The challenge of changing an artstyle

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Well, first thing first, let's get this out of the way - I'm NOT a professional artist.

Just about 3 years ago, I started doodling some pixel art, just so I would have some basic art for my games.

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So when I joined the Sunbird Studio team, every time we started a game, my go-to was to pixelate everything.

This time, something went a bit differently. While trying to figure out how the game will play, I doodled a little hedgehog on a paper next to my laptop. After a few moments I thought to myself - this is a cute drawing, a game like that could be adorable.

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So, why wouldn't it look like that? And so, we began experimenting. The first part was to figure out the tools for the job. Since I always made pixel art, I didn't even know where to start.

At first we talked about drawing on paper and digitising it, but that proved to require better equipment then what I had. Then we looked at Android apps that work with my stylus, and couldn't find one that has all the features required to animated for a game.

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At the end, we used Krita, and I drew using my touch-bar. Not ideal, but did the job. We agreed on a 1-bit style (a fancy way of saying 2 colours), and doodly animations that I achieved by drawing the same sprite over and over again.

Even though it was my first time making a game with line-art, I'm pretty proud of the results.

And now, for the next challenge.

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