Art Styles and the Complete Human Boy
I’m trying something new this month! Here’s this newsletter in VIDEO FORM!
Here's a fun accounting fact about Steam - as a developer, money is paid out on the 30th day of the month following the month of sale. I mention this because the other day I got the email letting me know that I should expect a payment for December 2025, and initially went "Lol Steam messed up, that wasn't last month" before realising that December 2025 was, in fact, only four weeks ago. I know it's far from original to comment on January's seemingly unending nature, but it's true.
My month has been full of suitably wintery activities.
I witnessed a bunch of children having an all-out snowball war complete with little forts made out of snow, which I thought was something that only happened in Peanuts.
I bought a new teapot and discovered the joy of "making my own pastries" ie buying ready-made pastry and stuffing it full of chocolate and whacking it into an air fryer.
I went to my favourite second hand bookshop which is one of those cavernous ones where you could sneeze and bring down a huge stack on top of yourself, where I discovered a book pf early 20th century school stories called "The Complete Human Boy" and I'm sure the protagonist is just a regular, human boy. Definitely. For sure. He's not some kind of husk of an eldrich being, he's just a complete human boy.
A gallery of images - a snowman, a teapot with a chocolate pastry, a crowded bookshop and a book titles ‘The Complete Human Boy by Eden Phillpotts
I also did some game development, natch.
Getting to know my characters
Now, as readers of my newsletter I want to make a little deal with you: I'm going to share a little bit of my development process, and in exchange you're not going to turn around later and say "Why did you change X thing?!" when I invariably change stuff during the natural process of writing a story. Ok? Ok.
For example this month I concentrated on character and worldbuilding, fleshing out people who are in my notes with generic titles like... "Museum Curator" or "Robot" and giving them names and faces and motivations. And I can tell you now, since making this graphic I completely swapped and changed a few of these characters!
Illustrations of a collection of eccentric Edwardian characters (with a slight sci-fi twist) in height order.
Thinking about Art Style
I've also been thinking long and hard about the art style I want to use in the game.
Up until recently I was all for continuing with the pixel art style I used for Beekeeper's Picnic. It was well-received, I think it looked acceptable, and it made animations quick and easy to produce.
As I've developed the game's story, though, I've realised how much I want to portray this giant space-museum as being full of intricate detail and clutter, which has made me start hankering for more illustrative backgrounds. I'm currently in the process of making a sample background to see how long it takes me and whether I think it's a viable process.
Looking forwards...
If you're based in the Midlands, I'm going to be at the Get into Games festival taking place at the Midlands Arts Centre 11:00-17:00. The festival is totally free, and is aimed at anyone who wants to take their first steps into a games career. I'll be showcasing the Beekeeper's Picnic.
Now we’ve had the longest month… let’s see what happens in the shortest!
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