By Mari Kaeyari
Hey guys, Mari Kaeyari here! I am the artist who did the BGs, miscellaneous assets and the polishing of the UI needed for Nozomu School Daze. I am preferably a character focused artist and have only done a handful of BGs for VN GameJams (Sealed with a Kiss 2025, Otome Jam 2025). I wanted to write a devlog outlining my approach to BGs while at the same time encouraging those that might want to eventually learn and want to do BGs themselves for VNs. I am someone who never would have thought I would have become a ‘background artist’ and subsequently get locked into BG jail with every VN project I have participated in so far 🤣.
Don’t get me wrong though, I do love doing BGs, but I love drawing hot anime boys more - what can I say.
I started learning how to do BGs in November 2024, a friend of mine was hosting weekly timed environment study sessions where we would paint BGs in 5 - 15 - 30 min increments, just like doing gesture drawing but for environments! I did not really know what I was doing, but the biggest thing that helped me was zooming out to look at the big picture and then have three separate layers to paint on - one for the background, one for the midground, and one for the foreground. It is really important to separate these elements to give depth while also paying attention to values of your overall piece so that distinction is made with shapes and people’s brains can automatically fill in the gaps.
I do recommend doing timed environments, may they be studying another artist's work, real life photos, or even movie scenes. I started with very nature-like BGs which I adore to draw because nature is imperfect and you can wing a lot of it. Another tip is just paint shapes, when you’re starting I don’t recommend wasting time with lineart when you’re doing timed environments.
I also recommend trying to find a group of people you want to improve your BG skills with. There is nothing better than friends keeping each other motivated! Every year in April there is an event called Plien Airpril hosted by Warrior Painters and it is a great event to be a part of to increase your visual library and learn how to become comfortable with the uncomfortable! Another thing I tell myself is ‘shut up and paint’! No use in overthinking and you can always make things better. What do people say, make it exist first then make it good or something? Hahaha.
Anyways sorry for my long-winded introduction, let’s talk about Nozomu School Daze.
Nozomu School Daze takes place in the Port of Rabban. This is DaCeroNine’s universe and all of his original characters. DaCeroNine actually has a whole comic dedicated to his characters, and somehow I was able to convince him to let us use his universe to make an otome game haha!
Cero being an artist himself already had references and ideas for the BG scenarios. He sketched some elements he wanted me to include in the final product so I did my best to keep true to certain elements and convert the BGs into a format that would work in a VN.
Sari’s Room sketch by DaCeroNine
When creating BGs for VNs, it’s important to try to translate the elements properly into a scene where you keep in mind the perspective of the sprites and the vanishing point. Vanishing points in VNs tend to be a lot higher than a middle horizon line - typically at the level of the eyes of sprites due to the format and the text box hiding a larger portion of the scene.
An aerial view of the William Delbert University for Nobles for by DaCeroNine.
DaCeroNine was kind enough to give me some extra information so I was able to have a better idea of his vision with sketches and maps. While this information is not particularly important for the player to know in a VN - it really helped me figure out what elements to focus on, may it be adding or omitting.
I had 9 BGs that I needed to do for the game. I have another one that is pending, but it was not necessary for the demo & gamejam. I had to do: Sari’s Room, City Streets, Port-Side Route, Main Entrance of the University, Alleyway of the University, Exam Room, Exam Room Destroyed, Julius’s Garden, and Forest.
Prior to this, I had not done very many indoor/building BGs, but I stuck with a simple one point perspective for most of them! I figured that it was better to be simple, than struggle and possibly have the perspective looking noticeably incorrect. With the portside, I kind of winged the perspective, but there’s a point to where I was just hoping no one noticed since I kind of free-handed it hahaha!
Perspective grid WIPs of Sari’s Room, City Streets, Exam Room and Portside
For all of my backgrounds that included buildings or that were indoors I did lineart for them, it does take a little bit longer doing lineart, but I wanted my linework to be consistent with the perspective! It made it easier to edit the base colors and adjust them as well with all the elements being separated since I did not exactly know what color theme I wanted to keep throughout the BGs. It also allowed me to color the lineart easier and not have to paint over as much.
Progress WIPs from sketch, lineart, base color to render of Sari’s Room.
Sari’s Room was a lot less guessing for me because DaCeroNine drew that outline with colors already there. When rendering BGs, I tend to use a lot of clipping masks for each element and mess with the layer style and opacity. I add texture through free assets websites (I used texturelabs.org) for wood, stone etc. and brushes that give a big wash aesthetic for things like walls while using a soft opacity brush for rendering most elements. For foliage I use Luc’s brushes which you can find on his course on Coloso. Once all the base things are rendered, I use multiply layers and use overlay/lighting layers to add shadows and light to the entire scene. I think throughout all of the BGs in Nozomu School Daze I used a washed out grey blue for most shadows to offset the warm colors and help create depth. Throughout I also utilized a black & white filter to make sure my elements were distinct enough in value so it would not blend together.
Progress WIPs from sketch, lineart, base color to render of University Alleyway.
All of these BGs that had building elements or aspects took me around 4-5 hours to do. The Forest BG took me like 2 hours to finish.I really enjoy painting nature because it’s so much faster and freeing haha! The Forest BG literally just started as blobs and then I was just layering different colors, trying to make the elements separate from each other and have enough contrast to stand out.
Forest BG start to finish.
I think the Garden BG took me the longest around 7-8 hours due to the detailing on that. DaCeroNine gave a lot of helpful images on the garden BG though! When elements are very complex or elegant it naturally takes a longer time with detail work - but man I am just so thankful DaCeroNine helped me out with the framework for this one.
The general landscape of the garden area by DaCeroNine.
DaCeroNine requested the background to be oriented in a way that we could zoom in to show Julius closer and give the feeling of sitting at the table with him. There were two versions of this BG, with the table and without to give that effect.
DaCeroNine’s vision of the garden vs. my iteration.
There were a few BGs that were slightly modified throughout to give some sort of transitional effect as well. Sari’s room starts with her uniform on the wall, but there’s a version without it that shows it disappear when she changes for school. There are also four different exam room variations to show the progressive damage the boys create when fighting in the school.
Exam room variations throughout the battle scene.
Anyways, I think that’s about all I have to share about the thought process behind the BG creation for Nozomu School Daze! I hope whoever plays enjoys the universe of DaCeroNine and all the love we have put into this game! Thanks for reading and we will catch you in the next Devlog!
💕 Mari Kaeyari