La-Quien Tales

One more refinement. My daughter (an extremely talented artist) suggested adding back a hard outline to the bed-covers, and I think she was right. I also added some minor touches to the hair shadowing and some other tiny things here and there. Most of it probably won't even show up on a phone, but it's fairly clear on a PC screen.

chandra_reading_3.png
 
Three more reworks. Basically the same thing I've been doing. Making all the outlines color keyed and just a bit of cleanup. Unfortunately I lost the work-file of Valis adjusting Chandra's stance. I'd accidentally put into local documents instead of my OneDrive on the dead laptop, so I had to pull the export copy from here and sort of paint over it best I could.

In the first two, the characters are very young (14 & 13) and don't really know each other yet.

“That is excellent. However, you need not imitate my stance perfectly. In fact, you should not. Use the same posture, but adjust for your own body proportions.” He kneeled down and reached forward as if to take her ankle, but stopped well short of doing so. “With your leave my lady?”

Chandra balked. Since when did anyone from a higher station ask permission to touch her? Sure, nobles and soldiers paid lip service to manors, but in reality, they usually just pushed, shoved, or moved her whenever they saw fit. She was lucky so far; she knew other girls had …other things done to them as well. “Oh, of course Mas… Valis. I don’t mind.” That wasn’t entirely true. She was a little embarrassed, and not quite sure how she felt about having his hands on her in any form, but she’d have to trust him sooner or later.

Valis nodded, gently took hold of her backmost foot, and guided it to just behind her rear shoulder. Then he repeated the process with her front foot. With the same reverence, he adjusted her right hand a bit higher, then, once again with a soft touch, tilted her head until her chin tucked neatly with the left shoulder. “There now, a typical opening stance adjusted for your body size. This is the foundation for proper strike and defense forms. As you advance, you will likely develop another position that suits your proclivities.”

Throughout the adjustments, Chandra struggled to control her breathing. It was silly and shameful to fear the worst, but she’d seen this play out for others and it never ended well. The upper crust took what they wanted when they wanted it. She didn't yet have a woman's body, but nobles were a fickle sort, occasionally given to ill desires. What could she do to defend herself? The lesson alone proved she was powerless if this took a wrong turn. Must he be handsome too? And only a year her senior? Chandra couldn’t help flushing just a little at his touch. The environment, the lesson, and Valis himself; all of it was new and frankly overwhelming. Fortunately, it lasted but a moment. She should have known; he’d been a perfect gentleman, just doing his best to aid her.
Valis_chandra_training_1.png

Still nervous, but more comfortable than earlier, Chandra followed his instructions, retracting and then performing another slow-paced attack. Valis took a step back, looking satisfied. “That was exactly as needed. Are you willing to try at speed?”

Chandra took a deep breath. “I… don’t know, but there’s only one way to find out, right?”

“Only if you are willing Lady Westlook. I do not want you to harm yourself or do something that is uncomfortable.”

Little too late on both counts, but if she was going to learn, she’d have to step up. No more asking… “Hah!” Her fist collided with the heavy leather one more time. She felt a shudder in her arm, but this time it didn’t seem to hurt. The impact still wasn’t close to his, but it was enough to shake and move the thing, far more than her earlier effort. She looked over to see Valis giving her a thin smile. Thin… but proud. She took another deep breath, feeling a sense of relief and joy. She might never be a fighter, and didn’t really want to, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be a learner. “Valis? I’m ready for more!”
chandra_bag_work_2.png

Chandra stood inside the shower bay, letting the steamy water stream over her weary body. What a novel concept. Flowing, hot water, sprayed from overhead. She’d used this apparatus before as a guest, and still hadn’t gotten over the novelty. Before her life in La-Quien, she was lucky to get an occasional cold bath in a rusty tub. Now this marvel of ingenuity supposedly belonged to her. Just one of many things she didn’t feel like she’d earned.

How was she ever going to reconcile all this? Why her at all? She wasn’t aware of any other Yuan family members, but there had to be someone out there somewhere they hadn't mentioned. If not, it still didn’t make good sense leaving the estate to her. She didn’t know the first thing about running a baron-hold, or even exactly what she owned now. Dozens of staff and who knows what else probably depended on her, and she hadn’t even accepted the Yuans were gone. She couldn’t accept it. Just because she was out of tears didn’t mean the pit in her stomach was filled. Didn’t mean every other thought wasn’t a guilt ridden memory. At least the water was comforting. Maybe if she stood here long enough, it would wash the hurt away.
chandra_shower_6.png

Any feedback is welcome. Even if it's a measly 4/5 on GR from @NickyP. :P

Thanks again to @danno for the advice!

DC
 
@DCurrent You have good material to create a game, have you thought of creating a "point & click" style in OpenBOR? May be a good way to tell a history, I've been a fan of this kind of game since the first time I played Scooby-Doo Mystery for Sega Genesis and Dracula Resurrection for PS1, I have plans to make a try someday.
 
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Kratus said:
@DCurrent You have good material to create a game, have you thought of creating a "point & click" style in OpenBOR? May be a good way to tell a history, I've been a fan of this kind of game since the first time I played Scooby-Doo Mystery for Sega Genesis and Dracula Resurrection for PS1, I have plans to make a try someday.
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That's an interesting idea @Kratus. The problem is I've already done it. Before I came to the OpenBOR scene, I ran a Neverwinter Nights server based on the campaign world. It was set about 40 years after the story I'm writing, and if players wanted they could dig up parts of the world lore, or just ignore it and do their own thing. It was pretty popular for a while. Unfortunately I made the mistake of migrating to NWN2, and that platform sucked. Anyway, the whole reason I got into OpenBOR was to take my stable of stories/characters and make an action Beat em' up RPG out of them.

The design is already worked out. Nothing all that ground breaking. It would be an open world map that takes you to different scenarios, allowing players to peice together the story or just bum around killing crap to grind. The main story is presented as piece of history being told by a third party narrator, who is also the continue mechanic (ex. if you die, the continue screen would be something like "Wait! That's not how it happened!" **countdown**).

I know exactly what the specific mechanics are, and even most of the animations, right down to the last frame. It's just actually drawing them. That's the roadblock.

DC
 
DCurrent said:
an action Beat em' up RPG out of them
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Hmm this is a good idea too, would be cool. You could mix both genres, the beat em' up battles can happen in the places like forest/roads between two cities in the world map, and the rpg/history part can happen inside the cities.
Another idea is to add tons of puzzles and different choices leading to alternative endings. A "1 life" game comes to my mind too, where death means "bad ending" for the story and not a simple respawn.
 
I imagine what that masterpiece would be like. All the power of Master DC coding in one game, it gives me chills just thinking about it :D
 
@equinoksblex and @Blade Master, thanks a lot guys. I really appreciate it!

Here's yet another couple of reworks. I think that's all of my recent drawings redone with color keyed outlines. In addition, I tried to add just a little more to both. The Valis vs. Goblins pic now includes some quick drawn trees to more accurately represent the forest scene and collateral damage his wind spell is causing. The kissing pic has an all new armor pattern on Valis, and doesn't "fade out" at the bottom any more.

Valis_tempest_spell_2.png
valis_chandra_kiss_2.png

DC
 
These are rad!

Love the foreshortening on 'Valis vs. Goblins'

And the kiss one is great - I got the vibe that she interrupts him mid-conversation to plant that kiss and he's like "OH SNAP!" haha
 
equinoksblex said:
These are rad!
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Thank you! :D

equinoksblex said:
Love the foreshortening on 'Valis vs. Goblins'
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Sorry, I'm not not really sure what you mean by 'foreshortening'.

equinoksblex said:
And the kiss one is great - I got the vibe that she interrupts him mid-conversation to plant that kiss and he's like "OH SNAP!" haha
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That's exactly what she's doing. It's at the end of this chapter. The goblin battle curb-stomp is in it as well, a little earlier:

docs.google.com

La-Quien Tales: Last First Union

Last First Union Yuan Brothers Quarters, Yuan Estate, La-Quien City 1070-September-12, 18:30 Ronnel Yuan raised himself to the window of the shared bedchamber. “Looks like rain. Just as well, get it out of the way so we can have fit weather to shove off.” Across the room, Ronnel's identical twi...
docs.google.com docs.google.com
 
Die_In_Fire said:
How’s the process? You hand drawn those and then scan them? Or drawn directly on a tablet?
I like how they look
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Thank you @Die_In_Fire!

They're drawn with a mouse using Photoshop. I really only jumped into computer illustration about a month ago, so at the moment, I'm still developing a process. Before then, all my experience was either ink pen on paper drawings (and none of that since 2013) or pixel sprites. @danno has been helping me a lot.

Right now I start with a hard black outline, usually with pencil mode and 2-3 pixels wide. Then I go back and use a large pencil to fill in hard colors. After that, I switch to brush mode at a light flow rate and add in shadows or highlights. Along the way, I'll fix little details as needed.

I do everything in lots of layers so if I screw up or think of some improvements later I can go back and make changes.

Screenshot 2023-08-04 152335.png
 
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equinoksblex said:
Here's my take on Valis.
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Achievement unlocked: The very first fanart of my content!

I really do appreciate it. From a sheer nitpick standpoint, I find the East Asian look a little odd - it's an actual plot point the character is very much not that, but I figure it's probably just an art style difference. The clothing and especially metal pieces are really sweet looking. I need to figure out how to do tones and light sourcing like that.

I'm assuming you are using this as a reference:

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At that point, the character is only fourteen. The story very quickly skips ahead and then takes place mostly in his early 20's when he's filled out and has a heavier build. More Dick Grayson/Nightwing, less Cloud Strife.

Those are just design nitpicks though. Not quality by any means. It actually rankles me you're better at it than I am. :p

Thanks @equinoksblex, whether you meant it to be or not, I'm taking this as a personal milestone. If you have anything else I'd be very curious to see it.

DC
 
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