Update 8.08.25

Hi there! I am still waiting on my dialogue edits for Project Dawn, and while that threw me off a little bit, I decided to start chipping away at my art for the game some more.  Incoming sketch dump:

This I was thinking of adding to the title card as a translucent middle image between the BG and foreground image. Of course, things will move and resize to look good, but I figured I need to slap the subtitle of the game on there anyway, so what else can I bring in that can make this image its own. This one is one step above concept, and ready to be vectored in my computer. The rest of these are going to be so much rougher.

This is me trying to make reference sketches for Aries, Alicia, Laurent, and Iluza. I want to eventually  meet in the middle with my art and the character generator, so I want to simplify my drawing a little and then pixel paint over the sprites to make my drawings closer to the sprites in the game.

Argh! There are so many books on how to draw women, but not enough of how to draw men! Why is it so difficult to draw men? My Body-Kun even snapped (and it was genuine too >_<), so I have so little to go on 20 years after art school.... Anyway, this is me trying to get Laurent to have a shocked look on his normally stoic face. (There's a cut in that I wanted to make for dramatic mystery or whatever) I know my art needs a lot of work still, but hopefully I can at least put out my best soon. 

While other work was done, I used general Project Emerald characters for proof of concept, so I can't say the rest is Project Dawn specific, but I will probably use some of the ideas.

Yes, this resulted in a flat image that moves around with no animation. I did this as a proof of concept. Like a large door, this Aeya cut out is two tiles square (total of four?). I wanted to see if I really could just make a sheet in this size, slap a $ in front of the file name, and boom animated sprite. I just wanted to let you know I am a few days old when I learned the help function in RPG Maker MZ was a full on guidebook and not a here is a webpage that time forgot and that won't answer your query.  I feel very silly, but now I have choices. Due to how much I love KR's tilesets, I probably won't be switching to this size, but it was cool to see how easy I could.

This was a try at using the character gen body as a base in photoshop, and drawing Cara's hair on free hand (it was a very difficult and messy project, trying pixel art in photoshop results in light frustration if you are new to pixel art). This took way too long and looked super messy.

This last one is Cara with alterations panted over her original sprite. I flipped her, so her hair was on the correct side, I made her outfit (I did not get to the profile outfits) out of what was already there, took out the ribbon and replaced it with her clip, and last, I added the yellow tips to the back hair. This also took very long in photoshop, but I am learning a program called pixelate (I think that's the name) and it seems way easier. Also, Cara is my favorite character to draw when I'm feeling down. Here's a silly sketch of her as a drawn simple sprite, and just a cute page sketch study:

I don't know why the silly sketch uploaded so big...

Anyway, I feel all over the place, but I'm sure I'll finish Project Dawn. I just need to keep trying to get back on track while waiting for those revisions. If I really get overwhelmed, I might spend a day or two messing with Project Rebirth, while I organize what I need to do next that I can do. I want this to be my best shot. Thanks so much for reading, and joining me on this journey!

PhoebeJ