3) Thanks for the comments about the art (and yes, hands are hell)...and even more thanks for the comment about the writing
. I am first and foremost a writer, so people enjoying that aspect is my absolute favorite thing to see! As to the art...how does the new piece I added above look to you? I tried to shade the eyes at least a little, but I admit I'm having trouble figuring out a way to do them...
Hmmmm. Thanks! I've been trying to add some eye-shading (both to the eye itself, and the socket around the eye) on new pieces. But I hadn't considered reflection, as I normally don't do a reflected-light step. I technically know how to do so, but decided against it since lighting wouldn't be the same in multiple game locations. I might have to talk to a couple of artist friends and see if they know a way to make more generic light reflections somehow...
Sorry for the late reply, I kept meaning to but forgetting.
So, that art looks further improved from the later stuff in the game. There are still miiinor issues with the hands, mostly with the finger angles, but it does show a pretty good technique for hands: If you're not perfect at them, use the pose to hide things. If I weren't really looking at the hand specifically (Which, I mean, not often you find yourself looking at hands unless you're looking to critique them), I wouldn't notice.
As to the eyes, they're a bit better, but still not that improved. To fully break things down, there are various things to keep in mind:
1. Style. It's definitely a more simple style, but honestly I don't see this as a complaint personally, I can just see someone saying it. The important part isn't really the style (There are several games around which, because they're based on cartoons with a certain style and try to emulate it, have odd or simple children's cartoon eyes), but how you vary things within that style. This one I think you're honestly doing solid at, from vague memories and checking the images on the first post. Some eyes are tilted in different ways, some eyes are wider, narrower, shorter, or taller. As long as you refine that and keep it consistent to each character, you're honestly golden.
2. Emoting. This one, I honestly can't remember for sure how good the game does without playing it, but basically just use the eyes show what the character is feeling. Have them narrow in suspicion and anger, widen in confusion, get half-lidded in lust or sorrow. As with the first, that's not really something I can comment on about the art above, and it's doubly hard to remember from the game thus far, since every character will be different in how much emotion they express, and there's only one character with content in right now.
3. Irises. This is the one you need the most work on. The thing here is don't think of it like shading, think of it like highlighting. It's...honestly one of those things I don't draw enough anymore (nor color at all) to really give too deep a rundown on, but it's also somewhat stylistic. There are functionally two ways to highlight, through white...spots, for a better word, to represent light full on catching on the iris, and by having the bottom half be a brighter color than the top. How exactly these two elements are combined is dependent on style. Most anime, for instance, use more spots, and maaaybe less of the more overall eye highlighting, though that depends. If you search F95 for Bazooka Cafe and check the sample pics there, like that, although I've seen the spots be larger than that, and anime using that more subtlety. Non-cartoony western art generally makes those spots very small and subtle, and focuses more on the overall highlighting of the bottom half of the iris. If you check the sample art on Seeds of Chaos' page, that's a good example. Eyes from comic books too, at least during the period I grew up reading them, though finding that's...a bit harder without buying the comic books. Again, as with point 1, consistency is more important than what route you go in highlighting.
I can't for the life of me remember what goes into deciding where the spot-like highlights go, and several 3D, design-girls games out of Japan I've played just have fifteen thousand different possible locations and sizes for them as options, so for all I know it's basically just, "Hey, use the spots to show characterization" in those cases. The second half is generally easy, though, you just use the same assumptions as you would shading anything else. The lower half of the iris will get more light and thus be brighter because most light comes from above, if they look at something out of the corner of their eyes, the side of the iris toward the corner will get a bit less light and be darker, etc.
Certainly this would change depending on the lighting, but presumably as long as you aren't, say, having the characters be in rooms where all the light is coming from the floor, then you don't really have to worry about the room lighting as much as clothes, because stuff like "The light is coming from above, but could either be coming from slightly to the left or the right" won't matter as much for eyes. For clothes and skin, some of the object will be directly facing the light, which is why exact angle is important.. But unless someone's staring up, the same doesn't really happen for eyes and overhead lighting. And, if you are going to have, say, location where they can go to a club and the only lights will be coming from a crazy lit up dance floor? ...I honestly don't think anyone would complain if the eyes were still highlighted as if the light was coming from above. Sometimes too much attempt to reach realism without, well, realism, can cause issues. (See, uncanny valley.)
Sorry for the post length. It's been years since I've drawn, myself, and it's been longer than that since I had to actually know how...well, any of this, was put into words.
Edit: I'll also note, the "People won't care about specific source and will let things slide if it's wrong" thing does kiiiinda apply to clothes and skin too? VN style games where there's a background and a character image floating in front of it don't really go, "Well, light will be coming from X side in this room, so I should shade it that way." They just pretty much assume the light is always coming from above, because it almost always is, and pick an exact direction (Either side, or directly overhead) for the light to be coming from, and shade everything that way. Specifically thinking, "My light source would be here" and constantly changing the angles of shading only really come into it if you're drawing a full-on scene, where character and background are being drawn together.
