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Sketching characters from this new game I highly recommend by the name of 'My Lovely Empress' because I thought they just looked pretty good.

Again, I highly recommend this game. It's a fantasy civ management sim with some Dating elements as you LARP as some dynastic Chinese emperor that's quite nice. Pretty easy to get into once you get the hang of it and has a nice cast of characters. Ok that's enough shilling I'm probably the one person that plays and makes fanart of this game.

Nevertheless, You'll definitely see more of them around in my sketches!

[mylovelyempress]

My Lovely Empress is an empire management sim inspired by Asian mythology. As the Emperor of the Crimson Empire, you will build relations with neighboring rulers, balance internal factions, and ensure the prosperity of your people, all before you reap their souls to resurrect your beloved empress.

💙 BUY ON STEAM HERE

💚 BUY ON XBOX HERE

❤ BUY ON SWITCH HERE

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My Lovely Empress is out tomorrow!

[mylovelyempress]

Yaoguai Development: Umamu

Umamu’s inspiration comes from the Yeti of the Himalaya legends. The Yeti is often considered a guardian spirit of the Himalayan peaks.

The Yeti symbolizes the untamed and wild nature of the mountain wilderness, something that is portrayed in Umamu’s personality. Himalayan folklore states that encountering a Yeti is seen as a test of one’s courage and resilience. Those who survive such encounters are said to be blessed with strength and wisdom.

My Lovely Empress comes out August 21st on Switch, Xbox, and Steam!

[mylovelyempress]

2 reflects many things; a pair of lovers, life and death, yin and yang. At it's core it's meaning is balance - two halves to every whole.

Find out what happens when that balance is upset in My Lovely Empress…

Wishlist Steam Pre-order Switch Xbox

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Yaoguai Inspiration: Lady Emei

Lady Emei is inspired by Bai Suzhen, the white snake spirit from the Chinese Legend of the White Snake.

In Chinese mythology, she is deemed as a symbol of true love and kindness, something that we also take for her story (that we can't reveal too much, because it would be spoilers!), despite her personality being cold like the cold-blooded snake.

My Lovely Empress comes out August 21st!

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Will you swipe right on our lovely rulers? 👀

My Lovely Empress comes out on August 21st!

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[mylovelyempress]

6 is representative of weaponry. Much like the weapons Hong uses if you choose to sacrifice your Yaoguai instead of your people… Who's lives will you choose to spare? And who will die by your hand?

6 DAYS UNTIL MY LOVELY EMPRESS COMES OUT!

[mylovelyempress]

Welcome back, and a thousand praises to you, Your Majesty!

This is the fourth My Lovely Empress dev log from the teams at GameChanger and Neon Doctrine. We hope that this series of behind-the-scenes peeks at the process of game development gets you excited for when My Lovely Empress launches on Steam, Switch, and Xbox later this year!

In case you missed out on our previous dev log, check it out here:

Devlog #3 - The Inspirations behind the Empire For this fourth entry, we wanted to go even bigger than before: a two-parter where we have answers from both GameChanger and its codeveloper partner, Neon Doctrine. As My Lovely Empress shifted from 2D to 3D, both developers ended up taking part in bringing its cast of humans and the Yaoguai to life. So today, we will go over the process of 2D animation as explained by GameChanger’s Matthew!

Now, when it came to animating My Lovely Empress, the foundation obviously started with emulating My Lovely Wife so as to evoke something familiar to returning fans. However, Matthew had quite a taste for exaggeration, and so the inhabitants of the Ashuwa continent found themselves with an expressiveness and flair that surpassed GameChanger’s previous titles.

As GameChanger’s new animator, Matthew’s greatest hurdle involved striking the right balance between his personal interpretations of how the game’s characters would act, without straying from Empress’ moody tone. Plenty of tweaks were needed to toe that line right, which even shifted between characters as the humans tended to be more grounded and restrained while the Yaoguai were allowed greater freedom to run wild with.

In order to animate each character right, Matthew first needed to get into their heads. By collaborating closely with Empress’ art director Raswan, each character’s most important characteristics could be shown not just in how they looked or spoke, but in how they moved as well. One such example is Piscis’ constant trembling, where stepping into her shoes involved imagining being a frightened, traumatized girl that tries to make herself small and thus shivers in fear when confronted.

However, any artist will always have their favorites, and for Matthew’s that would be Jade, the undead underling. Thanks to her bratty personality and rebellious spirit, this zombie girl was allowed to break free of Matthew’s self-imposed rules that tried to keep everyone grounded in Empress’ moody drama, becoming an energetic and playful pest in Emperor Hong’s life.

We hope you enjoyed this sneak peek into My Lovely Empress’ development, and catch Part 2 of Devlog 4 coming very soon, where we talk to Neon Doctrine about 3D animation!

My Lovely Empress releases this August 21st, 2024, on Switch, Xbox, and Steam.

Wishlist here: My Lovely Empress (steampowered.com)

~ Neon Doctrine 👑

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The 7th month of the year is when the Ghost festival is held, where ghosts and spirits are said to return from the afterlife to visit the living.

Emperor Hong wishes to bring his Empresses spirit fully back from the dead…

7 DAYS UNTIL MY LOVELY EMPRESS COMES OUT!

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Dev Diary ~ Yaoguai Inspiration: Piscis

Usually mermaids are linked to European folktales, but Piscis’ inspiration comes from the Asian mermaids from various Greater East Asian countries. China has the Di people and renyu, Japan has ningyo, and even Indonesia has Nyai Roro Kidul and her mermaid-like form, Nyai Blorong. But we tried to emphasize Piscis’ tragic past as a mermaid and how humans treated mermaids as creatures to be hunted down.

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Have Questions For The Developers? Come To Our AMA on August 14th, 8pm PT over on Reddit in r/NintendoSwitch!

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My Lovely Empress Fanart

I haven’t drawn in forever until the end of last month when I made this fanart of Empress Xiang from the upcoming game My Lovely Empress from for a little contest! Note that I took some liberties with the fashion to make it more flower and bug themed.

It took me about four hours if you don’t count the concept sketches and practice drawing. I’m quite pleased with how the peony turned out in particular.

For another little contest I drew my own interpretation of Gumiho’s fox form! Gumiho is another character from that game.

This piece took only two hours this time after a bunch of experimentation sketches. I’m really proud of how the fox turned out. Using an actual red fox in that exact pose as reference and figuring out how to simplify the face first did wonders! I tried to emulate Gumiho’s eye shape and make up as well as the additional darker chest fluff to make it somewhat look like her even without the jewellery.

Part of the reason why I did traditional art instead of digital is, while I do own a drawing tablet, it doesn't work anymore because the pen is dead, which is my personal inspiration behind this little meme I made!

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Did you know that you can get multiple endings in our upcoming kingdom management game, My Lovely Empress? 😈

💙 WISHLIST ON STEAM HERE

💚 PRE-ORDER ON XBOX HERE

💖 PRE-ORDER ON SWITCH HERE

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Yaoguai Development Inspirations: Gumiho 🦊

Gumiho is inspired by various fox spirits from the Greater East Asian mythology such as Kumiho from Korea, Kitsune from Japan, Huli jing from China, and Hồ ly tinh from Vietnam.

Gumiho’s mischievous nature and her loveless romantic personality come from the fox spirit legends and folk stories, where they try to disguise themselves as a human woman, longing to be loved by a human man, yet struggling with her more animalistic urges.

Our dark kingdom manager My Lovely Empress comes out August 21st!