Lighthouse scene + player character [psx style JRPG]
This is for a ps1 style JRPG, called The Last Laureate, built on a custom engine. It's a small-scale indie project, currently under early works. I'm basically doing some proposals on visuals whenever I have spare time.
I was tasked with creating the environment & character art (and style). I opted for a old Final Fantasy-coded look without stepping too far into a ripoff. The character is a 1000 polygons with one 128x128 texture sheet. Everything done in Blender, character's texture was painted using Ucupaint. The rugged tree in the scene is a bonsai tree from an old asset pack I've bought, which I then modified into a rugged seaside tree. Environment is a static render and I haven't looked up the stats for it.
Closeup render, for potential cinematics. In-game at half-res.
Proper angle of the scene. In-game the picture is cropped to widescreen format and shifts vertically along the character. In-game at half-res.
Renders per modelling session. At this stage I mostly focused on finding the right composition, the main light sources, and fixing any ugly angles on geometry. Pretty much like, how to guide the eye around and fixing overlap or hard-to-read shapes.
Renders per modelling session. Changed the staircase. Rest is much more about pushing in the details and props. I could have gone further, but opted not to, so it fits the retro aesthetic better. Same with textures, I wanted to keep things very minimal.
Solid, textures, matcap. Materials are world-coordinated from random pbr materials I have, or just mixes of noise and colour. I was targetting a very retro look, so not too much detail to it.
Main character. She's a battle mage. Inspired by old Final Fantasy games, as is the scene itself. I like the flowy fabrics and very elegant designs from the old FF games. She looked even cooler with cyan hair, but that was uncomfortably close to Terra...
Uploaded the character into Sketchfab for further inspection.