I started a YouTube channel for piano, and I even bought a microphone for this endeavor. As a result, I didn’t write a single line of code for the game in the past two weeks. Instead of feeling bad about it, I felt refreshed taking a break working on the tilemap code.
I did, however, make considerable progress on the story. I fleshed out two more plot-heavy characters and I planned the details of the next couple of chapters. Basically about how our carefree protagonists got knee-deep into the whole mess between the two countries at war. More on that in the narrative section!
Art
I got a couple of semi-finalized character portraits to share! Y has been pondering on the character designs for ages. We had countless back-and-forth discussions on how the male characters should look like, and I think we finally reached agreement.
So, without further ado, here’s Edge (20), the protagonist of the story.
And here’s Felix Mendel (26), who used to be a child prodigy sword-wielder.
Narrative
I really want to focus on the story for a bit, because ever since finishing writing the first chapter of the story back in March, I barely made any progress on it. I keep telling myself that I got the whole story arc plotted out, but there is no content to it! It’s like writing an interface without any implementations and calling it a job finished!
A major blocker for writing narrative happens when the protagonist encounters new characters. How should they act? Why do they do what they do? What are their objectives? What are they thinking? Do they have another side beneath their facade? The questions are endless, and they are all important details to consider. The story cannot progress with empty actors.
So I took some time and brainstormed two more characters central to the rest of the story. A suave guy who just hit 60, and his carefree, mysterious daughter who’s in her mid-20s. I probably can’t reveal more than that without accidentally let out spoilers, but Y might have portraits on them in the next update!
Fun little story. I had a very clear mental image of how the old guy should look like. In an effort to convey that exact image to Y, I promised her I would draw a sketch. I then proceeded to grab my pencil and notebook.
I then Googled “how to draw anime character” and landed on a WikiHow article of the same name. Gotta love WikiHow, they got a guide for everything. After an intense and extensive drawing session, I got this:
I then remembered why I have an artist and closed my notebook…