Cel-Shaded Game Graphics × Ukiyo-e Woodblock Prints

Borrow woodblock outline, flat colour and paper tone to push the bands towards the painted register of Okami.

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

Mix them and make something Cel-Shaded Game Graphics Ukiyo-e Woodblock Prints

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Cel-Shaded Game Graphics, their arrangement from Ukiyo-e Woodblock Prints, the finish from Ukiyo-e Woodblock Prints. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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) Ukiyo-e Woodblock Prints

Type from Cel-Shaded Game Graphics: Hand-lettering
Ornamented display
Colour from Cel-Shaded Game Graphics: Flat fields
Full polychrome
Form from Cel-Shaded Game Graphics: Stylised figuration
Distortion & exaggeration
Composition from Ukiyo-e Woodblock Prints: Dynamic asymmetry
Diagonal axis
Surface from Ukiyo-e Woodblock Prints: Carved line
Paper & letterpress bite

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 · Ukiyo-e Woodblock Prints

Mass-produced Edo-period woodblock prints of actors, courtesans, legends and landscapes, designed by an artist, cut and printed by specialist craftsmen and sold cheaply by commercial publishers. Flat colour blocks inside a carved keyline, bold cropping, high or oblique viewpoints and diagonal compositions, with titles in small cartouches, later handed Europe a new model for the poster.

Shippori Mincho; Ukiyo-e Woodblock Prints used Brush-written kana and kanji titles and Kantei-ryū kabuki lettering

The colours

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

Cel-Shaded Game Graphics (Toon-Shaded Real-Time 3D) Ukiyo-e Woodblock Prints

#f4e9d0 ground · 36%
#111111 ink · 14%
#e8402a accent · 18%
#1e88d8 accent · 14%
#d4a64a accent · 10%
#3fae49 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f4e9d0;
  --ink: #111111;
  --accent-1: #e8402a;
  --accent-2: #1e88d8;
  --accent-3: #d4a64a;
  --accent-4: #3fae49;
  --font-display: "Sedgwick Ave Display", cursive;
  --font-text: "Shippori Mincho", 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.

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.

An enormous hawk with raised wings and extended talons swoops over a rough sea with a small sailboat and rocky islands. Pine-covered cliffs and a Japanese-style building frame the right side, with a mountain, red sun and vertical Japanese lettering in the background.

1670–1900 · East Asia Ukiyo-e Woodblock Prints Mass-produced Edo-period woodblock prints of actors, courtesans, legends and landscapes, designed by an artist, cut and printed by specialist craftsmen and sold cheaply by commercial publishers. Flat colour blocks inside a carved keyline, bold cropping, high or oblique viewpoints and diagonal compositions, with titles in small cartouches, later handed Europe a new model for the poster.