Haunted: A Slip Story: The Art
My debut game Haunted: A Slip Story comes out on Monday, 25 October, and I wanted to take some time to discuss the process of creating the art in the game.
As an artist, I tend to work in mixed media. I like mixing watercolor, acrylic, pastel, ink, paper, sculpture, ceramic, frames, digital elements, light, craft supplies, recycled material—whatever makes sense for the vision in my head. Since Haunted is about home haunting and builds on my 23 years of experience building elaborate yard haunts and Halloween props, I figured this was the perfect opportunity to go full speed ahead with my process.
There are four distinct methods I used to create the 89 original images in Haunted.
The cover art and marketing material is all digital design. I had the rights to the bats, moon, and splatter effect. The rest is all text and color choices. I wanted something bold and graphic that teased horror and Halloween at the same time.
The rest has three paths that would sometimes intertwine. If you ever thought that maybe I put too much thought into patterns in my work, you’re probably right. The game also has three narrative branches, so three methods made sense to my brain.
The first was mixed media illustration on watercolor stock. I used a combination of watercolor pencil, watercolor, ink, colored pencil, and pastel on a textured watercolor paper to set down the initial illustrations. I photographed them, cropped/edited them to look just right with the different color stories, and altered them further as necessary with digital art techniques.
The second was photography as a basis for mixed media illustration. 23 years of haunting really paid off here. I took photos of myself in various scenarios described in the game. One shot leading to my attic filled with props from years past; another shot stretching out a roll of chicken wire for some sculpture. I digitally edited them into line art and printed them out.
Then I began painting and illustrating over them with watercolor, colored pencil, pastel, charcoal, and ink. I photographed them again—with or without flash depending on what effect I wanted from the image—and edited them one more time. The consistent colors in the orange, jade, and rouge paths are not a trick of the lighting; I tested out various color palettes among all my supplies I wanted to work with and used the same stock every time I needed to go back and add/alter the originals or new prints of the digital file.
The third was digital mixed media collage. For the final haunt scenes themselves, I needed something grand that really showed off this different styles of the stories and haunts. They all started with watercolor backgrounds on wooden boards that I scanned and set as a background. Then, I went back to the original pumpkin illustrations and layered on more acrylic, ink, watercolor, colored pencil, pastel, and charcoal to turn them into their final form as described in the game. I also created new illustrations on watercolor stock with different media—one focused on pastel pencil, one focused on charcoal, and one focused on watercolor—to add to the final image. I then photographed all these elements, digitally cut them out, and began layering them into the final haunt scenes with additional brushes and effects.
I have to say that I’m incredibly proud of the art style in this game. It is not what I expected to create for a game, but it makes sense for this one. Will future games looks like this? I don’t know. There’s a lot to consider when planning the next one, from art and music to the actual engine I use to create the game. Each of these ideas deserves to feel special, just like I want all my writing to be just the right approach to the topic.
You can experience all of Haunted: A Slip Stream on Monday, 25 October by buying the game at itch.io. The soundtrack and companion short story collection (with six brand new stories inspired by the game) will also be available.
