I've been meaning to share some development stuff I do behind the scenes with my past (and current!) visual novels. Today I wanted to share my process for making backgrounds.
Anyone that has played my past vn's know that throughout my current series I go with a black and white color scheme all throughout with the visuals. I did this originally because I handled a majority of the art assets (without much experience in drawing, or image composition) and applied various filters to help make the backgrounds blend with the character models.
The original stock image in color without filters.
With the original stock image, Elle wouldn't blend in well. Not to mention there are some elements I don't want in the background like the dude walking by. With a few filters, and edits however...
Screenshot from Reconnected featuring the final background and Elle standing in front.
Better! This technique is done using the included tools in GIMP. Mainly the oilify filter with certain values. Not only does it stylize the images to blend in with the character models, I can even take low res stock images, bump them up a higher res, apply the filter, and get a nice clean image out of it.
With the filter applied, it also makes the image easier to edit as I usually blot out spots manually with matching colors until I get a background I find presentable.
