Hey Hive!
We're back again with another Art Attack! If you're new to the series, this is where I share my drawings and the process behind them. A behind-the-scenes look at my artwork, if you will. This is not to say that I'm very good at art, or that I'm a professional in any way. In fact this is the opposite, and serves as a reminder to how I first started, and lets me track my progress too!
So if you've been following this series you'd know I've been streaming on Twitch for a while now. Recently, I discovered this website called DareDrop where you can earn rewards for doing specific dares in different games. It's pretty cool and I got to try a few different games I've really liked because they give creators the game keys for free as well.
Anyway, one of the dares I've done recently is this one from a game called Pixel Cafe where you can get your art featured in the game if you make fan art! Since I'm an artist and I really enjoyed the game, I thought this was worth a shot and it'd be cool to have my art in the game!
Just a little background info on the game; Pixel Cafe is a captivating blend of an arcade time manager and visual novel. At its core it's a cooking game where you play as a small-town girl named Pixel as she tries to navigate life in a big city. But the story of her relationships with her family, friends and employers feel so real and I really loved the pixel art world in the game.
For the fan art I was going to make, I thought of drawing her sitting in the coffee chair like she is on the title screen, but with her hugging a cat which I saw in the opening cutscene. Now that I've finished the game I think I should have drawn a dog instead but tbf the dog didn't appear until after I finished the art.
These were the references I used:
I was initially going to draw her in a sort of chibi style, and some of the references were pretty good, but I changed her pose so she'd be sitting comfortably in the coffee chair (which I realised in my research that it actually exists irl and looks exactly the same).
This was my sketch, which I though looked pretty okay.
I wasn't really sure if I wanted to outline it so I did it just to see how it would look and it was pretty alright. Not the cleanest lines but acceptable.
I coloured Pixel based on in-game screenshots and some wallpapers I got from another dare as a reward.
I didn't want to outline the cup itself since I thought Pixel and the cat should be the focus, and I wanted a watercolour look for the cup. I wasn't sure on the background so I went with something neutral.
I did the outline and colouring on stream and it looked pretty good at the time, but I still wasn't fully satisfied with how it looked. I decided to change Pixel's style after that, removing the outlines and giving her a watercolour look as well, to match the cup. I also changed her shoes so it looks a lot better and neater.
I thought this style looked so much better and was the style I initially had in mind even though I didn't know it at the time.
So after colouring and adding some shading and highlights to Pixel and the cat, we get this as the final result!
I thought this looked so much better and I was really satisfied with how this turned out. I submitted this on DareDrop and waited patiently for a reply from the developers. It took a while but I was so glad that they accepted it and it was so exciting to see it in the game!
Here's a reel about it:
And here's the timelapse for the art:
I'm pretty proud of this piece and it was such a good note to end 2023 on with the completion of this and seeing this in-game was an amazing new years' gift as well!
That's all for now! Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
