Art Direction

Chosen style: stylized 3D JRPG, soft cel shading Open page

Chunky, toy-like 3D forms with hand-painted textures, soft cel shading, a gentle rim light and a little bloom, under warm daylight. It won over a softer hand-painted look and a storybook gouache look for one reason: it is what the game can actually be. Meshy produces exactly this kind of model, and URP can render it on a phone.

The style anchor. Every Midjourney prompt points at this image with --sref, so new concepts stay in one family.

Rules for a phone screen:

• Silhouette first. Big, simple masses and few thin parts. A creature must read as a shape at thumbnail size before any detail does.
• Upper middle is the stage. The thumbs cover the bottom corners in landscape, so enemies and spell impacts sit in the upper middle, and arenas keep that area open.
• Light separates. A warm key light and a cool rim keep characters off the background without outlines.
• Glow means magic. Only spells, glyphs and the golem's chest sigil emit light. Everything else is matte.
• Budget. Creatures around 10–20k triangles, one 2K PBR texture set.

The two sides Open page

The divide in the drawing system (mirrored strokes vs. independent strokes) is the divide in the art: one side is a reflection, the other a broken mirror. Both are beautiful; neither is drawn as evil.

The Evane: the mirror

• Shape language: bilateral symmetry around a vertical axis. Arches, circles, paired columns, pairs of figures mirroring each other. Clean edges and calm, centred compositions.
• Palette: pale stone and silver: marble white #FBF8F2, ivory #F4EBD9, cool silver-grey #9AA3AD, sky #8EC5E8. Each faction's glyphs glow in its own colour, taken from the spell data (Story Bible §2): Wardens pale blue #7FD4FF (Repel), Tenders violet #B48CFF (Coil), Waymakers pale green #9CFFB0 (Gale).
• Magic: light in matched pairs, in the casting faction's colour. Glyphs appear twice, mirrored, and bursts are symmetrical. The first concepts lean white-gold; later prompts should name the faction colour instead.

The Facets (the Shattered): the broken mirror

• Shape language: asymmetry and fracture. Jagged shards and triangles, off-centre compositions, every piece angled its own way. Mismatched armour: one shoulder plated, one arm bare.
• Palette: salvaged mirror-glass and amber light (Story Bible §2): dark slate #2B3140 as the ground, amber #FFC66B (Facet Seal, the Facet colour) as the light, with a thin prismatic edge (teal #2EC4B6, violet #7B4FD8) where light breaks through a shard.
• Magic: sunlight bent through cut glass: amber light and crystal, with prismatic sparkle as an accent. Two different shapes meeting, never a mirrored pair. The first concepts lean teal/magenta; later prompts should lead with amber.

The unaligned world

Villages, fields and roads belong to neither side: meadow green #7FA650, earth brown #A9744A, thatch and timber. The protagonist dresses in these earth tones. The mentor's coat carries half of each emblem, a white-gold sigil and a broken shard, stitched together.

Characters Open page

The protagonist, both versions: homespun linen, a long scarf that will read well in motion, patched boots. The only magic on them is the pair of mirrored glyphs in their hands, the Repel they cast by accident.

The mentor: tired but kind, a plain staff instead of a wizard's one, the half-and-half emblem on the coat.

Training Golem (first enemy) Open page

A practice golem built by the village: pale stone blocks lashed to training-dummy planks with rope and iron. Top-heavy, with huge fists, a tiny head and short legs, so it reads as a 3D creature even at small size. The glowing glyph on its chest is the one point of light and doubles as the natural aim point. This front view is the input image for the 3D model.

The 3D model

Built in Meshy from the front view above: 15,435 triangles, a 2K PBR texture set, rigged on a 24-bone humanoid skeleton at 2.4 m tall (it towers over the player). Six animation clips: idle, a two-fisted punch, hit reaction, a long stagger for Repel, death, and a slow heavy walk.

Still to do in Unity: a URP material from the PBR maps and an emissive mask so the chest glyph glows, since Meshy doesn't produce one. Files and settings: Assets/Art/Models/TrainingGolem/ and the Meshy section of Art/README.md.

Places Open page

The battle arena: a round training ground with a faint mirrored glyph in the paving, low ruined arches and practice posts. The far side stays low and open, so the enemy stands in the upper middle against sky and distant hills.

The faux-3D overworld: a steep top-down camera over a miniature diorama, with tilt-shift blur at the edges. Landmarks (shrine, bridge, village) are chunky and toy-like so they read at a glance.

Spells Open page

Each effect echoes the shape the player draws, so a cast teaches its own glyph.

Repel (Evane, mirrored L): a pair of white-gold L glyphs flash, then a curved shockwave wall shoves the target back with a ring of dust.

Coil (Evane, mirrored S): two white-gold and sky-blue ribbons wind into one heavy spiral and slam down. The heaviest-looking of the four, to match the heaviest hit.

Gale (Evane, parallel peaks): twin peak glyphs side by side, then crescent wind blades and leaves. Pale green marks wind; the glyphs stay in Evane white-gold light.

Facet Seal (Facets, circle + square): a circle and a square, deliberately different, fuse into a jagged prismatic shield that a blow glances off.

Where the files are Open page

• Curated concepts: Art/Concepts/<subject>/ (outside Assets/, so they never ship in a build).
• Prompts and Meshy settings: Art/README.md.
• Golem model: Assets/Art/Models/TrainingGolem/.
• Every generation: Midjourney, group Velan › Concepts.