Blakestone HD textures sneak peak

Recap

I have been working on remastering the textures from Blakestone on and off for several years now, initially dumping and light upscaling them for ease of redesign. From there, I started hand drawing over the old textures adding detail and transforming a blurry pixel-y mess into what you see below.

A key goal is to maintain the spirit of the original pixel art and only add detail that enhances or complements the composition.

The human NPCs are a pain in my rear

Some of the images, such as above, are fairly straightforward and are easy to interpret for the new design. However, some of them aren’t the greatest in the original format or so low resolution that they require more creative effort to bring to life. The scientist’s face, for example, was a blobby mess that lacked defined detail in key places. I had to envision what the new one would look like and that too a lot of back and forth experimenting to get the vibe I wanted.

Setbacks

I do most of my work on my IPAD. I somehow corrupted a couple of my sprite sheets that I had already completed (but like a dummy hadn’t exported yet). That was about 150 completed textures (several of the monsters) of the thousand or so I’m redoing. It was a brutal motivation killer. I had to put the project aside for a while till the pain of it faded and I regained motivation.

Now

As with the TES Arena Depixelization Project (ADP), I’m slowing picking steam back up. I am also long overdue for a few sneak peaks. Please note, that these are still alpha. The combination of trying to keep the same shape and vibe of the amateurish looking originals and the fact that my versions are drawn on the IPAD “look” may seem slightly not ready for primetime (i.e., like a kids notebook drawings) but I have some post drawing steps to take to up the quality some more.

SIDE NOTE: Some of these monsters are incredibly terribly designed. I wanted to change a few because of how childish they looked but decided to stick to the original version. So the goofy monsters are still goofy.

Progress

I have quite a bit done, most monsters have been completed or final designed. The initial security NPC is done, the scientist is 1/2 the way complete, but the other three are still pending. All miscellanceous textures are complete. The walls will be last but are the least difficult to fix.

Enjoy

Martin