A quick sneak peak

I just wanted to share a little bit about the thought process behind some of the art choices in the current project. The main character is a trapped succubus the player frees, and I wanted to ensure that even though she's been imprisoned she still gave a powerful and sometimes intimidating impression. Being able to convey a kind of predatory gaze towards the player was important.

Some styles and outfits lend themselves more readily to this than others. I think this looks fine, but it really doesn't convey a feeling of power or domination to any meaningful extent, and while of course this expression is a little on the silly side a lot of it comes down to the lighting and shading.

This was getting closer to feeling I was after, and around this time I came pretty close to stopping my style explorations.

When I originally conceived of the character I was really not considering a very realistic art style at all but was leaning much more towards a heavy illustration style. Something simple and straightforward but clear in its presentation. I was actually about halfway through all of the art for the game when I took a break to experiment with some ideas for another project and wound up with this:

It's not perfect, but it felt like it fit my goals much better than what I had produced so far, so I start rebuilding everything to match this style as much as possible XD

But another important feature I wanted to convey is, as the player progresses, the succubus should become more demonic as her power grows. And because the main currency in the game is heat, as her demonic features become more pronounced the environment should feel warmer, more hot and humid.

The physical changes start small

But by the end she will almost have transformed into a different character (though hopefully she's still recognizable!)

I hope you enjoyed this quick peek behind the curtain, I'm making steady progress towards the first playable release and hope to get it to you soon. Looking forward to finding out what everyone thinks :)

<3

-M