“Right now, it’s as good as us using the client’s requirements to build our own reputation. Besides, the client’s paying a fat sum too. Let’s work hard for the next three weeks and give it our all using the highest possible standards to complete this job beautifully!”
“If this set of original art is extremely well received, we can seize the opportunity to build our name as well. Our future will be bright!”
Finally, the few of them came to an agreement and started working.
Ruan Guangjian produced the concept drafts while Old Huang was in charge of the basic sketches. The others who were less skilled or less familiar with the style were in charge of detailing and coloring.
Based on a normal workflow, Ruan Guangjian would show Pei Qian the original art sketches once it was done. Once Pei Qian confirms that it fits his requirement, they’ll continue with the detailing.
However, since Pei Qian could not be bothered, that step was skipped entirely.
The entire dormitory began working furiously on it.
…
…
Handong University, Dormitory.
In the blink of an eye, two weeks had passed.
Pei Qian checked on the system.
Pei Qian had already spent 290,000 of the System Funds, leaving less than 10,000 left.
Other than purchasing of art resources, music, sound effects and cloud rental service equipment, Pei Qian had even purchased a card game skills template.
He had not intended to buy this. But, Pei Qian saw no need in keeping the unexpended System Funds.
After all, unspent System Funds would not be converted to his Personal Wealth. That was equivalent to a pure loss and wasn’t something that Pei Qian could take.
He had already embedded the skills system into the game.
For example, Guan Yu’s skill was Green Dragon Crescent Blade Slash, Zhou Yu’s skill was Burning the Red Cliff which could damage all the enemies and Xiahou Dun’s Iron Will could give him full status resistance and damage reduction for a short period of time et cetera.
In any case, those were the same few card game skills and most of them were copied from Qute Three Kingdoms. Skill mechanics were all roughly similar so that was all the skills template had as well.
Pei Qian assigned the skills to the various characters in the game and had more or less made use of all his resources.
But of course, in between, Pei Qian had tossed all the jobs that he found troublesome to Ma Yang.
In fact, Pei Qian was not even expecting Ma Yang to assign all the skills correctly – it would be best if there were some mistakes in the values or bugs.
But it turned out that Ma Yang was rather conscientious. After he had assigned the skills system, Pei Qian checked through it and found no issues at all to his surprise.
However, since this wasn’t the main focus on him losing money, Pei Qian did not bother overly about it.
Out of the final 8,000 yuan, 3,000 of it was for Ma Yang’s salary that could only be paid out at the end of the month.
Pei Qian was thinking about how he should spend the remaining 5,000. He should go and purchase more stuff on the resource website – all the System Funds must be spent completely, not a single cent less.
As to why his Personal Wealth increased…
His family had sent him an allowance of 1,000 yuan.
Pei Qian could not help but lament over how shameful it was for a man with a system to have to depend on his family for allowance!
He was practically the disgrace of all protagonists!
Initially, he had intended to lose 50,000 yuan but he ended up earning 70,000 that after conversion turned to 700.
That was even less than his allowance.
How disgraceful!
But, things were different now.
300,000. As long as the game fails, he could have it all converted to be his Personal Wealth. Only a word could describe it by then – awesome!
When he thought about how the 300,000 was about to be his, Pei Qian felt bliss surging from within him. In fact, he was even willing to attend classes now.
Everything was prepared and he were just waiting for the art resources to be added to the game. Thereafter, he just had to wait for the game to be published and fail rapidly, concluding his success!
…
A week later.
Shanghai, a certain finance university’s dormitory.
Ruan Guangjian was sporting two huge, dark circles around his eyes as he tossed his pen at the table. “Okay! Work’s done!”
He turned around and looked at the rest. Some were sprawled asleep against their computers while others were sleeping on their beds – he was the only one awake.
There were many cups of instant noodles and tidbit wrappers beneath the tables while empty cans of energy drinks were littered on the surface of the tables. The entire dormitory looked like a wolf’s den.
“Huff, completed on schedule.”
Ruan Guangjian felt that it was a pity that no one was here to share this historical moment with him.
But, there was no other choice. The others did not have the same vigor as he did and could not hold out against the tough working conditions of working day and night under high pressure.
Thankfully, the job was still completed on schedule.
It could have been completed earlier but Ruan Guangjian had high expectations for the sets of original arts. He redid multiple drafts of the areas he was unsatisfied with and that was why even with everyone’s full efforts, the job was completed on the day of the deadline itself.
Browsing through the set of original arts swiftly, Ruan Guangjian was highly prideful.
This was art!
A perfect masterpiece!
Each of the characters were painstakingly designed by him bearing their own distinctiveness and vibrant personalities. He had flawlessly combined their historical images, the modification requirements and their traditional elements.
Every single piece was bound to leave a deep impression for anyone!
However, Ruan Guangjian could not guarantee that these original arts would be popular as well.
After all, beauty was highly subjective.
Even for world famous art pieces, there would be many who thought that they weren’t that good.
That was even more so for original art in games. At times, no matter how intricately they drew, how outstanding their designs were, it did not guarantee that gamers would pay for it. On the contrary, some might even dislike it even if the drawing was slightly on the dark side.
Why did so many inferior games fancy having huge, shining golden wings in it? Was that because their chief art designer liked it? Not necessarily.
It was because whales loved huge, shining golden wings and would splurge for it!
That’s why, if it was any other company, they would most likely be displeased with this set of original arts.
However, Boss Pei of this Tengda Network Technology Co., Ltd. had already made it clear that Ruan Guangjian could create as he willed and design it freely. So, these drawings shouldn’t pose any issues, right?
Pulling himself together, Ruan Guangjian logged into ESRO’s resource website and sent the original arts to Pei Qian.
“A total of 50 sets with 200 pieces of original art. Please confirm.”
He received no reply and presumed that Pei Qian should be offline.
Ruan Guangjian checked the time as the skies were starting to brighten up – it was around 7am.
He reached out for a ham sausage and opened i
t, filling his stomach slightly before climbing into bed for a rest.
They had finally completed the job. Once he wakes up in the afternoon, it was time to gather the guys together for a good meal!
With the huge burden relieved off his shoulders, Ruan Guangjian fell deep into slumber.
Chapter 19
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
That afternoon, Pei Qian woke up.
He had been sleeping extremely well for the past few days and he could not understand why.
Was this the power of money?
The thought of having 300,000 to splurge on while breaking free of his state of poverty soon gave Pei Qian a peace of mind.
He turned on his laptop, logged into the resource site and received a notification – it was Ruan Guangjian’s original arts.
Even though the download speed was not slow, the original arts were of extremely high quality and so the downloads took some time.
“He really completed it on time, how efficient.”
“I wonder how’s the quality.”
“He had better not give me something too beautiful! I’ll die if it’s too beautiful!”
There was almost a week left to settlement and Pei Qian had to get the game published as quickly as possible.
The system stated that Pei Qian must not have any unannounced products a week before settlement.
In order words, the system would only allow Pei Qian to engage in a proper business workflow to calculate profits and losses a week after the products were published.
If there were any unannounced products, the system would postpone the settlement date and that was something Pei Qian could not accept.
He opened up the original arts that Ruan Guangjian had sent.
When he saw the first piece, he was stunned.
“What the f*ck! How is it so detailed?”
“Is this original art really bloody just 700 yuan apiece?!”
Pei Qian thought he was seeing things.
Even though he wasn’t too knowledgeable about original arts, it was easy to tell the difference between a good and bad drawing – the most obvious way was to look at its details!
After all, for original arts, each detail would be painstakingly drawn by an artist. The more details there were, the more effort that the artist had invested into drawing it.
Normally, for original arts that are at a poster level where the prices could easily go up to tens of thousands, the artists would have to spend an entire week drawing it and the details would be extremely rich.
Whereas original arts that cost a few hundreds of yuan were usually made in batches with a tight schedule. Even if the artists wanted to make it more detailed, they wouldn’t have the time to do so.
However, these original arts were way more detailed than Pei Qian could have imagined. Not only that, the styles were extremely fresh!
This original art was meant to be Guan Yu, the Martial Saint of the Dragon clan. Previously, Ma Yang’s requirement form had only requested for it to be a dragon without any mention of the details.
However, there were all sorts of details on this original art!
The background was an ink drawn hill where it was surrounded by clouds and filled with greenery, giving off the feeling of Chinese paintings where white spaces was the motif.
The focus of the drawing was then at Guan Yu who wielded a Crescent Moon Blade.
This was an extremely overhauled image where he was the traditional Chinese dragon. His face, arms and any parts of exposed skins were all green with horns on his head, clearly resembling a dragon.
However, through his clothing, it was still clear that this was Guan Yu.
He wore green robes and the shoulder pad on the left side was golden with a red decorative – these were all elements that were commonly seen in traditional drawings of Guan Yu and they fit into the original art seamlessly.
A single look at that original art and one would be able to tell that it had Guan Yu’s characteristics and yet, his image was totally overhauled.
Most importantly, the artistic style of it was entirely unique from most of the original arts out in the market; infusing the style of ink and oil painting, it was definitely eye-catching.
Pei Qian then looked at the other original arts – be it in terms of quality or style, they were extremely similar to this.
But of course, their general images were still based on Ma Yang’s requirement form and were not beasts just like Guan Yu.
There were beasts, freaks and even characters who despite retaining human form, had their images completed overhauled… such as Lu Meng the Dragon Slayer Lolita.
Using Ma Yang’s requirements as a basis, Ruan Guangjian tweaked the details of the characters and further designed the style and image. Finally, under the prerequisite of ensuring that the style of the original art is coherent, he accentuated each character’s distinctiveness to its greatest extent.
Pei Qian was completely dazed.
He had spent 3,000 yuan to purchase four pieces of such original arts?
Was this a joke?
The artist was definitely making a loss!
Was this truly done by Ruan Guangjian?
But, if you had something so impressive, why the hell did you post only cartoonish images on your resource site’s portfolio?
Pei Qian was totally on the brink of tears. Even though he was the one who had stood to gain, he could not get happy at all!
He had initially looked for someone who listed around 700 apiece so that he could acquire some inferior original art. He had even looked for someone who seemed like he was only capable at drawing cartoon characters!
But, how in the world did he end up coming across a future hotshot?
Others may not know, but Pei Qian knew it all too well.
This style of art was extremely amazing!
That’s because in his previous life, there was a concept art designer, Yang Qi, who loved this style and he had a strong following!
No idea who Yang Qi is?
The game, Asura Online1… heard of it, right? Yang Qi was the chief art designer.
That’s right, the set of original arts that Ruan Guangjian had just given to Pei Qian bore strikingly similar resemblances to Asura Online’s style!
But of course, it was still less detailed as Ruan Guangjian had rushed to complete this job after all.
However, the style and feel it gave off was extremely similar!
If Pei Qian had known that Ruan Guangjian could have produced work of such quality, he would have never looked for Ruan Guangjian to produce his art!
But… what could he do now?
Money? Already paid.
Work? Already received.
Ask for a refund and breach the contract? Impossible!
Besides, Pei Qian’s game had to be published in two days time or the system would postpone the settlement date.
More changes might happen if he were to drag things out!
Pei Qian could not resist the temptation of the 300,000 and every single day more would be a torment!
“Calm down, calm down.”
“Things are not that bad yet. Think on the bright side.”
“Firstly, Asura Online isn’t an extremely successful project.”
“Furthermore, no one can be sure whether this fits the preferences of this world’s gamers.”
“Even though the style of these original arts have fresh designs, that doesn’t mean that the gamers would like it.”
“Right now, the trend’s on cartoonish designs. These original arts may very well cause a reverse effect…”
“Yes… that’s right, that’s the way.”
After calming down, Pei Qian felt that things weren’t as bad as he had thought of it to be.
The original arts may be detailed and their designs may be fresh such that it would leave a deep impression at first glance, but, was what the market really wanted?
Not necessarily!
Pe
i Qian had seen the death of too many exceptional games. It was clear that logic wouldn’t always work in determining market trends.
And, what was the hottest trend in mobile games in this world right now?
Cartoons!
Qute Three Kingdoms got popular because of that and it was a general representation of the beauty ideals of the gamers.
Original arts like Ruan Guangjian’s production that had a sense of epicness, some darkness to it and a fusion of ink and oil painting elements may not necessarily be what the gamers like!
Besides, Pei Qian’s hopes weren’t placed entirely on the original arts.
His game itself was made using a template with a singular gameplay.
Other than art and music resources, he hadn’t spent much effort to create it nor were there any striking features.
Besides, he did not intend to use money to publicize it as well. He was just going to let it be published on the platform and die on its own.
Once a week passes without him earning, that would count as a successful loss.
Therefore, after much consideration, he could only use those original arts.
Pei Qian opened the game editor and implemented the original arts as cards into the game. He then had Ma Yang check for any bugs.
After looking at the original arts, Ma Yang spoke after a long time, “Amazing!”
He was truly stunned – he had not expected that the images he had spent so much effort in designing had been drawn so amazingly!
Pei Qian replied indifferently, “The main point was because you did a good job in filling up the requirement form, giving the artists inspiration.”
Ma Yang beamed brightly. “For real? That’s great! To think that I was so talented in this aspect!”
A casual compliment from Pei Qian was enough to make Ma Yang so happy he could almost forget his surname.
To that, Pei Qian was extremely pleased. As long as Ma Yang kept up with this working attitude, he would be of great help for future projects!
Chapter 20
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
“Qian’er, we’re done!”
“I ran through it twice and haven’t discovered any bugs.”
“Can we publish it now?”
Losing Money to Be a Tycoon c1-883 Page 12