FreshmenVN
patreon
Sneak Peek #14: The Entourage, the Crew, & the Sibling
🕑 Added 2022-11-26 14:44:51 +0000 UTCI'm back with another first look at some new characters coming in the club update. There are many characters in the next update that will play a smaller role just to make the club feel more alive, but not this batch—these are storyline characters. Most are new to you, but I have a few revisions of already revealed characters as well.
Alex's Entourage
First I want to introduce you to some of Alex's people. So far we've only seen Alex within the walls of 21CA, but outside of school he's actually famous. If Connor chooses to hang with Alex, he's gonna be stepping into an entirely new world...
Forte
Florian Forte—just Forte to everyone in the biz—is Alex and Raven's manager. He's a hip guy with a convincingly laid back attitude, but is mercenary when he needs to be. He was formerly with a band but has now taken on a behind the scenes role—a role that's much more lucrative than being a struggling artist.
Fun fact about Forte: You may recall he's in the background of one of Alex's CGs. All I kept from that original design was the beard, and not even the same beard. The character model in that CG actually became Parker later on!
Raven
We already met Raven in the last sneak peek, but now she's very, very pink. This was actually what I always intended her look to be—I was just waiting for the texture asset to go on sale! Like Alex, she always sticks out in a crowd. Which is the only way to be when you're influencer-famous.
Hannah
Hannah is Alex's tiny and hyper-competent assistant. She's the one who schedules out his entire day, takes care of his social media, keeps track of his brand obligations, and more, all so Alex can focus on just being The Talent. She's invaluable most of the time—but sometimes Alex would like her to schedule herself to go away so he can have some more unsupervised free time.
Antonio
And now we come to Antonio, Alex's mysterious and handsome bodyguard. At 21CA Antonio lurks in the shadows and out of sight—but once they're on the street, he's glued to Alex's side to keep him from being mobbed by overzealous fans (a few of which we'll meet in a future sneak peek).
Isaiah's Dance Crew
Just like Isaiah, many of the 21CA dance students are hitting the club to show off what they can do outside of the rigid instruction they follow in class. Some students from a rival dance academy had the same idea...
Gabriel
We already met one of the dancers from the rival school in the last update—David, Isaiah's high school crush who jerked Isaiah around. When David meets Isaiah again, he'll have a sidekick—Gabriel, another student at the rival school. He looks a little intimidating, but it remains to be seen if he's as big a jerk as David turned out to be...
Skye
Skye is a classmate of Isaiah's. She's here to have a good time. She's not here for your shit.
Bastien
Bastien had a small redesign. I stole his previous hair for the next character, so he got a haircut. And I took the opportunity to repose him for this placeholder sprite to give him a bit of a knowing smile. In the last update I mentioned he's basically the dance department's Will—I wonder if that means he's as open to certain extracurricular activities as Will is...?
Skinema Sibling
And lastly, I have one more redesign. This one is a little more significant than Raven and Bastien.
Trevor
In the last update, I introduced Trevor as NC17's brother. As I was expanding upon some storyline ideas, I decided I wanted him to be NC's fraternal twin. One brother is the bright, clean-cut one; the other prowls the night like a wildman. But despite their differences, they just might share certain appetites...
The changes I made were:
- I fixed the issue with his clothes that deformed the mesh.
- I changed the shape of his face slightly to more closely match NC. He's not identical to NC, but he has a variation of the same face shape so it's clearer that they're related.
- He got new hair. I wasn't super pleased with the previous hair asset. When looking for a new one, I decided I wanted it to be shorter and with a similar hairline to NC's hair. After cycling through all my unused hair assets, I finally stole Bastien's old hair and it turned out to be just what I was looking for. A sunny echo of NC's punk 'do.
- I matched his eye color to his brother's.
- I changed his eyebrows—the original brows were actually the same as NC's, but they looked different and thinner on Trevor's face. I found new brows that are similar-ish that worked better.
- I reposed him in this sprite to have a semi-mirror of NC's standard sprite pose, and to cap it off, I gave him a half-cocked smile just like his brother.
Much like Trevor, all of these character designs are still subject to change. I've found between the frat party and now the club that the act of creating these models really brings into focus what kind of character they'll be. It's why I'm doing it so early on—how they shape up visually starts to form a certain voice for them in my head, which in turn informs how I will use them in the plot. Sometimes that means a redesign to better fit where the new ideas take me.
That's it for now! There are still more folks to come—it's gonna be a busy night at Atelier 54!
Comments
Fernando Ruiz
It just keeps getting better 😅🔥 Love Trevor!
Aiden Woodstein
Obsessed with these characters again. Omg. Alex's whole crew have amazing designs.
Danny Nym
Ooh, I like that comparison and can totally see it. I do find Dave Franco pretty damn hot 🥵
Pallus
He kinda looks like dave franco from the neighbors. So into that!!!
E-jay35
Right! He's definitely become my favorite among the side guys, at least visually. Excited to officially meet him in-game. 😊
Danny Nym
Hmm, that's almost like something a certain professor in a certain game might say 🤔😉
John
I'm not surprised, by that. More often than not in writing it's always the the moments or characters or scene that have the more personal touch to them that resonate the most with readers because it makes them feel more real and relatable
Danny Nym
Also, much like Parker, Forte is inspired by someone I know in real life. It's interesting those two characters got more attention than I expected, haha!
Danny Nym
Haha, well the shirt clinging like that was solely a mesh issue and was not meant to do that. He's just supposed to be wearing a normal raglan shirt not like a spandex muscle shirt. But I'm confident we'll get him out of his clothes somehow, some way!
Pallus
Fuck trevor is hot!!!!
John
Um, I want to to many MANY things with Forte! It's fucking stunning! And from his little appearance in the Alex cg, it looks like he's packing too! You've done an incredible job with Trevor's face, in particular you've done really well in making there be clear family resemblance without them looking identical. Like they look like real brothers! My only gripe is that I did like Trevor's hair being a little longer than NC17's, and obviously I liked how tight his clothes were because it made him looked ripped! haha You've introduced so many hot studs this time around! And the girls look like they'll all be quite fun to hang out with too, I look forward to seeing where this leads. Especially with Bastien. Really keen for Bastien haha ;)
Danny Nym
Thanks! Bastien's hair could still change again, we'll see. I always pictured him with darker hair, but it can be difficult to achieve with retextures without it looking gray in places. This hair asset had a really good black hair shader made for it, so I was able to get the look I wanted here. But lighter hair also looked good on him! And I appreciate the kind sentiments. I definitely take some downtime when I need it. It's hard to be creative when you're exhausted!
E-jay35
I'm not usually into thick beards but Forte looks really good, I'm loving his whole vibe. I love that Raven has an affinity with the color pink, especially knowing that she's under the same management as our orange friend. Hannah is so cute and petite. Judging by her description, I'm predicting that she may be a bit of a hindrance to Connor's pursuit of Alex. Antonio is giving the strong silent type, which is definitely my type. Also really love that coat on him. I definitely think Gabriel embodies his name. He looks angelic and a bit devious at the same time. Given his connection to David I'm curious to see how he acts with Isaiah. Isaiah has immensely grown on me these past couple weeks of replaying the game, so I'm really excited for his upcoming storyline. I love Skye's hair and based on her description, I'll probably feel the same about her personality as well. I have to be honest, Bastien is probably going to take some getting used to. Him with darker hair gives a totally different vibe compared to before. Though I'm sure I'll grow to appreciate it with time. Lastly, Trevor while his previous design was my favorite in the last sneak peek, his redesign isn't any worse off. While he gives a different vibe, I love his design just as much as his previous, maybe even slightly more.... Great work as usual! Also make sure to take care of yourself, you've been pumping out such high quality content so frequently. Given that you're working alone, I hope you aren't overworking yourself. I don't think anyone would mind if you took a break every now and then, you more than deserve it for the amazing work you've been doing.
Danny Nym
Thank you!
Jeffrey Cronin
Loved this sneak peek; everyone's designs came out lovely. The new Trevor hair looks fantastic. I cannot wait to see them all in the game.
