Black Pines: Chronicles — in development (art direction, backgrounds, diegetic UI)
Black Pines: Chronicles — a solo retro-noir narrative adventure, in development (2025–present). A Donkeytale project.
Everything here is mine: art direction, key art, backgrounds, characters, diegetic UI and the story. Selected frames only — the full art stays under wraps until release.
Three deliberate rendering languages in one world: the main menu is an in-world oil painting (it hangs in the heroine's bedroom), gameplay scenes are illustrative line + colour, and in-world devices get a pencil-sketch overlay. The DynaTech phone is a working UI system in-engine — alarm, tamagotchi, mini-games.
More frames, a process sheet and a short in-engine clip to follow.
Black Pines: Chronicles — solo narrative adventure, in development. A Donkeytale project. Selected frames; full art under wraps until release.
Key art / main menu. Painted as an in-world canvas — the same painting hangs in the heroine's bedroom. Menu = oil painting, gameplay = illustrative, devices = sketch overlay.
Location — bedroom. Illustrative style for gameplay scenes; palette, props and set dressing carry the retro-noir mood.
Location + character — kitchen, Dad. Line + flat colour with soft light; the sea and the fort outside the window anchor the town.
Diegetic UI — the in-world DynaTech phone. Sketch overlay on the device, dot-matrix screen. Alarm screen.
Diegetic UI — the same phone runs a tamagotchi and mini-games, fully functional in-engine.