Martian of the Month Double Feature! Plus Process Guide (Patreon)

This month I have 2 new martians to share with you! And as usual with this Martian of the Month series, I have had some fun making some variations on them.  

These iterations on the characters are both narrative and game-related. Narratively, they give a chance for us to show what happens to characters we've encountered previously as the game progresses. A straight-laced ship's officer in act 1 might be a desperate mercenary with wielding an illegal particle canon in act 4. From a game perspective, these variations allow us to re-introduce a familiar character, whose general moves and attributes we know, but now has new wrinkle to their character. Maybe it's a different weapon, or skill, or engagement disposition, but it is something that adds interest and variety to the gameplay and strategy.   

The space snail pirate also had a few variations. The space zombie variation is one I am really looking forward to doing more of! 

The Process Guide for our snail shows a tried and true method, with very few surprises in it. Starting with an ink thumbnail in a sketchbook, scanning it in, and off to the races in Photoshop. No reference for this character, just working from memory of snails, pigs, robots, and made-up sci-fi-looking guns.  

The hardest section, and the one that I think most people might get tripped up by when trying to recreate this method, is the Render and Paint section.  I do this with just 2 brushes. I change the brushes each painting, but I always have one blunt, heavy, semi-opaque painting brush, and one sharp, drawing brush. If you are looking to use them yourself, download last month's brush set from the "Frogtopus Keymaker."  The brushes I used from it for this are: 

• VFS Diamondback - for the drawing itself and for adding tiny details.
• Frog Bard #5 - for painting, filling shadows, and rendering.  

I tend to do a lot of color-picking from my previously established colors when I paint, so I don't have a color palette or swatches or anything. I just use the eyedropper tool on my figure on a color I like, then switch back to the painting brush and start laying in the color to slowly render up the image. The render stage is a chaotic one, but is very important as it is where most of the tactile "realism" actually starts to show up. As much as I love working transparently, and preserving my drawing, I just can't get away from having this one opaque stage. It just adds SO much nuance and dimension to the character.

Speaking of brush sets, I am working on another bigger one at the moment which I will bundle together with some new ones for you next month. I am making improvements and variations on the Frog Bard painting brush and the VFS series of drawing brushes and I'd like to include those in it when I launch it. 

PROJECT UPDATE: So how's the game doing? Will we ever actually see it Gerard???  The Martian game is still moseying along at a snail's pace, and we ARE making progress each week, albeit slow progress. (There are so many other client projects to finish!!) This past month we worked out our inventory system for the game, which is now running reeeeally smooth; We worked out the battle UI, and have continued pushing forward on our combat system. (Who knew a UI could be so complicated??) 

What's next for us: For the artwork this next month I am working on more SPACE ZOMBIES and their horrible little minions (which I am very much looking forward to!), and for the game itself, we are continuing work on our weapon and combat system. (I can't wait to see our heroes battling all these little baddies we've been making!) If all goes well we might have some pre-alpha gameplay previews for you this summer. 

Once again, thank you all again for your continued support! It means a lot!

-jg