Shadowrun Returns Post-funding Update #52

There’s a new dev diary published on Kickstarter for Shadowrun Returns, focusing on art, with the center stage reserved to character models and painted portraits. Here’s a snip:

It is in the portrait that you will see a lot of detail and psychological depth in your character. As of this writing, there are nearly 200 player portraits in Shadowrun Returns. When our portrait artist, David Nash, started painting we put a special emphasis on the inner life of each character. To give you some idea of what I mean by that, here are some early portrait notes I pulled from an old e-mail, (Male elf, the handsome grifter. He’s the double-crosser, the guy who is always one step ahead of his enemies with a trick and a quick one-liner. He can move easily from the highest society to lowest gangs and seems to know everyone. He will shake your hand and promise you an honest deal even as he is stealing the watch off your wrist.) And one more example, (Human female, the brutal survivor, she was orphaned at a young age and has survived on the streets by making the hard decisions that others would flinch from. There is nothing -nothing- soft about her.)

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That psychological diversity compliments all the physical diversity in your portrait options. In addition to covering the basics of the ten possible gender and metahuman combinations, the portraits cover a wide range of ethnic backgrounds and etiquettes. Animator and character artist Hollie Mengert has curated the portrait set, putting some final touches on each and adding a number of variants- including cool piercings, arcane tattoos, painful scars, and cutting-edge cybereyes (though your portrait’s cybereyes are cosmetic and not tied to gameplay). Many of those variants are meant to support more magic focused or tech-centric characters, and some are simply opportunities Hollie saw to add something cool to the game and give you one more option that might spark your imagination.