Sneak Peek #19: Club Update Spotlight - Isaiah (Patreon)

I gave myself a day to relax after releasing the first Club Update dev build last Friday... but then I went right back to work! There's still much to come, and I'm beginning with finishing the story for my favorite sassy southern dancer, Isaiah.

I've got a grab bag of sneak peeks for you today, beginning with Isaiah's nighttime look, a new character, and some redesigned characters. I'm capping it off with a look at two new CGS—which aren't really spoilers, but consider this your spoiler warning all the same!

Let's get into it!

New Outfit - Isaiah

The night will be Isaiah's Atelier 54 debut—and he's intent on making a big entrance.

This is a bold look for an 18-year-old guy's first foray into clubbing, but Isaiah spent the past summer reinventing himself, and this is the next step of his evolution. 

If you first see Isaiah at the club, he'll be just as confident as he was when you met at orientation. But if you hung out with him in the afternoon, you'll find he's not quite as confident in himself—or this look!—as he lets on. Which will ultimately tie into his story for the entire evening...

New Side Character - Magdalena

Magdalena is one of Isaiah's dance classmates that we'll meet alongside Skye, who I introduced in Sneak Peek #14. I would describe Skye as "brash"—in only the best meaning of the word—and Magdalena as her ethereal opposite. The two girls are immediately drawn to each other and to Isaiah, and I think they'll make for a fun trio!

Revised Side Characters - David, Bastien, & Wes

In many sneak peeks I'll make the disclaimer that all art is subject to change before the final release. Most often that's down to me feeling that something isn't quite right with what I already made. Think Connor's and NC17's respective brothers, who had their redesigns shown in Sneak Peek #14 and Sneak Peek #16.

I decided to revisit two of Isaiah's storyline characters now that I'm focused on him, as well as Wes, who has already been introduced in the current dev build.

David

If you played through Isaiah's storyline, you'll remember David. He was Isaiah's crush in high school who turned out to be a massive asshole. Isaiah is trying to leave all that behind him... but turns out David is going to a rival dance school in the same city. And he just so happens to be at Atelier 54 the night of Isaiah's club debut.

So fun fact—I accidentally stole David's original hair when I created Lachlan, one of the other bartenders at the club. I don't like giving the same hair to more than one character, so David needed a new haircut. He also needed to be run through my new sprite "photo booth" to get the same lighting and camera height as the other characters. So I took the opportunity to give him a new pose as well.

This is the exact same character model outside of the hair, but posing and lighting can lead to some impactful differences. New flavor David seems a little younger to be more in line with Isaiah's age, and he also looks a little... nicer. Of course, looks can be deceiving, as Isaiah now well knows.

Bastien

Bastien is one of Isaiah's dance professors, a famed French ballet dancer who's taken a year off touring to teach. Unlike fellow new professor Tomas, Bastien has no reservations about getting hands on when instructing his students...

Poor Bastien keeps needing haircuts. I stole his first hair for NC17's brother Trevor, and I replaced it with the placeholder hair asset you can see on the left. In fact, that's actually the same hair asset Alex has, just without the neon streak.

I finally settled on a new cut I liked, but what I didn't like was how his dark hair looked next to his original eyebrows. So I tried going bolder and thicker with the brows, and I think it looks pretty good. Since I needed a new sprite for him anyway, I also took the opportunity to change his pose to be just a little bit more relaxed.

Wes

Wes is another guy in Dorm Wilde and Jordi's roommate. He's wry, monotone, and hard to read—a sharp contrast to his roomie's earnest and expressive enthusiasm.

Something had been bugging me about original Wes for a while. His proportions seemed off, for one, and as a result there was something a little cartoon-y about him. But even more than that, he just wasn't giving off the vibe I wanted for the character.

Enter new Wes. The basics of the design are the same: natural red-head who dyed his hair pink; arm tattoos; sleeveless flannel shirt the same color as his hair. But to my eye, his overall appearance is much improved. 

I've imagined Wes as coming from the rural midwestern US, a small-town boy who wasn't understood by those around him. His styling to me now reads more like that story—he stayed lowkey to avoid drawing attention to himself until deciding to rip off his sleeves and dye both his hair and shirt pink just before running off to the gayest school he could find.

The new Wes model also has the benefit of having a more enigmatic resting face. You can't really tell what, exactly, is going through his head...

Storyline CGs - Isaiah

I've got two of Isaiah's CGs today. Click through the gallery on this post to see them bigger.

Like I said earlier, I don't think these are huge spoilers, but here's your spoiler warning just in case!

CG #1

I will take every opportunity I can to get these boys naked in the showers. I hope none of you mind 😅

Here, Connor decided to follow Isaiah into the showers... and just so happens to catch Isaiah naked. But Isaiah knows what he's serving and has no problem with letting Connor take a good, long look.

CG #2

Hey, remember when I said that Bastien doesn't mind getting hands on with students?

These big scenes with a bunch of people are actually really time-consuming and complicated to make. But that won't stop me. This is a club, and it needs to be full of people. And I'm really happy with how this first (of many) dance CGs came together.

Okay, that's it for today! I'm working round the clock to get the next dev build ready to play. Isaiah has a fun, dramatic story to tell—and I am eagerly anticipating getting to share it with you all very soon 🙂