Digital Art Book

Publisher Game Art Art Book Graphic Design

Paradox Interactive Jarno Kantelinen Juha-Matti Pulkkinen
Tarkko Oikkonen Ville Konttinen
Developer Ville Konttinen
Kyy Games Juha-Matti Pulkkinen

Knights of Pen & Paper 2 © 2015 Paradox Interactive. The typeface used in this book is Curse Casual by Jayvee D. Enaguas, licensed under Creative Commons CC-BY-SA. 3.0.
FOREWORD

I have always wanted to make a role-playing game, but the sheer amount of work they require
can be something of a roadblock for smaller development teams. In that sense, getting to work
on Knights of Pen & Paper 2 has been a dream come true, and not only for me, but for the whole
team behind it.

From start to finish, our office has been filled with old stories of favorite role-playing
moments and pop culture nostalgia. For the artists in particular, the project offered a rare
opportunity. Few other game worlds are as open to quirky ideas, after all.

In this digital art book, we've collected game art and stories behind them. This game has been
a lot of fun to work with and we’re hoping that it shows in the art as well.

Yours sincerely,

Juha-Matti Pulkkinen
Producer, Kyy Games
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 1
GAME WORLD
WORLD MAP
A lot of effort went into finding the
best art style for the world map.
The initial version was simple and
angular reminiscent of many an
8-bit game. After finding the right
style and colors, finishing the map
turned out to be more work than
was initially estimated. Making
systematic pixel art on a very large
canvas ultimately required the
combined forces of three artists.
As such, this is the only truly
collaborative art asset in the game.

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LOCATION ART #1

All locations had to have empty space in the middle to fit up to seven monsters. As screen orientation and resolutions vary widely between mobile
devices, the middle space was the only part that showed on all combinations. The PC environment is much more uniform in this regard.

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LOCATION ART #2

In the original game, dungeon backgrounds contained changing elements that varied from room to room. In the sequel, we extended this feature
to most locations.

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 2
CHARACTERS
CHARACTER DESIGN
Early on in the project, we locked in on the
idea of making the player characters a
bunch of high schoolers. While this
approach plays with recognizable
stereotypes, we ourselves felt victims to
them. We ended up adding in more diversity,
especially regarding skin tones and
genders.
Jock Cheerleader Lab Rat Surfer Bookworm

Goth Exchange Student Rocker Rich Kid Hipster Dungeon Master

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CHARACTER COMBINATIONS

With a higher pixel

definition, the characters
began to need more visual
distinction from each
other. This was most
strongly achieved by giving
them individual hair
shapes, which in turn made
it more difficult to work
with the class hats.

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NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS

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 3
MONSTERS
TARASQUE
From very early on, it was clear that we wanted to start the game
with an epic action scene. We set up a fight against one of the most
iconic monsters, the practically undefeatable Tarasque. His full
screen size combined with his gentle nature was endearing to
everyone so we ended up adding in more scenes with him.

Tarasque changed its color during production, going from brown to

teal for a more unique look.

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MONSTERS #1

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MONSTERS #2

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MONSTERS #3
The letter monsters are a shoutout to
roguelike games from the past. Keeping
true to the spirit of Knights of Pen &
Paper, they were adapted to the game in a
twisted way.

Creatures such as Display Beast,

Bee-Holder, Snow Golem, Fowlbear and
Vowelrine gave us ample opportunity to
bring beloved classics into new and
humorous territory.

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MONSTERS #4

We designed four monster size categories, which defines

how many of them can fit in a single battle: Up to seven
mediums, five large, three extra large or one full screen
monster.

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MONSTER ANIMATIONS

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

Most of the character animations in the game are drawn

like this. Using only a couple of different animation frames
really adds to the retro look and feel of the game. Of
course, some of the more peculiar monsters required more
animation frames to effectively convey their movement.

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 4
ITEMS
ENCHANTED EQUIPMENT

Drawing items was a pretty standard procedure to which all artists

contributed. The game's enchanting system required unique assets
for each enchantment level for each basic weapon, shield and
armor.

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ITEM ART #1

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ITEM ART #2

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 5
ART STYLE
FIRST DRAFT

The first game image pitched to Paradox Interactive shows an upgrade of the graphic definition from the original game, but the art style wasn’t
quite there yet.

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FINDING THE ART STYLE

We briefly considered a more cartoonish

art style as well, but decided to go with
pixel art in the spirit of the original game.
The pixel art itself took relatively few
iterations to get right, although we
constantly had to remind ourselves to
skyrocket the saturation levels.
Orc Skeleton

Prom Queen Owlbear Vampirella

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MORE PIXELS

The decision to move from 8-bit aesthetics

onto something closer to 16-bits was a
shared vision between everyone involved.

Knights of Pen & Paper Knights of Pen & Paper 2

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ORIGINAL ZEROTH ART

The area of Zeroth represents the Game Master’s early creations. With locations such as Paint Art Village, we played with the idea of letting
non-artist team members make the art. This deliciously authentic approach backfired as the departure in art style simply didn't feel right.

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SKILL ICONS AND EFFECTS

Coming up with skills was a fun part in

making the game. As the skill icons are
small and use very limited palettes,
drawing them was a lot like solving
puzzles. Simplification and focusing on the
silhouettes usually did the trick.

With skill and other visual effects, we

allowed the use of more frames than with
any other animation type.

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MAKING THE ART

All of our artists use either a digital

drawing display or tablet. However, as
pixel art is done in a zoomed-in mode, a
good old mouse is a perfectly viable tool
as well.

We tend to start pixel art by blocking in an outline with few colors. As the basic shapes start to form, we add in more details and tones. However,
care is taken not to blend in the colors too much to retain that lively pixel art look.

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Thank You!