Meet The Main Character - ...You?

Since I wasn't able to work in H content over the weekend, but I still wanted to work, I decided it was a good time to finally do the MC illustration. I also figured I should probably give him a proper design before finishing Sakura's scene anyway, since you can kind of see him, and I didn't want to have to go back and redo that scene or any others if the design ended up changing.

You only ever see the MC's face during dialogue, and never see more than just the face, so I kept it pretty minimal. Without further ado, here he is. This is the actual size it will be in-game.

You play as... well he doesn't have a name. You can decide whatever you like. But when you start the game, you're living with your "landlady" Ayako and "roommate" Seika. You have no job, have never had a girlfriend, and don't really do much but sit around all day.

Until one day you're woken up to an odd sensation. It just so happens to be Ayako sucking you off! She decides she's tired of you mooching off of her, and wants you out. She's decided the best way to do that is to show you the wonders of sex. 

So she sets you up with one of her friends, who helps to teach you the basics of seduction and sex, and you set off on your journey to bang as many women as you possibly can. 

MC's Inspiration - 

Unlike the women in the game, there wasn't a specific character that the MC is based on. Instead I'll talk a little about why I designed him the way he is.

I wanted something somewhat generic looking, but still fit the vibe of being a guy who still lives at home and is kind of lazy. So I gave him protag-kun hair, but made it a little messy. I had initially wanted to have his eyes covered, either with his hair or with his hood up. That way it's a bit easier to self-insert. But those types of characters sometimes give off creeper vibes to me. So when I tried it, that's what ended up happening. He just looked like a creepy perv, and that's not a great look for an MC IMO. So instead, I just made him look as generic as possible.

If you've seen the Sakura WIP post, you may have noticed that the hair color and style is a bit different there. I originally tried creating this illustration to be more in-line with the way he looks in the Sakura scene, but I didn't like the way it looked. The brown hair was a little too light, and the hair was a little too trimmed and perfect. So instead of following that, I decided to just redo the hair when I go back to finish it.

While making this, I actually changed the hair color to a darkish blue color until the very end. I liked the way it looked and thought it worked well with the art style. But that color looked like hot garbage on the black version. I could have given them different hair colors, but then every time his head gets shown in a scene, I would have had to have two different colors and that's just kind of a pain and would take up a lot of time. It'll be pretty rare that we see the MC's head in a scene, so I decided it would be easier to just make it uniform. So the brown was out and the blue was out, so I just made it black. It works well with both versions and still keeps a bit of that generic protag-kun look. 

Wait, why is there a black version if it isn't in-game? - 

Some may be wondering why I made both a black and white version of the illustration, if it's only planned to have the white version in the actual game. For one, to have the design, but also because I've been playing with the idea of having two different versions. One where you play as a white guy, another where you play as a black guy. I think it would be a nice option to give people. I'm just not sure if I want to do it yet or not. Mainly because I don't know how much work it'll be. I'm pretty sure it would be fairly simple, but I don't want to commit to it until I know for sure how much work it'll be. Which I wont know until v0.1 is done. But I wanted to set things up so that I have all of the artwork I need to give it a shot once I get to the point when I can release. 

Sprites!? - 

I also updated the in-game sprite for the MC to match the new design. Originally it was just based off of a generic face generated with RPG Maker's character generator. So it needed to change. Here's the new one, in-game.

As you can see, I've got some sprites done, and have been putting stuff into the game. I think I may have said these in another post, but I don't remember if I have or not, so I'll say it again just in case. While it would be easier and faster to just use the in-game generator to create the sprites, I really don't like the way they look. I like the bigger sprites, rather than the little chibi ones. I can add a little more detail this way, and it better represents the characters. It's one of the things I'm willing to spend a bit more time on, because it makes the game feel better overall.

This pictured area is where  you start the game. It was originally designed for the default resolution in RPG Maker. Mainly because most of the artwork I was using was square anyway. But with the expansion in 16:9, it's created a lot of extra room in some of these smaller areas. I thought about making them bigger, but decided against it. With other areas later in the game being bigger, it'll create a sense of progression. Showing how it feels going from a house with just a small bedroom to yourself, to a small apartment, back into a house that's entirely yours, and then into bigger houses. With each upgrade filling up more and more of the screen and giving you more and more room. When you're outside, the area will fill the whole screen though. I only kept the smaller areas for indoors.

Bonus Round Finished - 

Since this was a pretty quick and easy illustration, it's just a bonus for this week. I'll still be doing another full piece to release on Friday. It will probably end up being another hooker scene, to celebrate the end of the poll. Since the poll will be ending the same day that the weekly art post is. We'll see though. It depends on how much time I end up having this week.