Hello everyone,
I’m Olya, lead artist at Twigames and art director on the Hollow Home project – and today I’m taking over this newsletter. I’ll guide you through our approach to art style and show some of the latest developments.
But first, I wanted to say that we’re really pleased with the initial interest in our recently launched Steam page. If you haven’t already done so, don’t forget to wishlist and follow Hollow Home there. Every wishlist motivates us to move forward.
So, who am I?
I’m from Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. At university, I studied environmental design, working on interior, landscape and architecture. I even had a job in this field. But in 2014, finding work in the city became harder, as it was close to the frontline: people hesitated to invest in businesses there, and many of my contracts fell through. However, the demand for graphic design and websites was still high, so I switched. And then switched again, this time to UI artist.
And that’s how I got to Twigames. In 2019, the studio had an open position for a UI designer with good art skills – so we had a match. In the last four years, I worked on lots of fascinating projects, mostly for mobile platforms, but some were for AR/VR, which is an interesting challenge for a UI expert.
I also play acoustic and bass guitar, create fonts and sometimes go to LARP events.
What do I do on Hollow Home?
Hollow Home is a fully in-house project, so I’m taking care of lots of areas: from developing the general art style of the game to working on specific design tasks. I even learned to do 3D and technical art to achieve the style we wanted.
As an art director, I’m in charge of the art pipeline and monitoring that everything meets the requirements, both artistic and technical.
What is the visual style of Hollow Home?
From the very beginning, we understood the limits of our studio. Obviously, we can’t develop an AAA game. So we had to shift the focus, filling the usual environmental forms with expressive visuals.
I was amazed by Alberto Mielgo’s work in Love, Death & Robots and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It felt like a whole new animation style, and I can definitely say that it’s the main source of inspiration for our team – mixed with the environments we grew up in. We tried to imagine our typical Ukrainian surroundings in that visual style. Also, ZA/UM with their unparalleled Disco Elysium gave us confidence and inspiration. If a small studio could create such a unique and stunning visual style, we could do it too.
I started working on Hollow Home’s visuals by doing a few concepts to determine the balance between the art being picturesque and detailed. The first drafts were vivid and pictorial, almost like works of impressionists, but didn’t hold up with the isometric camera view: the textures looked flat and uninteresting. This is how the dots, stripes, and little accents became a part of our art style. They add this feel of a painting to the way the game looks – along with bright spots, broad brush strokes, variety of tones in the same color. Everything works to create a feeling of a city that was lively and nice.
To bring locations to life, we fill them with details, especially the things you often see in Ukraine, like flowerbeds made of tires that are common in the apartment blocks here.
Making characters lively is also a challenge with the isometric camera. It comes down to the exaggeration of the animations a bit, highlighting a person’s temper and age.
The work process explained
The pipeline starts with a request for specific art from game designers. If it is an in-game object, we discuss how it should look, how it will be used and other details. Depending on that, we decide on what color schemes and technical solutions we can use. For example, if it’s an object lying at the location, we have to make it bright and noticeable and test its proportions, so it isn’t too small for the player to see.
After everything is set, I create a task for the artist. And after it’s done, I give feedback and test if the art complies with technical requirements.
What is important for me to accomplish in Hollow Home
For me, the main thing is creating the atmosphere of a city that is not ideal but still dear to Maksym, the protagonist. We’re working hard on homelike and visually appealing locations. I hope our players will love them.
Thank you for reading! We have a few more announcements in the near future, so stay tuned.
And stay safe!
Olya
Twigames