slaen
LightNews LightNews
banner
feigndev.bsky.social
slaen
@feigndev.bsky.social
83 followers 130 following 110 posts
NSFW artist and game developer. Currently making Feign an open world fantasy crpg for adults.

www.patreon.com/slaen
Expect bugs, jank, and placeholder assets! I'm a solo indie dev and things take time but I'm moving as fast as I can.
Posts Replies Media Videos
feigndev.bsky.social
Don't you hate when marketing shots rely too heavily on things like depth of field, crepuscular rays, visual fx, and impossible camera angles? 🤐
Screenshot with lots of bloom, visual effects, and depth of field. Showing in the foreground the torso of a female adventurer in armor holding a sword. And facing her, mid attack swing, is a purple slime girl.
November 26, 2025 at 3:44 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
Someday I'm going to actually animate that chicken.
November 24, 2025 at 8:09 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
Some frog dude animations
(let's see how the gif compression treats me)
November 24, 2025 at 1:05 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
Started posting on twitter again to do marketing for the upcoming build.

Grumpy now
November 23, 2025 at 9:22 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
Not sure what level of material control there is in VrChat? I think that's all in Unity? Here's the math and nodes from inside of Unreal which should mostly carry over.

And Ben Cloward has a bunch of great resources
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFyZ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=q62C...

Hope that helps!
Screenshot of the material editor inside of UE5 showing a node graph for a spiral material. It's controlling and warping a sine wave's UVs by time and feeding into the emissive color channel to create the spiral. Hopefully the image compression isn't too much so this is still readable.
November 4, 2025 at 3:02 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
Making the pickup mesh for the slime hood and 🤔 I'm tempted to rig and animate this by itself now. Maybe slimeball NPCs?

lol #indiedev #gameart #UE5 #gamedev
UE5 viewport screengrab showing a pink shiny sphere with very glossy plump purple lips from 3 different angles. It's in one of the test maps with a default generic sky and green grass plane in the background.
February 26, 2025 at 2:27 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
Needed a quick break from environment work and made this slime hood. When I get the time I'll connect it into a status effect or cursed item that will trigger from a slime's attack scene.

#indiedev #gameart #UE5 #gamedev
UE5 screenshot of a player in a chainmail bikini, leather gloves, and a sword on their back, with a pink slime hood on their head. They're standing in a test level - a plane with a generic repeating grass texture and sort of a gray blue cloudy sky.
February 17, 2025 at 4:38 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
...and that's the last story critical room I need to light for the next build!

#indiedev #gameart #UE5 #gamedev
UE5 viewport screengrab. Another dimly lit cave. This time there's a rough path, almost stair like ascending in the center of the image. This path is lit by a couple of torches and wooden spikes. The top of the path isn't visible, blocked by a stone pillar but an ominous orange glow leads the player's eye to that goal. A few imps stand in tpose throughout the scene to give a sense of scale.
February 8, 2025 at 11:00 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
Even more lighting work!
One of these days I need to do actual models and textures for all the props 😅 and some actual VFX work on the fire too.
Time to light the next room!

#indiedev #gameart #UE5 #gamedev
UE5 viewport screengrab of the same imp cave interior I've been working on for the last few weeks. This room is the kitchen / cooking area for the imps. Along the walls there's a lot of clutter of barrels, crates, tables, wood piles, and different pots and pans. In the center of the room is a lit fire with a cooking pot suspended over it. There are imp cooks in tpose at various points around the scene to give a sense of scale. The whole scene is dimly lit, in oranges and green blue and there's a lot of smoke / fog in the scene.
February 5, 2025 at 8:03 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
Honestly I'm pretty terrible at lighting so take any advice from me with a grain of salt.

But (in UE5) -
Skylight with realtime capture
Lots of smaller lights and only a few key lights cast shadows
Fogsheets there's some in engine/content/
reference www.artstation.com/artwork/zD8OQZ

trial+error😅
3 images from the unreal editor. Top image shows the scene with the light and other hidden actors visible. Plus shows one point light selected to show the radius. 2nd image is a completely flat unlit image of the same scene 3rd image is the same scene but this time showing the fog sheet actors placed throughout the scene.
February 4, 2025 at 9:03 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
Back to lighting work. I should make dungeons with less rooms - then they'd be faster and easier to light.

#indiedev #gameart #UE5 #gamedev
UE5 in game screen grab. A dimly lit cave in oranges and pale blues. The cave is cluttered with barrels, crates, and a few bits of furniture. Imps standing in tpose are scattered throughout the scene to get a sense of scale.
February 4, 2025 at 2:33 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
🌀 Yes, yes, don't try to fight it. That's it. You must ~Text Block~ my every command. 🌀

Super early WIP of 2d scene effects. The basics are working, now I just need to make it look good.

#indiedev #gamedev #UE5
UE5 in game screenshot. An imp in the center of the image looks up and to the left at the player character. The are set against a gray checkerbox background. There is a bunch of 2d UI stuff going on. There's a dialogue window along the bottom of the screen that reads "It- it's moving! What's-". There's a dialogue button on the middle right that reads "Continue". Then over the entire screen there's a light faint swirl patter and in the center of the screen in dim lettering it reads "Text Block". lol #hypno
January 22, 2025 at 2:34 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
Yup, whatever the player wants really. The body types ride the same rig so going from curvy to swole is a slider adjustment. Anatomy pieces I just swap out meshes.

I attached a super compressed and quick video of the character editor just to give a better idea. Everything still needs polish 😅
January 19, 2025 at 1:55 AM
feigndev.bsky.social
Oh you know, just uh, animating some stuff.
Mildly suggestive NSFW - very much a WIP
January 18, 2025 at 9:14 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
Now the magic part. Create paint layers underneath the gradient ramp overlay. Paint on these layers in grayscale and boom! You're still sticking to your color palette!
Go through hit a couple highlights, a couple shadows, some grunge, draw the rest of the owl!!!

5/10
Top left is the wayfinder reference image of a shoulder pad from https://www.artstation.com/amigopaul Then the maya viewport screengrad with the gold diffuse colors flatly lit to the 3d model. Then the steps from base grays, then adding a paint layer, then applying the gradient map over the top and showing the final combination. Also the photoshop layer stack is in there. Also green lines. Sorry there's a lot going on in this image :/
January 15, 2025 at 2:15 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
Gradients!!! Stealing!!!
I suck at color theory but that's ok because there are other people who are much better. Like the amazing Wayfinder artists!!!
Find someplace to steal pretty colors from + sample those + make a gradient ramp!
Notes + reference source in alt text!

4/10
Notes: https://www.artstation.com/amigopaul for the shoulder pad reference from Wayfinder. This gradient ramp method is a great way of adding color but keeping consistent over the entire model. All I'm doing here is grabbing the highlight, midtone, and shadows for the golds - then notice on the shoulder pad there's the layer of green grunge? this is relatively easy to do on the gradient ramp by adding that into the darks. Now anything in those crevices will be that green color but then anything even darker goes back to a deep dark gold again. Image description: Maya viewport screen grab + photoshop layer stack + photoshop gradient panel + tiny thumbnail in upper left of Wayfinder character shoulder pad.
January 15, 2025 at 2:15 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
I'm doing this in photoshop but this same workflow can be replicated just about anywhere! Programs == only tools!
Other than xnormal... I'll never leave you xnormal!
More detailed notes in Alt text!

3/10
Maya screengrab showing how to combine all the maps together. Curvature set to an overlay layer Gradient set to a multiply Occlusion applied twice - once as an overlay and once as a multiply Then all over the top of a medium gray fill layer I mess with the opacity of each layer and just eyeball things here The idea is to get a decent range of gray values to play with for the next step. Oh at the top of the image, in horrid green text again, the maps from the previous step occlusion + gradient + curvature
January 15, 2025 at 2:15 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
Bakes!!!
Doesn't matter how you get there but these are the basic maps you'll need. Normalmap, occlusion, top to bottom gradient, and curvature.
I personally love xnormal.net
it's free and relatively easy to use.

2/10
Maya viewport screengrab again. Showing the model 4 times with a different flat lit map applied each time. From left to right : normals, occlusion, gradient, curvature.
January 15, 2025 at 2:15 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
Ok, here's a super quick and dirty tutorial for painting stylized textures for 3d models. Think Wayfinder, Overwatch, League, etc.

#gameart #tutorial #indiedev #3dart

1/10
Maya viewport showing some flatly lit textures in shades of gold applied to a gray model super imposed over the texture sheet for the 3d model. There is some horrible bright green text reading: Stylized texturing tutorial quick + dirty graphic design == my passion
January 15, 2025 at 2:15 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
Imp chef textures done!
Gonna hop back to the imp scene animations now.

#indiedev #gameart #UE5 #gamedev
UE5 in game screengrab. Showing the imp chef outfit from 3 angles a front left 3 quarters, front right 3 quarters, and back 3 quarters. The outfit is a floppy chefs hat, grungy apron, leather pants, rope belt, and leather metal studded bracers.
January 14, 2025 at 3:06 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
Monday morning... 😴
But the low poly and the bakes are done for the chef outfit! Time to paint.
Maya viewport screengrab. Showing the imp chef outfit, where he's wearing a chef's hat, apron, tied with a rope belt, and bracers from 3 angles front, side, and back. The outfit has normals and occlusion applied.
January 13, 2025 at 4:13 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
New "equip" animation for the starfish parasite. Still wip but I think the idea is there.
January 10, 2025 at 9:41 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
Imp chef! Older sculpt that I wanted to touch up and get in game.
Zbrush viewport screengrab. 3 views of a 3d sculpt front 3 quarters, side, and back 3 quarters. It's a chef outfit for the imp character complete with chef hat, apron, rope belt, and of course spiked forearm bracers. He's in shades of brown in front of a gray gradient background.
January 9, 2025 at 3:40 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
I mean, that's a very reasonable price for the premium plus poob package.
A fake advertisement for poob (has it for you) Original poob logo design by @anthonymoser.com Stock photo image from someplace on depositphotos A person in a purple shirt, yellow collar, rubs their hands together in anticipation while looking to their left and at the logo for poob with the subtitle "has it for you". Above this is a text box showing a fake subscription option for a premium plus package with the text Everything you get with premium plus: No Ads Download & Watch select titles Your local Poob channel live 24/7 You can Poob it Has it for you $9.99/ month And then a yellow button reading "Get Premium Plus" All on a blue background.
January 7, 2025 at 1:51 PM
feigndev.bsky.social
yeah i mean liek sometimes ya know?
An image from the movie True Romance (1993) A young Brad Pitt reclines on a sofa. An open bag of fritos between his thighs, frito crumbs on his chest, a half smoked cig in his right hand, the tv remote in his left. A standing fan is out of focus on the left of the frame. And the right foreground on top of what I think is an Atari sits a small bong made out of one of those old plastic honey bear containers. Do they still make those? And there's a soft subtle intensity to his gaze. You can tell he is lost deep in thought. And do you know what he's thinking? I'll tell you what he's fucking thinking What a piece of work is a man, How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, In form and moving how express and admirable, In action how like an Angel, In apprehension how like a god, The beauty of the world, The paragon of animals. And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor Woman neither and then he takes another massive rip off that little honey bear bro. Blows a carb and everything
January 6, 2025 at 1:14 AM