#stylizedart

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The heat still refuses to go away...

While walking around, I saw a slogan that basically said:

"Beat the heat!" ☀️⚡

It sounded inspiring for a moment.

Then I thought about it a little longer...

And honestly?

I don't think we're winning this fight. 😵💦

At this point, cold drinks, air conditioning, and strategic retreats seem like the smarter plan. 🧊🥤

This week has been a bit of a slow one because I had to get my proposal presentation sorted. It was online and actually pretty useful—getting feedback from Brian and Ady really made me stop and think about the project's scope and how I’m going to present everything.

The main thing I’ve been dwelling on is accessibility. Since this is an interactive portfolio, it clicked that employers won't want to spend time downloading an .exe file just to look at it; they want ease of access. Brian mentioned making it a web-based app, and since Unreal doesn't really do that well, I’ve been looking into switching to Unity. I’m already really familiar with its UI and systems, so that part is fine, but it’s a bit annoying to lose the speed I’d get from using Blueprints in Unreal. I’ll need to do more research into this, but a pivot feels like the right move.

I’ve also been prototyping the UI. I’m currently leaning toward the layout in 1 because it’s clean, though I’m still figuring out how to combine that with the features in 2 and 3. Honestly, I’m having a hard time deciding if I should keep the explode view, it’s tough to tell how that'll function or look in 2D, and I'm worried about it being readable. It’ll probably need some actual user testing later on, so I might need to add that to my ethics and accessibility research. I also can't really decide on the UI theme yet until I’ve got the character design locked in, so for now, I'm just sticking with placeholders.

On the art side, I’ve been teaching myself hand painterly texturing. I’m going for a Stylised PBR approach (kind of like Wayfinder) where I use a modern PBR pipeline to get that illustrative, hand-painted look that still reacts to lighting. It’s been a challenge because I haven’t really worked this way before, but I’m enjoying the process. You can see my first attempts at a wood and metal study in the images below:

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The weather has been absolutely insane lately...

So I ended up making this. 😵

It's too hot. WAY too hot.

At this point, it feels less like summer and more like a form of torture. ☀️☠️

Please send cold drinks. And maybe a portable air conditioner. 🧊🥤

Testing out some stylized character concepts today.

Straight out of a fever dream. 🌪️ One of my favorite things about working with AI is how it handles abstract concepts and surreal lighting. It takes a spark of an idea and blows it up into something completely unexpected. Love Chubby Girls

For some reason… I ended up making a speaker bot 🔊🤖

Also, riding it is not recommended for safety reasons ⚠️😇