! We are getting very close to finishing the development of [b]Last Time I Saw You[/b], so while you are still waiting I decided to bring you a new DevLog that I hope you’ll like. In today's post I’m going to talk about the [b]Art of Last Time I Saw You[/b] and the references I’ve been working with while creating Ayumi’s world. When I had the idea to start developing a game on my own, I was working as an art director at a company in Japan that focused on the localization and development of video games. Thanks to [b]Yume Nikki: Dream Diary[/b], the project that the team I was working with and I had just finished, I had the opportunity to learn how Unity works and the processes to follow when creating a game and bringing its development to completion. I had the experience of having worked on a 3D game, although somewhat limited at that time, so I decided to play it safe and rely on what I already knew how to do best, which was to draw. For this reason I decided that [b]Last Time I Saw You[/b] would be a 2D game drawn by me, since I would have more control over the final product and, by doing most of the artistic and visual tasks myself, I would reduce production costs considerably. Once I had decided this, it was time to establish an artistic style. This is very important, as it will be the hallmark of the game. At that time, I was very interested in [b]photorealism[/b] and [b]photobashing[/b] techniques, which basically involves creating pieces by assembling various photo references and painting on top. The concepts of [b]Yume Nikki: Dream Diary[/b] were actually made using this technique. Here you have some examples: [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42038922/1e4ec0d00698c289ba57152feeb0d01954bfd487.jpg[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42038922/f6f78ac54fc509e7fde846fd493016c371b016f6.jpg[/img] [i]Early concept images that I made for Yume Nikki: Dream Diary, developed by Active Gaming Media.[/i] This style is usually used mainly in the concept art phase, but it has also appeared in some games as final art, being one of them [b]Detention[/b], by [b]RedCandleGames[/b]. I really liked it and I was trying to get better at it, but the truth is that it wasn’t fitting very well with the story I wanted to tell with [b]Last Time I Saw You[/b]. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42038922/a796f07ce1fb0947a2754029bfb85d678df174c4.jpg[/img] [i]Photobashing technique in Detention, developed by RedCandleGames.[/i] It was then when I decided to get out of my comfort zone and started to try something new, something similar to [b]Studio Ghibli[/b] and the anime from the 80s and 90s. In particular, it was the movie [b]Only Yesterday[/b], by [b]Isao Takahata[/b], that began to guide me towards a more defined and personal style. This, together with [b]Makoto Shinkai[/b]'s use of light and flares were the references that defined the direction I was going to take for [b]Last Time I Saw You[/b]. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42038922/71dd22b5b429d81875fb2c7a97d62f9889f7cd60.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42038922/5a062ca79be956b984a6ad1316aa958edd48e2c3.jpg[/img] [i]Background paintings by Kazuo Oga for Only Yesterday (1991), dir. Isao Takahata, Studio Ghibli.[/i] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42038922/d0b072a9db65beb7f30af8e008aefe91f26d6b01.jpg[/img] [i]Your Name (2016), dir. Makoto Shinkai, CoMix Wave Films.[/i] Once I had practiced and defined this style enough, I started to draw backgrounds in Photoshop, following a polishing process until I ended up with the desired style. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42038922/7f4c07cee8c9800ee0016202f72da91294435e05.jpg[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42038922/a1406517d0b23b026a0382584d4e54ee762bc898.jpg[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42038922/95817cbaa7efdb61f0479cd8d8e78001373521f8.jpg[/img] [i]Creation process of Ayumi's Living Room while setting the art style of the game.[/i] And this is basically the creative and thought process I had in order to establish the art style of [b]Last Time I Saw You[/b]! From time to time I still use photos as textures and then paint on top, but at the end I try to make it as hand-drawn as possible. So I hope you liked this post and that you have learned a little more of the ins and outs of [b]Last Time I Saw You[/b]. Let me know in the comments if you would like to know more about any of these techniques in particular! In the next post I will talk about the animation process of our characters, which is also handmade! Until next time! 💙 .Juan [url=https://discord.gg/PKrQFbR3wm][img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42038922/4e5768b7a6bab0ed1c0e54261227cf1816f4b53a.png[/img][/url] [url=https://twitter.com/MaboroshiArt][img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42038922/d51a1d6306be761fd6631ee2038b1afbf2892750.png[/img][/url] [url=https://www.maboroshiartworks.com/mailing-list][img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42038922/ec78ec2948ab4b3d944b2dbcb477f3bcfaa9724f.png[/img][/url]