User:Paintsimmon/Storyteller art

This a guide on how to draw in the RimWorld storyteller / "hero art" art style. This is not a definitive guide that must be followed to the letter - think of it as a series of suggestions.

Strong guidelines

These are guidelines that I strongly recommend you to follow when drawing in this style. If you don't follow them, people will tend to notice that your art is different stylistically than the official art.

Realistic proportions

This is probably the most important element. If you give your characters extremely stylized proportions, e.g., large eyes, tiny noses, it will be noticeably different from the official art.

Cel-shading

Cel-shading is a style of rendering that uses hard edges instead of gradients or blended edges. You see it used often in 2D animation. The artwork in RimWorld uses this kind of rendering. That is not to say that there are no soft edges in the art - it is just used very sparingly. You'll want to put soft-edged shadows on places without sharp corners, such as skin or some kinds of folds in fabric.

Additionally, pure black is never used for shadows in this art style. Shadows are not very dark compared to the base color. However, pure white can be used as highlights, but usually only on the eyes.

Linework

The lineart should generally be very thin and fine, so that small details such as the thickness of fabric and sometimes strands of hair are visible (do not draw every strand of hair, however!)

Mid guidelines

These are guidelines that you can follow, but it won't be the most noticeable if you don't follow them.

Sci-fi element(s)

There should be at least one visibly sci-fi element in the character illustration. You can see this with Cassandra's floating recording device, Phoebe's goggles, and Randy's cybernetics. This isn't necessary if your character is supposed to represent something from the past, however, like the Royalty and Ideology DLC characters.

Thick outline

The exterior outline on all of the characters is very thick compared to the interior lines. But it is not that noticeable if excluded, especially if the character is already on a dark background.

Strong backlight

This isn't done on the storytellers, but all the DLC characters have a strong backlight coming from the opposite direction they are facing. It is always light blue in color, but I think you can change the hue if it suits your background.

Weak guidelines

The guidelines are just observations of some elements some of the artwork has in common - you can ignore them.

Hatching

Hatching is drawing a series of parallel lines to indicate shading. This is different from cross-hatching, where the lines can cross each other. Ricardo Tomé did this on his artwork for RimWorld - you can see the darkest areas using hatching instead of an even darker color. Specifically, this occurs under Phoebe's brow ridge and collarbones, some of Randy's fabric folds and facial features, and the Royalty character's cheekbones and neck.

Synthetic eyes

Most of the eyes look synthetic because of an extra ring around the pupil. Whether this is a stylistic choice, or the characters really do have synthetic eyes, I do not know.