Chapter 53: Card Art
Chen Mo considered the situation and remained optimistic about whether players in the parallel world would understand and accept the worldview of *I Am MT*.
Based on his past life experience, *I Am MT* initially became popular among World of Warcraft players, but it quickly spread to younger audiences who didn’t play WoW at all.
The humorous and witty style, the cute Q-version art, and the relatively rich yet compact content allowed *I Am MT* to break free from the massive World of Warcraft IP and become a completely independent story.
In his past life, many players who had never touched World of Warcraft still loved *I Am MT*, and some even started playing WoW because of it.
Of course, Chen Mo wasn’t going to just throw *I Am MT* out unchanged. He would definitely make some subtle adjustments, gradually and subtly instilling the game’s worldview into the players of this world.
...
After finishing the line art for A Mu Ti (Muten), Chen Mo continued drawing the line art for Sha Man (Silly Mutton), Lie Ren (Hunter), Dai Zei (Rogue), and others.
He had a fairly strong memory of these classic characters and could draw them reasonably well from memory. However, the more distinctive supporting characters were harder for him to reproduce faithfully.
“This is a bit slow. Alright, time to pop some pills.”
Chen Mo first found the Super Accelerator in his wristband and activated it. This item greatly boosted his efficiency, perfect for a high-energy work mode.
Then, he used a Memory Replay Potion to search his memories of the characters from *I Am MT*.
He had drawn quite a few items this time, so he didn’t feel bad about using them. Now, he needed to finish the line art for all the characters as quickly as possible to avoid delaying the subsequent progress.
His past memories gradually became clearer. Instead of recalling the *I Am MT* anime, he chose to directly remember the card gallery from the *I Am MT* mobile game.
In his past life, after many years and numerous updates, the *I Am MT* mobile game’s card gallery had reached a staggering total of 1,000 cards. Among them, 425 were combat character cards usable by players, while the rest were monster cards.
Of course, many of these were duplicates. For example, a 5-star character card and a 5-star+ card only differed in the border; the character art itself didn’t change.
The main character cards, like A Mu Ti, had as many as 11 versions: 4-star, 4-star+, 5-star, 5-star+, 5-star+3, 6-star (three forms), and 7-star (three forms).
For now, Chen Mo didn’t need that many star levels. In his plan, the first version would only go up to 5-star+3 (max), with 6-star and above to be added later.
This meant each main character only needed three pieces of art: 4-star (blue quality), 5-star (purple quality), and 5-star+3 max (purple quality).
By reducing the number of stages, the number of monsters could also be cut down. As a result, the total number of cards Chen Mo actually needed to draw was far less than 1,000.
What Chen Mo needed to hand-draw now were the classic forms of these character cards. The characters were as follows:
**Horde side:** A Mu Ti, Sha Man, Dai Zei, Lie Ren, Shen Gun De (Holy Priest), Fa Si (Mage), Mu Si (Priest), Shu Shi Da Ma (Warlock Aunt), Mei Lü (Beautiful), Nü Zei (Female Rogue), Tong Niu (Bucket Bull), Xue Xiao Jian (Bloody).
**Alliance side:** Da Xiao Jie (Miss), An Ye Nan (Dark Night Man), Fang Zhuan (Brick), Di Zhong Hai (Mediterranean), Hui Zhang (Guild Leader), Nü De (Female Druid), Da Da Jie (Big Sister), Pao Jie (Gunner), the five-member “Holy Light Knights” of the national team, the five-member “Five Fireball Divine Sect,” Chen Yu (Sinking Fish), Luo Yan (Falling Goose), Bi Yue (Closed Moon), Xiu Hua (Shy Flower).
Additionally, there were characters like Ye De Xin Zhi Zhu (Wild Druid’s New Assistant) and Dong (Winter), who appeared later in the anime.
For the first version, there were 36 playable characters.
As for wild monsters, an estimated 200 or more were needed, but those weren’t urgent and could be completed gradually later.
36 x 3 + 200 came to roughly 308 card art pieces. This was the number Chen Mo had compressed as much as possible.
After using the Super Accelerator, Chen Mo’s drawing efficiency skyrocketed like a machine on overdrive. Previously, it took him half an hour per drawing; now, with a threefold increase in efficiency, it took only ten minutes per drawing. The line art for the classic forms of these 36 main characters was compressed into six hours.
Of course, Chen Mo couldn’t actually draw for six hours straight without rest—that would exhaust him to death. He took intermittent breaks and finally finished the line art for all 36 characters’ classic forms around six in the evening.
Of course, these were just line art. There were still steps like detailing, coloring, and retouching. But Chen Mo didn’t plan to do all that himself—if he did, he’d be dead tired.
Chen Mo stretched, packaged the 36 line art pieces, sent them to Su Jinyu, and then went downstairs.
“Huh? Why are you all here?”
Chen Mo noticed quite a few people on the first floor: Wen Lingwei, Jia Peng, and Chang Xiuya, all regulars, had arrived.
Su Jinyu stood up and said, “Boss, you’re finally down.”
Wen Lingwei said, “I thought you impulsively made a bet with someone, realized you couldn’t win, and were too scared to come down.”
Chen Mo was speechless. “Am I that kind of person?!”
Chang Xiuya asked worriedly, “Boss, um, how’s your new game planning going? If you lose...”
Wen Lingwei said, “If you want to run away, I know some people in the underworld...”
Chen Mo rolled his eyes. “Stop, stop! Where is all this coming from? Alright, everyone, don’t worry. I have a plan for the new game. Jinyu, open the compressed file I sent you.”
Su Jinyu protested, “It’s Jinyu, not Jinyu! Both characters mean beautiful jade!”
Wen Lingwei said meaningfully, “Oh, that’s a nice name. I’ll call you Jinyu from now on too.”
Su Jinyu: “...”
Opening the compressed file, everyone was surprised to find over thirty line art pieces of character cards. Although these were just line art without color, even the outlines left a strong impression.
Su Jinyu asked, “Boss, is this the character art for the new game? Are we making a Q-version game?”
Chen Mo said, “Yeah, the specific game plan should be ready within this week. The first step is to finish these character art pieces.”
Su Jinyu began flipping through the line art one by one, and the others watched along.
“Is this... a cow? With a nose ring. It’s kind of cute. But why is the first picture a cow? A humanoid cow? Cow head, human body?”
“A Mu Ti? What kind of name is that?”
“The second one is also a cow... hmm, a female cow. Called Sha Man. She does look a bit silly.”
“This green-skinned, square-headed monster... looks really strange. This isn’t a human species, is it? Called Dai Zei... yeah, he does look a bit dull. But can someone that dull really be a rogue?”
“...All these characters are weird-looking. They’re ugly-cute. But is it really okay to have such strange characters?”
“Oh, finally a normal human. Da Xiao Jie. Hey, she looks more like a protagonist. Why is she so far back?”
“Da Da Jie? Hui Zhang? Hmm... there are a lot of humanoid creatures later on.”
“What do you mean ‘humanoid creatures’? They’re humans.”
“What do ‘Alliance’ and ‘Horde’ mean? Why are the ones below Alliance and the ones above Horde? Are they factions?”
Everyone flipped through the card line art, chattering and discussing animatedly.