GOOD NEWS, EVERYONE!

The concept art for Catalyst: Blind Faith has drawn to a close! I absolutely BLASTED through the final designs I wanted to cement in March, and have already embarked on drawing the final assets for the demo!

To celebrate, I'm starting to cross-post devlogs from my Patreon here to itch.io. These posts are already free for everyone to view on Patreon. I also give some very spicy sneak peeks there for final assets, and run polls for future content! I hope you can check it out, if you'd like to help support my work while the demo is in progress.

Here on itch tho I want to keep up with the community who has been such an insanely incredible source of support, feedback, and motivation. Your interest in the demo of Catalyst: Blind Faith has kept me going!! I'm VERY EXCITED for all the progress that's been made and everything that's in store!

Without further ado, I'd like to dump this extremely long and image-packed devlog.

March entered my calendar and was like:

I need to get the final assets done for the demo in a timely fashion. Our concept artist, Betto, (whose beautiful character art can be seen in the current, early development version of the demo!) provided many beautiful assets for the fundamental concept art, and worked so spectacularly well with me on the game's look and feel. We ultimately agreed that my own art style is the best fit for the project, so his concepts are being used, but I am plowing ahead with the final art for the game!!!

Before slamming into the demo's assets with the momentum and energy of an exploding sun, I wanted to test myself with several things to ensure I am up to the task.

THUS BEGAN

CHARACTER CONCEPT ART - ALARIC STYLE

(THIS IS GONNA BE A LONG UPDATE STRAP IN)

There is a SWEET feature that was suggested by a beloved friend for the demo. This feature will be called "Find Reflection," in which you the player can choose to search the environment for a reflective surface to look at yourself in! There will be a button on screen labeled as such. Here is a mockup of how it will look in-game:

As you might have guessed, you can't always do this in-game. It wouldn't make sense to stop and look at how strikingly handsome you are in the middle of combat or a sermon. The button will light up when it makes sense to--in downtime, primarily.

When you click that "Find Reflection" button, there will be a special UI that shows your sprite in a reflective surface, based on your environment. Since the game is almost entirely seen through Richard's eyes, this grants the player rare opportunities to see how he's faring physically.

Our protagonist can change pretty radically throughout the course of the game, with different body types/clothing/hairstyles/eye color/etc. based on the choices you make. My objective with the concept art this month was to depict a few mockups of this new mechanic!!!

CONCEPT ART - FATHER RICHARD ANSCHAM

Thin/Default Body Type

I strove for REALLY clean lineart with these out the gate. The resolution and composition was intended to mirror (heh, pun) what things might look like in-game.

In the full game of Catalyst: Blind Faith, you can acquire a mirror through a super niche series of events, so showing that mirror in the UI in some respect felt like a cool way to start these pics.

When you start the game, Richard is very thin, and can stay that way through the entire game. It's the "default" appearance, so to speak. It made the most sense to start there, particularly to finalize things like the appearance of his facial scarring and hairstyle. We also have a cameo of Ray here, albeit in silhouette! As always he was a very good boy and was quite easy to draw for this pic. :)

I could write a devlog on the process for each one of these in excruciating detail, but again, in the interest of time, this is the finished concept piece! Not quite perfect on the facial anatomy, but the point of these was to hammer out the basics and keep plowing forward. What I did successfully solidify was line weight, a semi-realistic art style, and the understanding that I'd prefer to do high levels of rendering on the face+hair but less detail on the clothing.

CONCEPT ART - FATHER RICHARD ANSCHAM

Emaciated Body Type

This next piece was meant to nail a full body or 3/4 body, emphasizing the differences in our protagonist's visual appearance based on the player's choices.

In stark contrast to the thin/default appearance, Richard can become dangerously emaciated in several routes of the full game. I correctly assumed that this would be the most challenging body type to draw (without it looking too jarring for the viewer)--for reference, Richard's skull and hands are meant to be the same proportion as his waist!

My original sketch nailed a super dynamic pose (something I want for all sprites) while still being easy to showcase his alternate outfit and the 3/4 body view I chose. We're keeping to the reflective surface motif as well!

I fought tooth and nail to maintain visual consistency between the details established in the first concept piece, but to improve on them. I really loved the brushes and line weights I used in the first Find Reflection concept pic, but I also worked very hard on facial anatomy and rendering to deliver a much more aesthetic face.

This underwent DOZENS of revisions over two weeks to get the anatomy right. It was intensely challenging for me to get the head proportion correct in particular. A few concessions had to be made for the sake of it looking visually balanced, which is another good reason we're going for semi-realism over realism!

I'm very proud of the finished image. This was the longest I have ever spent on a single concept piece--12 days from start to finish!

I was so happy with the finished image here that I truly wanted to move onto the game's assets at this point, but I had originally set out to draw all five body types that can appear in the full game. Given that 4/5 of these won't be accessible in the demo, and the remaining three -- muscular, husky, and big -- are all very niche in the game, and can only be found through really obscure choices, I figured I would really challenge myself with at least one more of these designs.

I have the concepts and ideas mapped out of course, but drawing the actual assets is another story entirely! Giving you guys another lil sneak peak of them here. The sheer differences in appearance are meant to be staggering, and the narrative that accompanies them is equally extreme! Something to look forward to exploring in the full game!

CONCEPT ART - FATHER RICHARD ANSCHAM

Muscular Body Type

To see how much more benefit I could get from strictly doing concept art from here, I thought I would go as hard as possible with this piece. Lofty goals! A grayscale pic, at night, in the rain. The reflection in a puddle, with our hero in his usual attire, but with the clothing stretched and ripped to hell to complement his muscular appearance.

I also picked a very subdued pose, to contrast how ripped he is, and also to emphasize that this is still the same character.

Once I started rendering the muscles, I challenged the Catalyst Discord community to make a better shirt design. We had a lot of fun. These are a few highlights!

Again, in the name of time, I wound up stopping this concept piece once I had mostly rendered his musculature. It's far from perfect, but it really stressed to me that I feel up to the challenge of making Catalyst: Blind Faith's character art!!

We're missing several things like the scarring that will be on his torso+arms, Richard's holy symbol, etc. But yeah. This is going to format weirdly due to how Patreon does images. Hope you guys enjoy the view pfpffftahahhahaha

(There's a little more after this pic, pls keep scrollin)

The whole party (for the full game, not counting your best friend and service dog, Ray) together. Just look at em. Surely nothing bad will happen to them. Never.

With all that hard work done, I made a couple images to show off all the concepts I have done so far. And that's it! We're ready for making the final assets for the demo!!!!!!!!

Thanks so much for reading this far. Next month's update should be jam-packed with more info on the sprite art for Father Elias Edmund, the first character we see in the game!

Wish me luck lol. I'll be posting progress in the Catalyst Community Discord. You can find a link here: https://discord.gg/24cmNWp

Hope to see ya guys there! Let me know what you thought of this devlog and the art so far!!

Thank you so much again for all your incredible support!!