Abandoned Art: Stardew Valley x Dragon Ball

If you've played Stardew Valley, you'll know the range of characters and their sprites are adorable and surprisingly engaging in their storylines. If you haven't, buckle up for a look at a semi-new, incredibly relaxing and life-encompassing game that recently updated to allow multiplayer.

img credit: steam page store.steampowered.com/app/413150/Stardew_Valley

I have endless ongoing, new, and abandoned art projects in my sketchbooks and craft cubbies and thought it might be interesting to feature some of them. This is an abandoned illustration idea I had when I was playing Stardew Valley after the multiplayer update. 

I had been playing with mods that hadn't been updated for the new version of the game so I made a new farmer and got the idea to develop her into a character and draw a few of the cutscenes in the art style from Dragon Ball & Dragon Ball Z. I started with just Dragon Ball as reference but needed to reference some expressions I could only find on Chichi so there ya go. After relaxing my rules a little bit it was easier because I could draw poses/faces from the girly characters like Bulma, Chichi, No. 18 and Mr. Satan.

img credit: tvtropes.org

I made a fiesty, purple-haired female farmer to revitalize Stardew Valley, as is the plot of the game. I imagined her as the quiet, determined type that's common to start out with in Harvest Moon-type games. Eager to befriend the NPCs (even the difficult ones) but aware they've got a lot of work to do!
I've played it through probably too many times, but never as a female farmer who, although I'd played through all the romance options, ended up married to Abigail so I made my character with that as the aim. This is her character model aka sprite.

Since I would be aiming to build a relationship with Abigail, I made my farmer purple haired so Abby & Seb wouldn't be the only "dyed" villagers. (Caroline, what gives with the green hair?)

I also gave her a biblical name to fit the theme although I'm not that type of religious.

Our fiesty female farmer was now dubbed Rebecca and she was ready to revamp the old farm! Doesn't she already look nice next to Abby?

I titled this one "I can do it!" Pickaxe in hand, Rebecca is ready for hard work!

Starting out, Robin the carpenter shows up at your door to let you know about her services and how you can upgrade your house. I didn't get a screenshot of it, but it's one of the moments I decided to illustrate. All of these are initial sketches that I meant to scan and illustrate digitally, so parts of what would have been one complete picture are drawn on different sheets of tracing paper here.

First here's a shot of Robin in her home workshop for reference 

Robin waits kindly while Becs takes in the state of the dilapidated farm.

Rebecca decides to take the challenge like a BAMF

Rebecca in her home. There's a nice variety of  looks you can give the sprites and I really enjoyed this Peter Pan collared blouse. Not really enjoying what came of me trying to put that outfit on my drawing, however.

 

I hope you liked this look into my world of art projects and how they find their way into every part of my life 😂 Although I did end up abandoning this project I liked where it was going and the creative idea of combining a game I love with an art style I love. It was fun and I definitely would try a similar project in the future.
Here are the character sheets I drew up from Bulma, Chichi, and possibly one or two shots of No. 18 or Videl, outlined so I could keep the expression or pose (woo tracing paper! Also great for designing clothes)

I really love this game and although the story hasn't changed besides allowing more character romance options, something has kept me playing this same game over and over since its release. If you grew up on Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing and haven't tried Stardew Valley, I encourage you to give it a try or look up some gameplay videos to see if it's something you'd enjoy.

At night your pet curls up into a ball and you can see it breathing gently. This game is like a digital xanax I swear.