Introduction

For our first prototype we have to make a cookie clicker like, mostly because it is pretty easy to get down and a good starting project to get you down to the basics, with that said I made some art for it so it atleast looks different and because it was fun to make this cute art.

Inspiration

My inspiration for the art was from slime rancher, the simple and chibi design of the game was basically perfect for my needs so with a few minor changes it got it to a point where it looks unique but also keeps the wanted themes from slime rancher.

This is the base I used for the main slime, you can likely see the parallels between them both with them side by side

Much like the Oni Character I used around about the same process for these as that is the process I use for my art, it works and gives good results so that is why they are the same.

Outlining

Okay so since we have a base I want to outline the parts I want and then change the parts I want to change, I do this with a blue brush as it sticks out compared to black, it is less obvious why here but in other bases, trust me it is a life saver (don’t use blue over a blue image just change it to a color it doesn’t use, quick tip and fix for a hole I saw in the technique there).

Okay so as you can see I kept the shape and shading, changes the face arrangement to help look more unique and done, it is a pretty simple design so there isn’t much to comment on honestly.

Filling/Coloring

Okay so once we have our outline we need to fill it with color, I just got a green and from that changed the brightness of it to get a lighter or darker shade of it when needed. This makes gaps between where the lines are but we fix that in the next step

Okay so after the middle I realised that much outer space will look out of place so I just outlined the outside of it with the lighter green so it doesn’t look as weird, making this

And yes I went over the lines but this means I don’t have to fix them later, you can definitely see how much better that looks when looking at where it would have been with the outline so I’m happy I ignored that part of it.

I then got rid of the line art layer and just filled the empty space with the bucket tool, this works as this art doesn’ need shading as it will just look too detailed for the chibi style I am going for, so yeah this is the button done, well half of it.

Button Second Graphic

Okay so I wanted the button to actually do something when pressed so it had abit more character to it, it was pretty easy as I was just altering the button abit to look clicked, as I describe below:

Okay so firstly I used the transform tool to squish and widen the slime abit as if they were pressed down, also because the shape changing will get the player’s attention more than if it was just a face change

Then you can basically just read the images, I covered the original face and just drew a face that basically says “My face is being pressed”, it is also a lot cuter which I wanted as I call the clicking booping later on to go with the cutesy style.

Mage Hand

Okay so next I needed a auto clicker replacement, and since I was looking into Dungeons and Dragons alot recently and it goes with the fantasy style I used that, it was pretty easy as you can guess making a blue hand would be so here is how I made it:

Okay so firstly I like most starting artist can’t draw hands for the life of me, so I grabbed a hand base, I’m going to be using the top one for context

I then outlined over it, changing it a tiny bit at the end to give it more of that magic phantom look with the bits floating off it and hand not being just a clean end on the wrist

To show the color better I just gave you the end product, I basically got a light blue, turned the alpha (fancy for how much it will cover stuff (so 100% completely covers, 50% applies half to the area)) to 70% to further give that magic phantom look, then just added a few more of those floating bits, filled in the spaces caused by the lines and done.

Slime Cauldron

I then wanted an upgrade to give it abit more flavour, I was originally going to do a witch but I didn’t want to just replace the grandma with a fantasy grandma, so I thought how else are slimes made? Well they are basically walking slime, how do you make slime? Mixing, what was most magic stuff mixed in fantasy? A cauldron, hence how the slime cauldron was born and to making it I just got a cauldron and make a smaller slime in it from scratch as I already knew what the full slime looked like.

Base

Just like I needed, a simple cauldron, even with a green bubbling mixture in it, yes it is water marked but that doesn’t really affected how it can be used as a base so it doesn’t affect my technique at all thankfully.

I then outlined it, I also added the slime in the middle while I was at it as I needed to at some point anyways, I also ignored the bubbles as I felt they gave a more reactive feel and slimes are more squish than energetic like you would expect from a bubbling liquid.

I then filled in the spaces like always, the bottom being filled with my dark purple which I lowered the alpha on as it is supposed to be shading so not just a block of purple

Then I removed the lineart and filled in the gaps as again this style doesn’t need shading so filling in does it good enough, then yeah just like that the slime cauldron is also done, this art style is simple so the creation is also simple which was very nice for the first project as I was getting used to this new work balance.

Background

You may be asking yourself how this could be the background, and that is because it isn’t, it was originally going to be the icon I used to show how much slime you have, so number then this, but it was too ambitious so I scrapped the idea. However I still wanted to use this art and needed a background, hence how you can see how the two connect now.

Like everything else in this blog I outlined it (without a base as I knew what shape I wanted), gave it the slime’s colors and a smaller face lastly I filled in the gaps left by the lineart, I didn’t want to bore you with more explaining of the steps we know by now, especially for the simple art this is, and good news, it gets simpler for the background itself.

As you can probably tell, all this is that image put over a darker green background to make the background, I got the inspiration from the Bugsnax loading screen which you can probably see if you know it. And yeah that is literally all there is to it

Conclusion

That is all the art I used in the base game and I’m very happy how it turned out, I feel the style was very consistent and the simple theme goes well with the simple game, since there is no point trying to glorify a clicking game as literally all you do is click. I will likely use this style in the future if the game calls for it as I really enjoyed using it for the simple process but with great results. If I was to change anything I would have done more art for the base game, however I didn’t have time for it really as I was too busy still getting to grips with the programming, I might come back to it and you probably know if I did from another blog post, so if so, see you there ^^