Watercolor, Moodboards, and the Office

Summer took some of the work away from the computer.

We spent part of it gathering photographic references for The Beaumont Legacy: landscapes, buildings, boats, colours and details that may eventually find their way into the game.

Back at the office, some of those references have been turning into watercolours.

They are not necessarily intended as final game assets. Their value is elsewhere: simplifying a scene, deciding what matters, finding a palette, and gradually defining the visual language of the project.

I also simply enjoy working with physical media.

Paper, paint and pigment impose constraints that digital tools tend to remove. A small sheet has a fixed size. Watercolour does not always obey. Ink is difficult to take back.

That makes it useful.

The video also gives a short look at the current office — computers, books, paint, paper and the usual collection of references and half-finished experiments.

Most of the day-to-day work still happens here: artwork, website, engine, prototypes and the less visible technical work around the project.

There is a lot of it.

Flying Fortress Games remains a very small operation, and the real difficulty is often less about solving technical problems than simply making room for the project alongside paid work, money, health and family.

Still, The Beaumont Legacy is taking shape.

The next updates will start moving away from the machinery around the project and toward the people inside it.

First: the Beaumont-Steenberghe heiress.

The steamers are afloat.

The project is sailing on.