Dev Blog: Luna – The Herbalist

Greetings, travelers! Welcome to the game development blog, where I discuss all the stuff related to the development of 'Forbidden Tale.' This time, I want to showcase the character creation process — step by step, from the initial sketch to the final in-game character.

As you may recall from the previous blog post, I hinted at a great opportunity for a new character. Well, here she is — Luna. I won't spoil the story about her, you'll have the chance to meet her in-game and ask her all kinds of questions yourself.

So, let me guide you through the creation process. The first step always involves exploring the concept and deciding on the color palette and clothing attributes for the herbalist. In Luna's case, I decided she would wear sturdy leather boots for enhanced mobility during her gathering sessions in the forest or wherever she chooses to venture. Complemented by tight woolen pants and a coat adorned with long sleeves

For accessories, it would be a nice touch to have a medallion positioned between her breasts, captivating viewers' attention in a subtly magical way 😉

I started with a sketch without line weight, focusing on getting the right contours and body forms.

As I progressed, I added flat colors. I chose these colors because they represent the field with the flowers and grass. Honestly, it looks a bit like something from Christmas, but let's continue anyway.

I plan to use Stable Diffusion for the rendering purpose. Basically, I am setting the foundation for the rendering process. Stable Diffusion provides a significant level of control over the final result. For instance, the Control Net feature allows me to define the character outlines, ensuring that Stable Diffusion doesn't add anything new without my control. As of now, I've set a simple shadow using a multiply layer.

With low denoising, I ran Stable Diffusion to achieve something like this—pretty neat, right? However, after a while, I noticed issues with body proportions.

Using a simple transforming technique, I adjusted the head and breast size. I also decided to make the medallion less prominent. Additionally, I removed the pants; I believe the character would look more seductive, leaving some secrets for Kael to explore 😀 and added a pair of earrings.

For the finishing touches, I fixed the fingers, retouched some lines, and added a herb in her hand. These final touches bring the character together as one.

As you can see, the result looks acceptable now. With the help of Stable Diffusion, the process of creation is very enjoyable, and it’s quite fast to make some drastic changes without performing unpleasant manual work. The character will be featured in a future update, and the main hero will have a chance to meet her at her workshop.

So, that’s it for now. Stay tuned for more updates and behind-the-scenes on my Patreon. Until next time!