Week 4: Progress on Texturing and Character Models

I've been making steady progress on the visual direction for "I'm Anita," and I'm starting to feel like I'm finally locking into the right style. After a lot of back and forth with different techniques, I decided to take a more deliberate approach to the texturing, and it all really came together when I stumbled across the perfect inspiration while doing the dishes.

The other day I watched a GDC talk from the developer of A Short Hike who spoke about their Easy texturing methods in A Short Hike where he showed off pretty much exactly what I wanted to try as an alternative to texture painting. He showed how he set up a flat colour texture map where he which he fit all his UV's for characters to and then how he used shaders and post-processing to bring them to life.

 

The talk also had a lot of other great tips, tools and techniques that I have made notes on for later.

Seeing the success of such simple, effective texturing techniques helped me pull back even more to get to the visual style for "I'm Anita." Instead, the focus can be on conveying the character and emotion through more thoughtful use of colors and post-processing, rather than adding unnecessary detail. I’ve since committed to creating a similar flat color texture map for Anita, aiming to let simplicity and do the talking. I'm still workshopping my painterly UV's to add an extra bit of style and detail too as I don't plan to have the same crunchy pixel effect as A Short Hike which affords it a lot of room for simplicity.

I've also started making some progress on a second character model, using the same principles to keep the workflow efficient and maintain a consistent look. It’s been a rewarding process to see how the characters come to life just by making careful decisions about colors and silhouette. This second model is already fitting well alongside Anita while giving some contrast in proportions.

Next up, I plan to create a couple of simple environmental assets—a few props and background pieces—to solidify the overall style. These assets will help unify the scene, making sure everything feels like it belongs together.