a sweeping streak of artly tweaks (Patreon)

piece of-- shit.fg fgkf ok. it's been aw eek and a half since i posted and this is one of those cases where

• working on story i always struggle to know what to post a bit because i want people to just enjoy it as the game presents it
• i have been prioritizing working instead of posting
• fuckin' what do you mean it's been a week and a half already piece of bitch. motherfungus.
  i feel like i just kinda facetumbled direclty through october , like if someone did an olympic gymnastic routine but instead of landing on their feet, they land on their head and also their nose is broken now

that said it's not like i don't have things to post !!! i have so many things to post !!! i just need to do it !!! need to do shorter, more frequent posts with these. yassa. less but more.

like okay here this post is one i've been meaning to do since fuckin' august, we're sailor hours in here becaiuse time  is just a real piece of sausage. son of a, fungible token. 

look at this-- okay i have to collect all of the artz

so one of the criticisms we got from the demo back in the day is that the characters don't feel like demons or angels, they just feel like people in cosplay. and. and like. like. i think that the mythological canons and the extremes to which some other games take those like say doom or darksiders has maybe influenced some of those expectations and
that's not us.
that is like, explicitly not us
where those are high-ascended divine forces of good and evil, our version of angels and demons here is very explicitly those that have lost their divinity and become mortal. we are actually Just People with some angel/demon flavoring.
so this isn't going to change that criticism at all, and i don't think we need to change it, but the feedback did lead to an exploration of how can we give angels and demons a couple more distinct racial traits. 

here's some concept art hewaje did to feel it out:

incidentally, a lot of this was done before i'd talked over details with them and a lot of these elements were basically part of the plan, or reserved for specific characters. 

but there are a handful of details we got out of this, and for which we've updated some existing designs. 

most notably, as you've seen with star and raine already, and on this last week's spriting stream, we've decided angels will have an altered style of ear as well. so, general new traits for angels:

• feathery, soft ears
• light irises
• ✨sparkles ✨

and for demons:

• pointed/chipped ears (already a thing)
• natural underdye hair color
• tattoo like markings (separate from added tattoos, which many also have)

it's also worth noting that as there are many variations in people, not every demon or angel is going to have all of these traits, and there may even be some crossover. genetics are weird, shit happens. 

so with that in mind, let's just take a quick gander through our existing designs from the demo and see some of our updates:

zaharald doesn't change that much! he gets a green underglow to match his colors, and his actual tattos are expanded in a jagged wire pattern:

veivax is no wider than she was before, but has now gained some extra tattoos and her hair has a bit more depth and color to it on the underside:

we've seen her tweaks on the combat model already, but star now has her ear visible within her swoosh, brighter star-shaped irises, and unrelated to racial changes we swapped out her stockings for simple dark tights that matched her better:

as a nephilim, sephany gets traits from both categories!

her hair now has more color to it in underglow, she has unique lit pupils, and she gets a handful of sparkle accessories to help her shine! you know, when she isn't being literally executed.

nova hasn't changed much, but she now has some extra asymmetry going on in her eye as well. 

karus now has a very prominent underglow, and although it's hard to see because he's shy about it, there's also a small marking by his right eye:

like his sister, glasya gets a bit of extra hair color and some sparkles, but only one of his eyes is lit;

finally, the NPC classes. 

The alchemintx is cuter than ever, with some extra markings, hair color, and why not some make up to boot:

the sowar gets some extra glow and marking as well, though hers is subtler:

on the combat model-only side, the lyulire is spiked up, marked out, and ready for action:

and of course we've already seen the ceremony's new markings tattoos and hair color from the spine tests earlier on:

..is that everybody? maybe that's everybody. exxeix and zagan didn't change much because they're unique and already had close enough features. so i think that's everybody? if not, you get the point.

big big big shout out to hewaje for helping me with the breadth of these, it's been a lot off-the-bat to jump forward and they've been great at charging it down out of the gate.

i will post less but more soon ok? ok.
you can call off the lego ninjas now thx ily'all