Behind the scenes: Sprite Creator! (Patreon)

I'll start this post off briefly to mention, if by chance you've missed our news regarding episode 4 and plans for releases this Summer. Please check it down below.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-4-news-52540537

I thought this might be interesting to some of you out there wondering what is going on regarding sprite art. It's been a while since we've seen any sprite art focused previews and while there has been some stuff being created this year. Some of it is very story heavy related content that is very exciting, but sadly something I can't quite share without spoiling some major story events that it has to do with.

That isn't the focus of this post though, so let's quickly move away from that before any hype or questions build up regarding that. :P

Lisa (Our sprite artist) has been pretty busy with school still and so pacing on work regarding MA is a bit slower, but should be on track with our plans to have all the ks oc characters done by the end of this year and then slowly working them into the game when time comes.

What is this sprite creator thing?

The past month during May and most of June has been focused on something a little unique and the full scope of it won't ever be noticed in the game on it's own, hence the behind the scenes talk about it and some early previews to give the idea of it.

So, first off. This is a creator tool that isn't really meant to be shared when finished, but maybe if there's a big interest in it and demand. We could see it built on further and offered to everyone as a helpful tool for your own creative adventures, but for now it's a dev tool of sorts.

It's focus is to simply create background character sprites in MA, these will help fill the role of some characters that have little dialogue or what not. If you recall Lexie from episode 3 when coming across her and Zoey, there is no visual for Lexie. Originally it was intended to not show visuals for minor characters that won't have too much of a role in the game outside of minor moments. (Aside from oc related characters)

But I've received requests and mentions of wishing to see visuals for characters like Lexie, among others who briefly pop up for little moments. That's where this tool comes into place.

What can the tool do?

The tool is simply a .psd file and playing with layers, which I'm sure any artists around will know what I'm talking about easily. I'll try to explain it simply for everyone just in case. Pretty much the tool is a template character sprite that can be turned into characters.

We have 3 body types for this, which are tied to height.

-Slim
-Chubby
-Average

We then have bust sizes as a layer to add more custom features.

-A cup
-B cup
-C cup
-D cup

Along with that we have 2-3 simple arm poses to help give a slightly different tone for characters while trying to stay neutral/general feeling as we don't want certain poses that feel too much leaning towards a set personality or would outcast many types of characters.

So then we jump into the big custom aspects!

-Skin tones
-Hair color
-Hair styles
-Eye color
-Diaper designs

These aspects are fully unlocked to a degree. Hairstyles should cover a wide range of stuff that'll work well to help make unique characters that aren't quite out standing, but still in their own right it'll be enough. The color system is set as it's own layer, along with the shadows/shading as another layer, etc. So if we want to change the character from one shade of blonde hair, we can easily give them light red hair, dark red hair, etc.

The diaper design bit of this functions similar, but there's a layer to allow for working within the diaper sidings where the major print/design areas are for MA's diaper designs.

So to help sum it all up, we'll be able to soon create many background characters! When needed of course, like our Lexie example earlier. That isn't to say these characters won't have quite the same level of love going into them as the main cast, as they'll still look very nice and unique enough to set them apart. It's simply one of those things where we clearly wouldn't be able to focus time investment into making unique sprites by hand for every single character at the academy, more so if they're not  meant to be seen often.

With that said, this tool isn't being used to create anyone's oc characters as a shortcut. All Patreon related oc characters have been created by now, with KS oc characters as our next focus for sprite art in July.

Hope you all enjoyed a little behind the scenes talk and previews at our sprite tool, even if most of this won't fully be seen within the game naturally by default. :P

Artist credit: LisadiKaprio