Vote on your favorite color treatment for my next game
Welcome to the worlds by watt newsletter. I’m watt, creator of the ecological science fantasy tabletop roleplaying game Cloud Empress. For all things Cloud Empress, go to CloudEmpress.com or support me on Patreon.
While I’m still analyzing feedback and collecting my thoughts on how I could have improved the canceled Rust Wings campaign, I wanted to get your input on some artwork for an upcoming project.
Sky Burial (current title) will be a spiritual prequel to Cloud Empress, inspired by Princess Mononoke, Moby Dick, and Fullmetal Alchemist. Sky Burial takes place in a mid-industrial Eastern Empire where hunters kill dragons for their (magic) feathers. The setting centers on the conflict between three cultures in a time when magic & myths have nearly faded into history. Players will take the role of everyday people, forced into journeys across the Endless Plains to break a curse set upon them.
Lead art will be by pbbeta, and speaking of, I’ve got some art to share!
Here’s the Trinket Keeper. An old man who lives in the Eastern Empire’s capital in a dilapidated shop. The Trinket Keeper collects Tiny Gods—sculpted statues from the time of myth. The Trinket Keeper believes the Ancients once worshiped the carvings as gods, but their true origin may be more tragic. The Trinket Keeper is a curmudgeonly figure. When he’s not napping or picking through city trash, he turns visiting collectors and nosy historians away from his findings, but he also gifts Tiny Gods to travelers when the stones whisper to him.
The Trinket Keeper is one tiny corner of a much broader world I hope to explore for years on my Patreon and in this newsletter!
Today I’d love your input on the visual style of Sky Burial. For the project, we’re trying to capture a sketchbook style that balances the realities of a bloody and brutal world with the indomitable hope of human beings. Equally important, I want the game to stand out and look cool!
Anyway, looking at the color treatment art styles below, which do you prefer? Ideally, the final color treatment we choose can work across a wide variety of characters and landscapes while looking visually striking and unique.
1. Blue Cloud Empress Treatment
2. Solid Colors
3. Watercolors
4. Tinted Watercolors
If you have additional thoughts and comments on the color treatment style, I’d love to hear from you in the comments! I’ll be back soon with a debrief on the Rust Wings campaign, and a poll about the name Sky Burial!
The Tinted Watercolor's lighting aspect works the atmosphere for me. Although subjective, this style brings to my mind Victorian lighting, Miyazaki Hayao's watercolor sketches, and hatching styles like those used in the Drifting Dragons manga, which also came to my mind while reading the premise and its inspirations.
these are all really good! though i especially loved the tinted watercolour, and the blue – voted for the former ^^ (Sky Burial is such a cool name)
Princess Monoke is very high up there among my favourite media – Nausicaä being probably just slightly higher in my regard ^^ so, this is very exciting indeed :)