Arkasaur in  Blender

Game design aside, Arkasaur [programming, UX, etc.] did a fair fork of his own research to map the terrain of the Holy Isle.  The original idea was to use GIS data and map the surface with an add-on, but in the end this beauty was manually sculpted by a guy who doesn’t consider himself an artist.  Later, he worked heavily between Google Maps and the surface texture, in part to get the building areas flat. It ended up making the most of the lighting effect he’d built in too, which looks damn good imo.

Coarsecurve on Sprites

Meanwhile, my primary battle has been with the modular functionality of the Vikings themselves.  Drafting UI and hunting historical visuals was easy swimming compared to this — so different from the gestural portraits and compositional asymmetry all artists draw on. I’ve focused on the structural bases so that the details can wash easily. I’ve been drawing in Procreate, and finally figured out how to use the Reference tool properly. Extra drawing aids like the Symmetry tool have been used sparingly (it kind of doesn’t make sense, say, for the front and back of hands — at least not the way I draw figures). Besides, symmetry doesn’t really fit the art theme of either culture at this time. The painting stage should be nice and easy: I built a pretty comprehensive palette for the game based on a couple strong references. With any luck, these 2.5D figures should make sense from a distance.