Art Dev Max Update (Patreon)

Hello everyone, Kuso here. First off, dev update go BRRRRR again.

Most of the work this month is back end code, we'll have an exciting dev log update with some unannounced features coming soon, today we have some art to show you!

The GIF you see is the future loading screen during missions, featuring the armored personnel carrier. Nicknamed the Milk Truck, it carries your operators to and from different locations in the game. A higher quality video is available below.

In the coming days we'd like to show you more about the environment art for the upcoming demo. 

But the big reveal for this update is our new character!

This is Max, an acquaintance of Anya from her old life. Armed with two shotguns and a shield, she leads a small band of raiders in the outskirts of the city.

She carries with her a 3-piece shield that can be configured in several different ways, but for the most part she either carries it in front of her, or on her back.  She wields two shotguns; one of them being a sawed-off shotgun that she attaches to her shield via magnets. 

Design and Inspiration

A friend once gave me a design tip: 50% one thing, 40% another thing, 10% something totally random. 50% is your base, which could be anything like "a gangster" or "a big guy" or "a rock creature" or even "a cute guy/girl".  For those of you familiar with the mobile game Arknights, this manifests as 50% "techwear girl/guy", "40% creature", "10% weapon".

Japanese Archery or  Kyūdō (弓道) was the first element I chose in designing this character. Since I wanted a character that could have been part of Anya's past, I decided to stick with the Japanese motif. Instead of the usual samurai and ninja inspiration, I wanted to try going for something different, and settled on Archery. It has a distincly elegant aesthetic so I thought it would be interesting to give this look to someone who might also be a bit crazy.  I looked at several sources, including interpretations by other games.

Akagi and Kaga from Kantai Collection, art by Shibafu

The first thing that jumped out to me was the sleeves being tied up; which I learned was called  tasuki-sabaki. Japanese clothing is loose and this is one way of making sure it doesn't get in the way of archery.

tasuki sabaki, from blog.livedoor.jp 

Another way to do it is to take one arm off the kimono, but this is reserved for males for obvious reasons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqGekD9zQZc

What I wanted to do was to combine both into a single design, which would make up the 40% of the formula mentioned earlier. There are other methods for keeping clothing out of the way but I was mostly interested in these two methods.

Rear view, after combining the two methods to control the cloth

I wanted the 50% of the formula to be "Punk". The genre is called cyberPUNK after all, and while I felt like while this could be expressed in the low life of the city, I wanted to express this through one of the characters.

Her first drafts started out looking like this:

This is where I started refining details with a sketch on top of the color blocks. To quickly prototype a design for her face, I used Picrew.

Satisfied with this sketch, I started cleaning up with lineart and colors. I felt the shotgun on her right arm covered too much, so I changed it to a can of energy drink.

I could already feel a bit of an edge to her, but people started noticing a bit of duality on her part. On one side, her clothes are worn properly and head shaved cleanly. The other side has her clothes loose, hair grown out, and legwear missing. I decided to push it by adding a tattoo, adding back a "Tacticool" shotgun where she has a can of energy drinks, and replacing her existing shotgun with a double barrel sawed off shotty. Bantam made two suggestions: giving her crazier hair, and we settled on Teal. His second suggestion was to give her tattoos like Yakuza.

For her shield, our friend and contributor Arceonn suggested a segmented shield, the configuration of which can be changed at will.

sketch suggestion by Arceonn

I liked the idea but I wanted a more industrial and old school blocky design for the arms. I looked to underwater hydraulic arms for reference.

ECA Group hydraulic arms

notice the VESA mount for her back

And with that I felt like I found the remaining 10% I needed to complete the design.

We hope you like her, or this character design breakdown at least. We'll have more gameplay related updates for you soon, stay tuned!

One last thing: we want the business end of her shield to have a few skins, with the possibility of the player (you!) modding in their own skins.

Sample, not representative of final product. All copyrights belong to their respective owners.

Thanks for reading! Look forward to our dev log coming soon! It's a good one!