Visual Style Guide#

Visual Thesis#

Hops & Havoc is a fun, colorful small-town comedy disrupted by cultivated alien perfection.

Human spaces are bright, practical, asymmetrical, and full of evidence that people enjoy using them. Bellwether is cute, lively, and visibly cared for. Established buildings can have personality and imperfect repairs, but they should not look dirty, abandoned, or economically hopeless. Collective spaces are elegant, biological, coordinated, and quietly coercive. The visual story asks whether perfection is worth losing the right to make a cheerful mess.

Influence Translation#

The project draws energy from retro action, skateboard culture, workplace comedy, pulp invasion imagery, and abrasive character comedy. Production art must translate those broad qualities into original designs rather than copying specific performers, costumes, props, logos, shots, or creatures.

Use:

hard silhouettes
practical action staging
saturated invasion color
dead-serious expressions in absurd situations
friendly, mechanically plausible regional infrastructure
graphic motion associated with wheels, hoses, foam, and cables.

Avoid:

direct celebrity likenesses
recognizable costumes from reference films
parody logos too close to real breweries
Volkswagen Beetles or Beetle-shaped civilian cars. They may appear only as clearly hostile enemy vehicles that are destroyed in the depicted sequence
generic neon nostalgia without narrative purpose
gritty, dingy, post-apocalyptic treatment of ordinary life
using age as shorthand for dirt, decay, or neglect
treating Appalachia as visual shorthand for ignorance.

Shape Language#

Resistance#

Rectangles, braces, straps, welded joins
Visible fasteners and repair patches
Tools carried where they are used
Uneven but functional silhouettes

Hop Collective#

Repeating hexagonal cells
Layered leaf/bract forms
Smooth ceramic shells over living interiors
Symmetry that subtly shifts near the Cube

Kombucha Cult#

Membranes, suspended colonies, glass, threads
No stable left/right symmetry
Translucent layers and internal movement

Gleaming Cube#

Absolute geometric clarity at first glance
Impossible edge relationships on closer inspection
Light that affects nearby color rather than glowing like a lamp
Never covered in decorative alien symbols

Character Silhouettes#

Doug#

Grounded hands-on civic-tech-fixer silhouette: practical hoodie or canvas jacket, laptop bag, cables, notebook, marker, tired eyes, and a compact explanatory gesture. A small repair pouch or hand tool may appear when a scene needs it, but his visual center remains systems work rather than mechanic costume. He should look capable but ordinary and 47, not like a skater, action heartthrob, mechanic mascot, or tactical hobbyist. Skateboards may appear as old history or occasional tactical equipment, not as his defining visual identity.

Jerry#

Stable vertical posture, layered utility shapes, gauges and flashlight creating small circular accents. He conserves motion.

Barry#

Barry has no single silhouette. Every body needs one repeated identity cue: an asymmetrical cyan status light interrupted by a short amber line. His mower body should remain compact and readable, with repair brackets and only a few functional attachments rather than dense mechanical clutter.

Heather#

Voluminous strawberry-blonde curls create a strong rounded silhouette above a grounded stance. Use clear hands, a short pearl necklace, and a tavern-red waist apron or practical jacket depending on context. Her polished late-1980s edge is personal style, not costume recreation. Her visual authority comes from attention rather than military styling.

Marlene#

Polished blonde bun, pearl accents, structured mint blouse, and a curvy, substantial silhouette. Her stance is stable and administratively commanding. Use an evacuation binder, radio, or county map as one clear operational cue. Avoid tactical styling and overloaded emergency gear.

Peaches#

Broad, stable silhouette in a clean navy trucker jacket. Close salt-and-pepper hair and a neat gray beard frame a calm, watchful expression. Use one coiled cargo strap and one route map. Logistics competence should replace tactical clutter.

Calvin#

Lean upright silhouette, olive chore jacket, warm plaid shirt, and reading glasses on a cord. Keep one portable analog radio and handwritten frequency log readable. His age shows through composure and experience, not frailty, dirt, or obsolete-equipment caricature.

Vellum#

Tall cultivated vessel, open hand shapes, layered collar resembling both hop petals and formal hospitality wear.

Color Direction#

Series portrait palette#

Use the clean, high-key naturalist comic palette established by CHAR-002_jerry-collins_portrait.png and CHAR-007_marlene-walker_portrait.png as the default for character portraits and lineup refreshes. Internally, call this the "sunlit Appalachian comic palette": warm cream walls, clear window/sky blues, soft mint, workwear navy, coral or brick utility accents, leaf green, honeyed wood, warm white, and matte black linework.

This palette is not pastel, neon, or flat animation color. It is bright editorial comic realism with readable daylight, gentle warm shadows, and a clean cared-for environment. Preserve hand-inked texture, crosshatching, and surface detail, but avoid letting gray, brown, black, or sepia dominate unless the story moment specifically calls for night, tavern neon, or alien threat.

When revising existing character art:

Use CHAR-CORE_doug-jerry-barry_lineup_v04.png for Doug, Jerry, and Barry's current lineup. Check CHAR-CORE_doug-jerry-barry_lineup_v03.png only when you need to audit the original physical-design source.
Use CHAR-002_jerry-collins_portrait.png and CHAR-007_marlene-walker_portrait.png for the color key, lighting level, and clean-background treatment.
Keep current canon objects and costume anchors, but shift gloomy workshop, tavern, and gray lineup backgrounds toward brighter Bellwether daylight or warm cream interiors where possible.

Bellwether#

Clear sky blue
Warm brick red
Coral and turquoise storefronts
Butter yellow
Workwear navy
Fresh leaf green
Warm white

Resistance accents#

Safety orange
Tape yellow
Tavern red
Analog-radio green

Hop Collective#

Cultured cream
Botanical green
Ceramic violet
Fermentation gold
Signal cyan

Kombucha Cult#

Tea amber
Membrane pink
Mold blue
Iridescent oil colors

The Cube's silver-blue should not be reused as a general science-fiction accent.

Environment Principles#

Every human room needs a visible work history without reading as neglected.
Signage carries story and comedy.
Infrastructure should be mechanically plausible.
Alien growth follows access to water, heat, nutrients, and signals.
Damage persists across scenes unless repaired.
Randy's remains recognizable in every state.
Bellwether's baseline is cute, clean, colorful, and socially active.
Rounded shapes, greenery, and small asymmetries keep ordinary spaces fun.
Reserve grime, decay, and oppressive lighting for specific story events.
Randy's is the deliberate exception to Bellwether's decorative sweetness: use brick, steel, kegs, practical lighting, warm interior neon, and visible work history. Do not give it flower boxes, colorful patio furniture, rooftop hospitality seating, or boutique-brewery polish.
Randy's was purpose-built as a tavern in 1974 and has always been a tavern. Never depict it as a converted storefront, mill, warehouse, factory, garage, or adaptive-reuse project. Reserve reclaimed industrial architecture for the breweries. Their appropriation of old buildings is a core visual and thematic contrast.

Action Staging#

Establish geography before impact.
Use wheels, ramps, ducts, loading bays, and bar fixtures as terrain.
Keep bodies readable against effects.
Show setup and consequence for improvised equipment.
Comedy can occur in framing, but danger remains legible.

Creature and Enemy Design#

Use Enemy Encyclopedia as the behavioral source.

Each enemy sheet should include:

neutral silhouette
action silhouette
scale reference
functional anatomy
damage or defeat state
noncombat behavior
materials and sound notes.

Sentient enemies should possess clothing, tools, or body modifications that show role and preference rather than appearing as interchangeable monsters.

Typography and Graphics#

Franchise title#

Heavy, condensed display lettering with pressure, chips, or misregistration. Avoid using an existing entertainment logo as a construction template.

Resistance graphics#

Hand-painted, stamped, taped, or photocopied.

Collective graphics#

Perfect modular spacing, biological repetition, and labels that behave like both writing and cultured growth.

Documents#

Municipal forms, work orders, menus, invoices, and inspection stickers are key story surfaces. They should be readable enough to reward close viewing.

Merchandise Guardrails#

Merchandise should celebrate characters, factions, props, and fictional establishments.
Do not market alcohol to minors or imply health benefits.
Weapon props require clearly fictional treatment and appropriate safety.
Barry products need consistent status-light identity.
The Gleaming Cube should remain premium and visually restrained.

Initial Art Deliverables#

Core trio lineup
Randy's exterior and interior
Bellwether district map
Heritage public floor and hidden node
Gleaming Cube prop sheet
D.A.G.G.E.R.S. rider lineup
Hop Collective shape exploration
Barry body progression
Resistance equipment sheet
Key art for "Last Call at Randy's"