The Domovoi: Miscellany

The Domovoi, a Twine game by Kevin Snow, has been released. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be posting my art and sketches from the game. If you haven't checked it out yet, please go take a look -- it's free and short!

Just one last post on The Domovoi, I promise. Here are the various odds and ends that didn't fit in anywhere else, but thought might be interesting enough to show.

Opening Screen

 

The opening screen is one of the favorite things about The Domovoi. Not only do I think the end result turned out great, but the process of creating it was a testament to the strength of our collaboration. It was a cascade of good ideas that solved a specific design challenge and improved the final game.

In the original build, Kevin presented the title illustration and folktale epigraph on a single page before leading into the story proper. The folktale was intended to introduce the concept of the domovoi to an audience that might be unfamiliar with Slavic legends. The illustration, of course, was meant to show the domovoi and lead directly into the main narrative.

The problem, though, was that a lot of playtesters became confused about the relationship between the epigraph and the main story -- some thought that the latter was a continuation of the former. Kevin played around with the text to make the transition clearer, even to the point of considering a change to the storyline's opening line ("I have a tale for you friend..."). Neither of us were really happy with that idea.

I thought about it for a bit and suggested separating the epigraph entirely from the title and beginning of the main storyline -- present each on its own page, just like the opening of a book. I could even put a few simple graphical elements (I was originally thinking of little drawings of some of the household objects) on the epigraph page.

Kevin loved the idea immediately and had a fantastic suggestion of his own -- the epigraph illustration should be an animated candle flame, and it should change color after the story has looped back to the beginning (to indicate change and hopefully entice the player to try another round). We both knew that we had just hit on something really cool.

Candles

 

I don't have any animation training, so making these was a fun little challenge. Kevin pointed me to Zac Gorman's great comic work as a reference for the type of low-frame, high-impact animation he had in mind.

Anyway, these are all of the candles I ended up making. Personally I think the early screw-ups are kind of funny, but they helped Kevin and me narrow things down to the type of style that we wanted. Even as we got close to a final, though, we ran into a couple of nitpicky little pixel issues that had to be squashed lest the epigraph look like a Geocities page. (Edit: Which, ironically, is kind of what it looks like in the preview that Blogger generated up above. Oh well!)

The alternate candle was originally supposed to be blue, but the purple end of the spectrum worked a little bit better. I was listening to a lot of Castlevania music at the time, which somehow helped.

Logo

 Actually, I don't have too much to say about the logo. Kevin asked for a typeface that resembled Soviet constructivist fonts, and as it happens, I was reading Gene Wolfe's The Land Across at the time. I thought the cover font was perfect and tried to adapt it for The Domovoi.

I have very little experience with logo design or creation, but luckily the style made it a bit easier for me (I ended up making everything out of rectangle shapes in Photoshop). I tried a few variations with weathering effects applied to the letters, but Kevin and I both preferred the simplicity of the original.

Unused Title Screen

When Kevin and I were first discussing the title illustrations, I had an idea for an Ivan Bilibin-esque partial borders around each of the images. I gave the idea a test run on the candle illustration, but we never ended up using it.

Although the border version looks alright on its own, unfortunately it didn't look quite as good against the black background of the webpage. The borders looked like they were floating off in space, entirely disconnected from the scene they were enclosing. Still, it's at least worth posting.

Thanks

I just wanted to mention again how great it was to work with Kevin on this project, and also how happy we are that so many people enjoyed the final game. Hopefully these posts have been an interesting look at how the artwork for the game was created. Thanks for reading!

The Domovoi: Titles

The Domovoi, a Twine game by Kevin Snow, has been released. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be posting my art and sketches from the game. If you haven't checked it out yet, please go take a look -- it's free and short!

The Candle

The candle scene was the first title screen that I painted and, in some ways, still the most satisfying. Kevin and I both really liked the composition right from the original concept sketch, and the final allowed me to develop a lot of the details that I had been practicing throughout the whole project.

There was one thing that gave us a brief panic, though: the bed. I had included it reflexively in the original concept sketch, but it turns out that a bed of this sort would have been -- at best -- a sort of luxury item for a man of the master's social standing. Most peasants would have simply slept on sheets or blankets atop the oven or fireplace. Fortunately, Kevin did some additional research and found enough mentions of peasant beds that we both felt comfortable with leaving it in.

Influence: The paintings of 17th-century Dutch artist Godfried Schalcken, renowned for his candlelight scenes.

The Bench

I knew from the start that we had to have a picture of the domovoi on his master's bench, but towards the end, I got the idea to combine it with a view of the oven pit -- a grim foreshadowing of one of the domovoi's possible fates.

I really, really like how this one turned out overall. This is the most complete shot of the hut's interior that I ever illustrated, and it was a lot of fun to gradually build up the scene and add in all the little household details. The only thing that slightly bugs me is the domovoi's frame -- he seems a little too bulky here compared to the other title screens.

Influence: Once again, Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land. The dull color palette, lighting scheme, and clutter of objects are directly inspired by the blacksmith's shop screen.

The Threshold

This was by far the most difficult of the main title screens, and for awhile I felt really uncertain about it. I've since come to peace with it, but there's no question that it was challenging for me at the time.

Part of it had to do with the composition itself. There were a lot of positioning and detail problems that I had to solve -- I fretted over the placement of the hut and whether or not it matched with previous depictions in the in-game illustrations; I worried about the placement and distance of the trees; I feared that the domovoi's expression would be unreadable at that size; I fought with the color palette and lighting.

I was also going through a bit of personal turbulence at the time. I had just finished up a stressful year of work only to have oral surgery over the holiday break. While recovering from that, I was also starting to come down with pre-launch anxiety -- the prospect of the The Domovoi being put in front of a wider audience was suddenly becoming terrifyingly close, and that made the third title seem all the more important and final. So naturally I became hyper-critical of every little detail in the picture, and probably got really annoying to any human being within reach.

Influence: The illustrations of Russian folktale artist Ivan Bilibin, whose depictions of nature are both beautiful and foreboding.

The Portal

I mentioned above that I eventually came to peace with the third title screen, probably because I transferred a lot of my opprobrium to the portal page illustration. It's my own fault though -- I rushed a little bit on this one. A lot of the details are similar to those from the third title, only executed a lot more loosely.

My main reference here was one of the title concept drawings that I included in the previous post, but I was disappointed that I couldn't capture quite the same mood in the final portal illustration. Still, some of the details came out alright.

One more shot of the big lug for the road. Thanks for reading!

The Domovoi: Title Concepts

The Domovoi, a Twine game by Kevin Snow, has been released. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be posting my art and sketches from the game. If you haven't checked it out yet, please go take a look -- it's free and short!

One of the unique things about The Domovoi is that there are actually three separate scripts, each one a slight variation of the main narrative that focuses on a different theme. The more drafts that Kevin sent me, the more fascinated I became by the idea. Eventually I suggested that the game should have three different title screens -- just like the text, a random one would be loaded on each playthrough.

It turned out to be a really good decision. I had been saving the title illustration for last partly because I couldn't decide on a single composition that would encapsulate the domovoi, but now I had three chances to try to get it right. Additionally, Kevin began working on his fantastic folktale introductions around the same time that I began work on the titles, so I drew a lot of inspiration directly from those.

In the first folktale that Kevin wrote, a domovoi strangles an intruder to death. I was immediately captivated and began drawing "our" domovoi choking people for about a solid week.

I love Kevin's folktale introductions; they're some of my favorite passages in the game. To me, they brilliantly capture the darkness and bizarre humor of Slavic folklore.

This is one of my favorite domovoi drawings from the whole project. I eventually used this as the source for the portal illustration, but I was disappointed that I couldn't capture the same mood and expression.

Concept for the first title illustration. Again, I was inspired by the first folktale -- the old couple laying awake in bed terrified made me think of a domovoi lurking in the shadows.

Kevin loved this one when I sent it to him and suggested that the candle could be seen as a symbol of the domovoi's departed master. Not only did that help me clarify the mood of the drawing, but it also established the themes of yearning and abandonment that connect the three title illustrations.

Compositions for the domovoi sitting on his master's bench, which we used for the second title illustration. Even though they're quick sketches, it's really interesting to compare these against the bench illustration I drew way back during the character concept phase. Not only did my technique change, but my ideas about the domovoi and his world had substantially more time to percolate in my head.

Compositions for the final title illustration. I had wanted to do a picture reminiscent of Ivan Bilibin's beautiful wilderness illustrations, which naturally led to the concept of the domovoi on the threshold. Around this time, Kevin also sent me a fantastic series of blog posts on the cinematography of The Incredibles, which made me think very carefully about how I set up the elements in each sketch.

We were kind of torn on which one of these to use. Kevin recommended the top one because the mood was more consistent with the other titles, but I salvaged pieces of the lower one for the portal illustration.

The Domovoi: The Window

The Domovoi, a Twine game by Kevin Snow, has been released. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be posting my art and sketches from the game. If you haven't checked it out yet, please go take a look -- it's free and short!

The window is the final illustration from the main narrative of The Domovoi. It's a very calm, very quiet sort of drawing (a much-needed contrast to the violence that precedes it), but it also alludes to the transformation that has been wrought upon the domovoi.

First concept artwork, and proof that first ideas sometimes aren't the best. My first mental image was of the bruised and battered domovoi silhouetted in the light cast by the window, but I got more and more uncomfortable as I drew the sketch (even more so than when I actually drew the assault series). Kevin seconded my unease -- I guess we were both uncertain about the possible connotations of this portrayal of the domovoi. In the end, we made the right choice and left him out of the frame.

A second concept sketch, in which I played around with a low-angle shot.

The final illustration, in which I tried for the atmosphere and lighting of the first concept sketch with the low angle of the second. I think this was my fastest turnaround in the whole project; I'm unreasonably proud of how quickly I painted that bucket.

Two detail notes on this one. The spiderweb seen to the right of the window will be intact or torn depending on choices made previously in the story. I also screwed up on the floor, which was originally supposed to be dirt. I guess I was so used to painting wood grain by this point that I stuck in floorboards without even thinking about it. Luckily, Kevin liked it and changed his script to accommodate my gaffe... sorry and thanks!

The Domovoi: The Assault

The Domovoi, a Twine game by Kevin Snow, has been released. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be posting my art and sketches from the game. If you haven't checked it out yet, please go take a look -- it's free and short!

In one of the story's final branches, the soldier -- incensed by the domovoi's refusal of his offer -- savagely beats him with a hammer. It's one of the most harrowing and disturbing scenes in the game, in which the themes of violence and abuse are brought to the forefront.

Concept artwork. The commission notes called for a sequence of illustrations showing the effects of the violence on the domovoi. Kevin originally suggested a focus around the mouth and beard, but I also tried a variant showing more of the shoulders and head (albeit mostly covered in shadow). Ultimately we decided to go with the close focus.

I wanted the violence to have a sense of physical impact, so I focused on the domovoi's motion as much as the soldier's brutality. I admit that I had a lot of trepidation going into this set, but despite the sobering subject matter, it ended up being very interesting to work out visually -- I spent a lot of time trying to coordinate details between each "frame" of the series.

The Domovoi: The Soldier

The Domovoi, a Twine game by Kevin Snow, has been released. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be posting my art and sketches from the game. If you haven't checked it out yet, please go take a look -- it's free and short!

The soldier is another pivotal character in The Domovoi, and his scene contains the final choice of the game. The relationship between the soldier and his creator is fairly complex, and we wanted to play up the themes of similarities and contrasts in the visuals. The composition directly parallels the scenes with the storyteller, but the lighting is distinctly colder, the atmosphere tenser and more threatening.

Concept artwork. I tried a couple of gestures for the hands, but ultimately went with the "knuckled down" pose seen in the color test -- a suggestion of the violence to come. For the gun, Kevin recommended the M1895 Nagant revolver, a common firearm during the revolution. (It's turned the wrong way in the sketch!)

Final artwork. As with the previous illustration, I used a photo reference here... those are actually my hands! Unlike the storyteller (whose garments were nondescript), the soldier's clothing more clearly suggests his profession.

The soldier lights his cigarette. We nearly missed this one, but a helpful Platformer alerted us that we needed a drawing for this part of the story. The cigarette is a symbolic link to the domovoi's master, and establishes a connection between those two figures.

The soldier offers the gun. Not used to drawing firearms, I ended up using a reference photo from online. It was an interesting challenge to mentally turn it to the right perspective... hopefully it passes inspection!

We're getting close to the end (in more ways than one). Daily Domovoi should wrap up sometime this weekend.

The Domovoi: The Storyteller

The Domovoi, a Twine game by Kevin Snow, has been released. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be posting my art and sketches from the game. If you haven't checked it out yet, please go take a look -- it's free and short!

The storyteller is probably one of the most important characters in The Domovoi; all the other characters, after all, are her invention. The commission, though, simply called for her hands resting upon a table. The intent was to show the scene from the player's point of view and give a sense of participation from the very beginning. The player has been invited into the storyteller's home to share a glass of vodka and help her craft her latest tale.

Once again, Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land was one of the direct inspirations for this illustration. Specifically, I had the game's tavern screen in mind. I wanted to capture the same kind of warm, convivial air -- a deliberate contrast to the cold, drab color palette used in most of the other illustrations.

Concept artwork for the storyteller. I played around with the idea of showing different moods through the gestures of the hand. In the end, though, we only went with one variation.

Final. Through most of the game, the storyteller's hands are shown serenely clasped upon the table. I took a photo reference to help me get the hands right.

It might be a little difficult to tell, but there's a tablecloth on the surface. I struggled for a bit with trying to draw a hand-stitched pattern on the tablecloth, but I couldn't quite get it to read convincingly. At Kevin's suggestion, I settled for just drawing a few folds and seams.

Final. This version appears if the storyteller is insulted by your suggestions.

The Domovoi: The Oven

The Domovoi, a Twine game by Kevin Snow, has been released. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be posting my art and sketches from the game. If you haven't checked it out yet, please go take a look -- it's free and short!

Not much special to note about the oven. I referenced the style directly from the Russian oven page on Wikipedia, and would expand upon it later for the second title illustration. Also, watching The Godfather on TV was strangely helpful as I painted the latter two variants.

Concept artwork. The composition here is just a straightforward close-up of the main oven pit. I also tried to mimic the subdued earth tones in my TotFL references in the color test.

Final oven design. Although the empty oven is never shown in the final game, I sort of like the way it looks -- it has a desolate, abandoned quality to it.

A branch burning in the oven pit. This is the main illustration encountered in the course of the story.

The blazing oven. I'm not very experienced at painting fire, so I loosened up and tried more for expression than photo-realism.

The domovoi's remains. Finding references for this one was very unsettling.