this is the sixth devlog from a series of posts regarding different topics related to talisman of dawn's process. if you have any questions or suggestions of topics, you can say in the comments! thank you. i hope you enjoy this one too.

WARNING: they might have spoilers so be aware!!!

research time! (part III)

behind the scenes, the colors, the patterns, the-

ARTISTIC ENDEAVOURS...

today we'll continue the research topics i started in the previous devlog. in this one, i'll talk about:

- art (gui & bgs)

- other references that i used

NOTE: i'm not a historian nor an iranian. this information was all i could get from the internet (and some books). i digged a lot of sites, watched some videos and read many articles but some of them may not be 100% accurate. i apologize if there's any inconsistency (please let me know so i can correct it in the devlog!!).

(it's him... look at him having fun with his rubber duck...)

IF THE MOUNTAIN WON'T COME TO MOHAMMED...

to be honest the art was one of the hardests parts of this game. ethnicities was hard as hell, but at least it was only a problem AFTER i decided to research. the artistic vision was a problem since day ONE, because i wanted to make something different from my usual (famous last words...)

my initial inspirations were sparse. i was really inspired by the covers of these instrumental albums, and i wanted to make something similar. i've seen it be done in visual novels before, the smaller pannels with a color background, and i felt it would be easier to draw (since there were less things to make). how wrong i was...

well that did NOT work in the first version. i'm thankful for all the lovely comments on it on the demo, but guys i was honestly NOT happy with it. it felt awkward as hell. the first gui was also too big for the game's resolution, making everything look weird. the characters were too big, but they were cut by the gui by half, because it was even bigger. then you had the backgrounds that were much smaller. and it felt like nothing was really proportional.

(every time i looked at the game i wanted to scream...)

when i decided to be serious about the project, i wasn't devastated about making all the assets again. to be honest i was RELIEVED. never been so happy about remaking a whole thing from scratch. even more because i had more time to properly research historically accurate inspirations. i was worried about the gui at first, but i found ari and everything started to go well. i mean, the road was rocky for both of us but we did a good job, imo. it was kind of hard and it took a long time, but i'm really happy with the result. (thanks again, ari!!!)

...THEN MOHAMMED WILL GO TO THE MOUNTAIN

initially, i decided that the gui would be like the album covers previously mentioned. it would decorate the whole screen like a frame, making the backgrounds "naturally" smaller. somehow that idea was thrown away without me or ari noticing lmaoooooo

then when i was researching about khosrow and shirin, i found this picture:

all the manuscripts i've found were beautiful, but this one had a WONDERFUL frame which i fell in love with almost instantly. i was like "this could work!". i loved the blue and golden pair, AND it was historically accurate, AND it was meta -- because the game is about stories. so it would be a story about stories in the format of manuscripts. it was too good to be true, but it was real.

manuscripts like this appeared much later in iran, heavily inspired by muslim culture and aesthetics. but honestly the only aesthetic i found in the persian empire itself was stuff like this:

DUDE I CAN'T WORK WITH THAT!!!!!!! WHERE ARE THE COLORS!!!!!!

i'm sure things were more colorful back then, but it was really hard to find so i just sticked to what i could. hope you like it.

(ah!! so much better!!!)

MINIATURES OF GREAT THINGS

now that the gui issue was solved, i had to think of the backgrounds. i knew i wanted to make something related to manuscripts - i even considered making the characters manuscript-style - but i didnt know how to make it interesting, visually wise. and i STILL did not want to make them take the whole background. it was when i saw a video about modern iranian miniatures, and found nazpainting.

(this one is called "victorious masculinity")

she is an artist that makes modern iranian miniatures about several topics, but mostly about feminist ones. i was so interested that i followed her on instagram and started to look at all her paintings. i started to notice some patterns on how she drew the houses and palaces, and thought i could follow that pattern in my own backgrounds (among other things). that was when i decided i would make the backgrounds inspired by her miniatures.

i also thought that her themes fit tod very well. it is also a feminist story -- about two women breaking free from the expectations of their father and the mold society made for them. i was hit by the rawness of her paintings and also found out about some cool iranian culture facts from her posts. i would check those out, if i were you.

INTRICATE ARTISTRY

one of the things you must have noticed, is that tod's aesthetic is very maximalist. that's a persian thing, too. in the miniatures you see limited palettes, but MANY patterns. i wanted to recreate that, but i couldn't draw all of them all the time, so i used my brains and started making brushes in medibang.

(some of the brushes...)

there are 22 of them in total (considering some variations) and it was the most fun thing to make. i got a little more confident in making my own brushes too.

(look how cool the golden pattern looks......)

SO EXTRA

in my research, i read and watched a lot about iran. from travelling articles to meme videos, i learned all that i could. so i'm leaving these here if any of you are interested:

mairon (portuguese): bro is a really good narrator and his photos are great. thanks for being so detailed in your travelling articles, it was really fun.

encyclopaedia iranica: TBH this site is a bit hard to navigate... and i didnt like reading in it (the information feels too academic and the wHITE BACKGROUND IS TOO MUCH-) but it was really useful to double check some information.

farya faraji: i already mentioned this guy like 300 times in the devlogs!!!!!!!!!! go watch his videos and listen to his music!!!!!!!!

the playlist...: to help me keep track of the videos i've watched for the research, i made this playlist. you can watch it if you're curious! there's a bunch of random stuff there.

there were more sites but some of them i can't find anymore for. some reason? but i hope it's interesting..

and i think this is it. phew. it was a LOT of research... i hope you found these devlogs interesting and hope they inspire you to research too, when you make your things. it's fun, i promise. 

hope you have a good day or night, and see you!