Chapter 1 Awakening

At noon, Pei Qian woke up.

He had been sleeping very soundly these past few days, though he couldn't quite explain why.

Maybe this was the magic of money?

The thought of having 300,000 yuan to spend as he pleased, completely escaping his current impoverished state, made Pei Qian feel much more at ease.

He turned on his computer.

Opened the resource website.

Found a new message.

Received the concept art sent by Ruan Guangjian.

The transfer speed wasn't slow, but considering the high resolution of these artworks, it still took some time to download.

"Pretty efficient. He really did finish everything on schedule."

"I wonder about the quality."

"Please don't make them too beautiful! Too beautiful will be the death of me!"

With nearly a week left until the settlement, Pei Qian had to get the finished game online as soon as possible.

The system stipulated that Pei Qian couldn't have any unreleased products in hand one week before the settlement.

In other words, only after a product was officially released for a week would the system recognize that Pei Qian had carried out a normal and complete business process, and only then would it count the profit and loss.

If there were any unreleased products, the system would postpone the settlement date, which was something Pei Qian absolutely couldn't accept.

Pei Qian opened the concept art sent by Ruan Guangjian.

He was stunned when he saw the first one.

"Holy crap! How is the level of detail so high?"

"Is this really concept art worth 700 yuan apiece?!"

Pei Qian almost thought he was seeing things.

Although he didn't know much about concept art, he could still tell whether a painting was expensive or cheap. The most obvious difference was the level of detail!

Because every detail of concept art was meticulously drawn by the artist. The more details, the more effort the artist put into the painting.

Generally speaking, poster-level concept art, priced at thousands or even tens of thousands, would take an artist a week to draw, and the details would be particularly rich.

On the other hand, concept art priced at a few hundred yuan was usually produced in batches, with very tight deadlines. Even if the artist wanted to draw it in detail, they wouldn't have enough time.

But this concept art was much more detailed than Pei Qian had imagined, and it was the kind of concept art with extremely distinct style!

This concept art was of "Dragonic Martial Saint" Guan Yu. Ma Yang's request sheet had only set him as a dragon, and some details were not mentioned at all.

As a result, this concept art actually filled in all the details!

The background of the concept art was a landscape with a strong ink wash painting feel. The mountains were covered with green pines and cypresses, surrounded by white clouds, giving it the feeling of negative space in traditional Chinese painting.

In the main part of the picture was Guan Yu, holding his crescent blade.

This was a very subversive image. He was a traditional Chinese dragon, with a blue face, arms, and most of his exposed skin. He had horns on his head, with extremely obvious dragon characteristics.

But from his clothing, it was still possible to tell that this was Guan Yu.

He was wearing a green robe, and the shoulder armor on his left side was golden, with some red pendants. These were all common elements in traditional Guan Yu concept art, which were very naturally integrated into this concept art.

This concept art allowed people to see Guan Yu's typical characteristics at a glance, but it also subverted the image.

Most importantly, its art style was unique, completely different from the vast majority of concept art on the market, blending the styles of ink wash and oil painting, which was enough to capture attention.

Looking at the other concept art, both the quality and style were very similar to this one.

Of course, the specific images were based on Ma Yang's request sheet, and not all of them were this kind of strange beast.

The entire set of concept art included strange beasts and freaks. Even some characters retained their human forms, their images were often subverted. For example, Lü Meng became a dragon-slaying loli.

Based on Ma Yang's request descriptions, Ruan Guangjian made detailed adjustments to these characters, redesigned the entire style and image, and ultimately highlighted the characteristics of each character to the greatest extent, while ensuring that the styles of all the concept art were unified.

Pei Qian fell into a daze.

3,000 yuan for 4 pieces of concept art like this?

Are you kidding me?

The artist is losing money!

Did Ruan Guangjian really draw this?

But, if you have such awesome works, why are all the representative works on the resource website chibi versions!

Pei Qian was about to cry. He was clearly the one who was taking advantage, but he couldn't be happy at all!

Because he had originally intended to buy some low-quality concept art, which was why he deliberately looked for someone in the price range of 700-800 yuan per piece, and deliberately found someone who seemed to only specialize in chibi characters.

In the end, how did he still accidentally run into a future master?

Others might not know, but Pei Qian knew too well.

This kind of art style was awesome!

Because Yang Qi, a well-known concept artist in his previous life, really liked this style, and it had a significant impact.

Don't know who Yang Qi is?

You've heard of *Fighting Buddha*, right? Yang Qi was the main artist.

That's right, the set of concept art that Ruan Guangjian gave to Pei Qian was similar in style to *Fighting Buddha*!

Of course, the level of detail was much worse, after all, Ruan Guangjian was rushing to finish it.

But the style, the atmosphere, gave a very similar feeling!

If Pei Qian had known earlier that Ruan Guangjian could draw works of this level, he would never have asked Ruan Guangjian to draw them!

But… what to do now?

The money had already been paid.

The works had also been received.

A refund and breach of contract? That was impossible!

What's more, Pei Qian had to get the game online in the next day or two, otherwise the system would postpone the settlement.

Delay invites change!

Pei Qian couldn't resist the temptation of 300,000 yuan. He wouldn't feel at ease even one day later!

"Calm down, calm down."

"Things aren't as bad as I thought. Think about the good things."

"First of all, *Fighting Buddha* wasn't exactly a successful project."

"Secondly, it's hard to say what the players in this world really like."

"The style of these concept art can be said to be distinctive, but distinctive doesn't necessarily mean that players will like them."

"The popular art style now is chibi. This set of concept art might have the opposite effect…"

"Yeah… that's right, that's how it is."

After Pei Qian calmed down and thought about it, things didn't seem so bad.

This set of concept art was highly detailed and very distinctive, leaving a deep impression on people at first glance.

But did it really meet market demand?

Not necessarily!

Pei Qian had seen too many games with excellent quality die. It was clear that the market was unreasonable in many cases.

What was popular in the mobile game field in this world?

Chibi!

*Q Meng San Guo* became popular because of this, and it could largely represent the aesthetic preferences of players.

The set of concept art that Ruan Guangjian gave him had a bit of an epic feel, a bit of a dark style, and also mixed the techniques of ink wash and oil painting.

Players might not really like it!

What's more, Pei Qian wasn't putting all his hopes on the concept art.

His game itself used a template, and the gameplay was simple.

Other art resources, music resources, etc., didn't cost too much effort to get, and weren't particularly outstanding.

Moreover, he didn't plan to spend money on promotion. He was just going to put the game on the platform and be done with it.

After a week of not making any money, it would naturally be considered a successful loss.

So, after thinking it over, this set of concept art could only be used.

Pei Qian opened the editor, configured all these concept art resources into the game as cards, and then had Ma Yang check it slightly for bugs.

After seeing this set of concept art, Ma Yang took a long time to squeeze out a sentence: "Awesome!"

He was shocked. He never expected that the images he had designed on a whim would be drawn so well!

Pei Qian said with a calm attitude: "It's mainly because you made good art requests, which gave the artist a good source of inspiration."

Ma Yang beamed: "Really? That's great! So I'm so talented in this area?"

Pei Qian's casual flattery made Ma Yang forget who he was.

Pei Qian was very satisfied with this. Ma Yang continuing to maintain this kind of working state would be very helpful for his future plans!