iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

I'm at the FÍS games summit in the Radisson Red, Galway today, if you're around say hello!!

Picture of me wearing a big cheesy grin with a FÍS badge on

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

If you see this, we IMPLORE YOU to post a picture from whatever device you're using without explanation.

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

This will probably be my last wrapped as I cancelled Spotify and moved to YT music, but it's a pretty good one. @danielkobylarz.bsky.social is in shambles it's his first year not in my top artists since 2019 you're finished kid it's time to retire

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Thought I'd share a portrait of Wladka I painted last month for fun and practice, went for something stylized with big eyes, and tried to capture her kind of malaise / sadness, but I think it came across more bored perhaps. Not bad though! I wish I put more time aside for digital painting.

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

BTS for this post I was making it in bed and got Kaitlyn to make a graphic for it on her ipad and she sent it back to me via Instagram I found out today that IG doesn't give you a 'downloading' notification so I was mashing it like why no dl Lil bro printing digital fliars ready to hit the streets

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Moving house, no pixel art for the moment, rare physical sketches to scratch the art itch

A drawing of an older woman smoking a cigarette, and a second of a gruff looking man with a moustache wearing a fisherman's hat and a scarf

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

I hope this thread has been somewhat helpful for anyone interested in learning Pixel Composer. Here's an overview of all of the nodes if seeing that helps. For more Castle Dornstein news 👉: @digitalmosaicgames.bsky.social #Tutorial #GameDev #PixelComposer #PixelArt #PointAndClick #Aseprite #NoAi

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Then, to finish off, everything I have done above gets fed into a composite node that just combines the background, the animated hand and the burning book. I fiddled with the timings for a while, passed it through a Vignette node to give it a dark rim, and exported the frames back to Aseprite.

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

That Particle was then combined with the original book using a Blend node. The Book is the background, The Particle Node from before is the foreground. I hide the particle until the frame I want the burning to start (It so happens, after the spark comes from the quill we made in a previous post)

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

I used this expanding shape created in the Blend Node as the background for a particle. I spawn the fire particles around an animated path which simply extends with the edge of the shape. See this video also by Makham for more on how to make fire in PixelComposer 👉: www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP1N...

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

I then added a Draw Shape node and animated it, just a simple diamond that grows, to act as the radius for the fire. I ran that through a blur node to soften the edges. That shape acted as a mask for blending the book, burnt texture and the book to slowly reveal a burned area.

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Great. Hand sorted. Now for the burning book... I started by using the Book's shape as a mask for a Noise node, which just generates random pixels as noise. I coloured it to be darker as well. This is to represent the parts of the book that have already been burned. The black paged aftermath.

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

I then animated the hand with some slight movement, and used a Particle node to generate a spark at the end of the quill for when the fire starts. The particles have a very slight gravity applied to them so they rise and fall slightly over their lifetime. They also fade out over time.

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

First, I dealt with the hand. I broke it up into layers by part so I could rig it with an armature. This gave me the freedom to rotate the arm and move the finger and thumb independently, as well as have the quill flop back and forth slightly if desired.

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

I imported everything into Pixel Composer, which is Node based VFX software designed specifically for pixel art. It can take in Aseprite files directly, which are then broken by layer into individual Nodes to be edited. More info here in Makham's video here 👉: www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_MZ...

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Then I started painting in Aseprite. All done free hand. I get the grainy look by painting in big blobs of flat colour, adding gradients between (using the darker colour with lowered opacity), and then using the Aseprite jumble tool in the transitions to create that pixel-ey dithered look.

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

All good closeups start with Reference and A Sketch. I didn't have an evil bible or a quill, so what you're seeing in the photo is my chubby little hands, an Ainsley Harriot cookbook with a printed Codex Gigas page on it, and a snake plant leaf wrapped around a pencil. 📸 @kaitfwhite.bsky.social

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

I wanted to make a thread explaining how I put together a complex closeup scene for our point and click adventure game, Castle Dornstein, using @aseprite.org and @makham.itch.io's excellent Pixel Composer. This scene takes place about midway through the game. Pretty dramatic. Let's take a look 🧵👇

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

A little cozy scene I've been working on for Castle Dornstein <3 (Also just wanted to test how Screen2Gif worked for exporting to blusky, huge win!)

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

The last two pages are dedicated to the Teaser Trailer which was released in June 2020. I'm still immensely proud of the hand drawn animation in this trailer, but it makes sense that the game has taken so long when I let myself be distracted by such things! www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuNp... 8/9

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

These are an addition from the past year which are a heap of fun to do, POV Shots! Getting to look through Hemlock's eyes makes a huge difference I feel. Fun fact, the deer's head is based on a real Buck head I saw in Muckross House in Killarney! We did many such research trips to old estates 7/9

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

A few more pages in the same vain! I was hugely overwhelmed when I started the project, there's something like 50 unique backgrounds in the game. Always break it down into the smallest possible unit of work for yourself. Block out the shapes first and the rest will fall into place. 6/9

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

These pages illustrate a point that may be useful to adventure game devs. I think the biggest hurdle starting a project is realizing just how many backgrounds you need to draw. Doing a pre-viz setup like I describe here was hugely helpful as Vince can implement while we work on the details. 5/8

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

These pages look at the animation process somewhat. Every frame of animation in Castle Dornstein is drawn by a human hand, specifically my sausage-y fingers. There are some I'm immensely proud of, some less so! I've had to come to terms with a flawed product, but I think its better for it. 4/8

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

These pages describe some of the earliest development of the game's style in pixel art. Its a really fun process to build out a style for a game like this and to really interrogate your inspirations. Its been so long! 3/8

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

I started posting on Bluesky a couple of months ago having left twitter. I do realize however, that my post history is still over there but there's people finding me here for the first time. I thought by uploading pages of this book it would help 'get you up to speed' on the art of the game. 2/8

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

Back at AdventureX '24 we had the pleasure of exhibiting Castle Dornstein to a bunch of friendly Adventure Game players. I was nervous that people would get bored queuing to play the demo. To remedy that, I wrote a small art book Called 'The Art of Castle Dornstein' Let's take a look: 🧵 1/8

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

03/05/2025 💍❤️ @kaitfwhite.bsky.social (She is not a cat I swear, just respecting her privacy ❤️)

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

HUMAN ARTISTS! Use one piece to convince people to follow you! #pixelart

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

I wanted to share some recent work on Castle Dornstein as I had a rush of energy after returning from the FÍS summit this week! The first is a work in progress background, the other two are frames from the new intro animation! I'm excited for everyone to see these stills in motion when we ship!

The protagonist, Hemlock, stands outside a large Czech farmhouse with a roof of orange clay tiles. There is a large wooden gate and a smaller door. The gate is open

A green carriage is pulled along a woodland road rimmed with trees by a brown horse. The driver of the carriage is a gruff looking older man wearing a red hood. In the back of the carriage: a blonde man is reading a book

A blonde man stands in a dimly lit office behind a wooden desk. He is reading a letter with a red seal on it. His desk is littered with books, an ink pot and quill, and a candle in a golden tray. Behind him, through a window, there is an orange sunset over the bustling city of prague

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

There's 5 of us on the team, @danielkobylarz.bsky.social is our genius composer, not sure if the others are on here yet! You can find us on X and YouTube (We might set up a DMG Page on here soon!) Thanks for reading! Hope to meet more Games Devs on here so reach out! #GamesDev #Indie #PointNClick

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Daragh Carroll @dkc1011.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

Hello! I've been meaning to introduce myself on bluesky! My name is Daragh, I am a Pixel Artist and Games Dev from Ireland 🇮🇪 The main project I'm working on now is Castle Dornstein with Digital Mosaic Games, we also recently released a short Jam game named Dust'n'Rust! More below in this 🧵

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