We are one of the two groups that gets to work with streamer and cosplayer Desca. Our task was to create a little game that would make her streams more engaging and keep the attention of her viewers.

We sat with our group and began thinking about existing examples we could use. We came up with research topics to make this easier and break up all the possibilities we had. I got the topic of existing Twitch integrated games, which I made a document of. Find the PDF here.

We decided on a Tamagotchi-styled game. Tamagotchi's are virtual pets that can be taken care of in various ways. This sounded good to us for a number of reasons:
- it's chill, taking not too much attention away from the stream - it has a lot of fun opportunities for cosmetics and such - it allows the viewers to create an attachment to the streams, making them want to come back. (is that a little parasocial? possibly. but that's not our problem)

Following this, I created a few sketches of possibilities and what it could look like. For the character, we decided to go with Calcifer from Howl's Moving Castle. This character has a strong meaning and story in the Desca lore, cartoony, and simple to draw. (mostly. more on that later)

We then had a meeting with Desca where we discussed our work so far. This included asking questions about her own ideas, followed by our proposal of the Tamagotchi concept. My groupmate made a transcript of it.

After deciding to stick with the Tamagotchi idea, we began focusing on the upcoming poster showcase. This will be where we present ourselves publicly for the very first time, so I strived to make a fun design. I began brainstorming about how our poster could stand out from the rest. I immediately thought of the phrase "thinking outside the box" where we don't follow the standard A2 paper size.

I quickly sketched my vision. The loose "patches" represent both our studio's name and Calcifer's embers, flying up into the air.

Though I liked the aforementioned idea, I also realized it could be a bit difficult to realize. So, I began sketching out slightly more detailed designs, all with small descriptions on the side. I aimed to catch the viewer's attention with fun visuals and bold letters.

I took the two ideas that my group liked the most and created proper sketches out of them. They're still uncolored, but they should get the idea across even in grayscale.

Otherwise, I don't believe the design is strong enough. Artist mindset :p

My teammate requested small changes, such as the chat being added in the background, which I tried. Even though I like my ideas, and my teacher also liked them, they were not chosen for the final design.

My groupmate's design was continued with, and I created drawn assets for it. Like with any art, I began sketching and waited for a confirmation from my groupmate, the one I am creating the poster with and whose idea we continued on.

Halfway through coloring the assets, I realized it would be better to see a mockup so I can make sure the colors look fine in relation to whatever is around it. Here is what it roughly would have looked like.

I finalized the assets so they could be properly used on the poster. I used only very light, minimal shading. I felt like a lot of shading would clash with the fresh, colorful vibe we generally have going on. Also, our the finalized widget won't look super detailed anyway, so I'd rather not cause confusion over the different styles.

After the design was done, the other poster designer didn't like the outcome. So, I made up one new simple poster idea, which was dropped immediately as well.

After the poster showcase, we focused on creating the actual project. For this, me and my groupmate began learning how to animate fire. I struggled a lot, because I never animated fire before, but I was determined to learn.

The third gif shows my idea of a transformation, where it loses fuel.

I used this tutorial as my main example. I tried to recreate the bubble-trick mainly. I like the style of it, and it seemed like one of the better and simpler tutorials to follow.

But, to be honest, even after finishing the tests and practices, I don't feel confident in animating it. And so, I left the fire animation to my groupmate and did expressions, cosmetics and helped with coloring.

Some people know I love decorating. And so, I got to work on the cosmetics.
The idea is to make the cosmetics reflect Desca's community or simply celebratory events, like New Years or a birthday.

I took my groupmate's Calcifer drawing and drew accessories on it. I picked a blue color so it stands out, but made sure to not make it too vibrant and eyestraining.

Since I would be coloring the chemical reactions, I set out to find information on different colored flames - what chemical would be needed and such.
I chose some of my favorite ones while trying not to have duplicate colors. I also made sure to check if the reaction was even possible and if there was a powdered form of the chemical, so that it makes a little sense.

After I established the chemical colors, I received the line art for Calcifer's idle animation. I colored it in and added a cute face. The face wiggles around a bit to make the character come to life. And, as suggested by my teammate, I created a "look around" expression to break things up a bit.

Once the idles were colored, I drew two of the cosmetic ideas and stuck them on the foreground layer of the idle animation. Personally, I think they look pretty cute. I showed it off to a few people and they were all enthusiastic about it.

During another meeting with Desca, we were able to show off some of the art. She liked it a lot and couldn't get over how cute she found it. Here is an excerpt of a transcript of that meeting:

Next up was a big task - coloring the chemical reactions and making expressions for it. I received the line art and imported it into my drawing program. Then, I colored the entire animation in the same colors and added a face, no color changes yet. However, this gives me a nice base to work with.

To ensure consistency, I copied the face from the earlier made idle animation.

I took a moment to think about the most efficient way to color all those frames. I then realized I could use gradient maps to speed up the process. I created gradient maps by colorpicking from the earlier designs and applied those for the chemical reaction part.

At first, it was just a normal gradient. But my teammate told me some advice she got from a teacher with animation knowledge, so I applied that.
Personally I don't think it makes that much of a difference, even though I theoretically know that it should.

Anyway, after the first reaction was colored, I was ready to color the rest of the chemical reactions. It was quite a brain numbing experience, but a positive one nonetheless.

As I was finishing up the chemical reaction gifs, my teammate finished lining the animations where the reaction wears out and Calcifer returns to normal.
Since I already had experience with coloring the chemical reaction animations, this was absolutely no problem, and I quite like how the colors turned out.
Of course, I also did the expressions for this one.