Stylogeny combining Cel-Shaded Game Graphics × Low Poly Illustration

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Style combination · Contrasts

Cel-Shaded Game Graphics × Low Poly Illustration

Both stylise real-time 3D, but low poly shows faceted polygons with no outlines; contrast inked silhouettes with bare facets.

From the research on Cel-Shaded Game Graphics (Toon-Shaded Real-Time 3D)

Mix them and make something Cel-Shaded Game Graphics Low Poly Illustration

HelloHelloCel-Shaded Game × Low Poly Illustration
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Low Poly Illustration, their arrangement from Cel-Shaded Game Graphics, the finish from Cel-Shaded Game Graphics. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

01

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Cel-Shaded Game Graphics (Toon-Shaded Real-Time 3D) Low Poly Illustration

Type from Cel-Shaded Game Graphics
Colour from Low Poly Illustration

Cel-Shaded Game Graphics avoids gradients: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.

Form from Low Poly Illustration
Composition from Cel-Shaded Game Graphics
Surface from Cel-Shaded Game Graphics

02

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Cel-Shaded Game Graphics

Hello

Sedgwick Ave Display, standing in for Graffiti handstyles and hand-drawn logo lettering (Jet Set Radio's logo by the graffiti artist Eric Haze, with tags sprayed across the 3D city)

Text · Low Poly Illustration

A digital illustration and game look in which subjects are built from a visible mesh of a few flat-shaded polygons, so that animals, faces, vehicles and landscapes read as hard-edged facets with no outline or texture. Around 2012 the polygon budgets of early real-time 3D became a chosen style, in Timothy J. Reynolds's Cinema 4D illustrations and then in indie games such as MirrorMoon EP (2013). Triangulation tools such as Trianglify then carried it into 2D vector art, posters and web backgrounds.

Jost; Low Poly Illustration used Faceted display faces that replace every curve with straight segments, such as Ray Larabie's Alphii (Typodermic, 2006), which in the foundry's words 'does not imitate a mesh or toolpath; it shares their economy' and A clean geometric sans set flat beside the faceted picture, so the letters stay legible while the mesh carries the image

03

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Low Poly Illustration, with a counter-accent from Cel-Shaded Game Graphics. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Cel-Shaded Game Graphics (Toon-Shaded Real-Time 3D) Low Poly Illustration

  • #f1e8d0 ground · 36%
  • #163a4f ink · 14%
  • #e8704f accent · 18%
  • #e8402a accent · 14%
  • #3fa58a accent · 10%
  • #1e88d8 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f1e8d0;
  --ink: #163a4f;
  --accent-1: #e8704f;
  --accent-2: #e8402a;
  --accent-3: #3fa58a;
  --accent-4: #1e88d8;
  --font-display: "Sedgwick Ave Display", cursive;
  --font-text: "Jost", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Cel-Shaded Game Graphics (Toon-Shaded Real-Time 3D): The characters, worlds and logos of these games (Link and The Wind Waker, Okami's Amaterasu, Borderlands, Guilty Gear, Eric Haze's Jet Set Radio logo) are owned by their publishers and artists, and Okami's gods and brush art draw on Shinto myth and Japanese ink painting: draw original characters, logos and tags in the shared idiom, never ask an image model for a named game, character or artist, and never present a generated picture as studio key art.

04

The two styles

2000–present · East Asia, North America, Western Europe, Global / networked Cel-Shaded Game Graphics (Toon-Shaded Real-Time 3D) A look for real-time 3D video games in which normally lit models are quantised into two or three hard bands of flat, saturated colour and ringed with ink outlines, so a freely moving 3D world reads as a moving cartoon, anime cel or comic panel. Each game pairs the rendering with one borrowed graphic idiom: graffiti in Jet Set Radio, comic balloons in XIII, sumi-e brush and parchment in Okami, hand-drawn comic textures in Borderlands. It carries into key art, box art and logos. A faceted geometric illustration shows a hiker with an orange backpack standing on a rocky cliff above a winding river, evergreen forests, and mountain peaks. A large pale sun hangs over the valley beneath the word “FURTHER.” 2012–present · Global / networked Low Poly Illustration A digital illustration and game look in which subjects are built from a visible mesh of a few flat-shaded polygons, so that animals, faces, vehicles and landscapes read as hard-edged facets with no outline or texture. Around 2012 the polygon budgets of early real-time 3D became a chosen style, in Timothy J. Reynolds's Cinema 4D illustrations and then in indie games such as MirrorMoon EP (2013). Triangulation tools such as Trianglify then carried it into 2D vector art, posters and web backgrounds.

05

More combinations

With Cel-Shaded Game Graphics

With Low Poly Illustration

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