Character Design

Tribe Person Design

Initially, I was going to choose a style like in Hylics or Psychonauts for my game. Though I find these designs great, neither of them were going to fit with my game.

I took inspiration from Darkest Dungeon (so much for avoiding horror), trying the “squashed” proportions while keeping the sense of doom.

In terms of this design, I was looking into occult magic in Africa, and came across the fact there are many tribes in Cameroon that use spiders and crabs for divination (fortune telling).

Character design- Erika Graham

Inspirations:

-Animal crossing characters- (first sketch)

Cute animal crossing villagers who look kind of creepy but also very cute.

-Lisa the painful & amnesia monster- (second sketch)

this inspiration goes more towards a horror game from the grotesque creatures images.

-Lilys well & little nightmares- (third sketch)

Body horror, gives off a feeling of uneasiness.

-Each of the design inspirations supposed to give off a different type of feeling, from creepy cute, to horrific, and or scary/mysterious.

-Character design variations:

The first design looks more rounder and also less detailed to appear non threatening (depending on the person who views it, since the character itself isn’t supposed to be evil, only to look frightening but completely contradicts the characters personality)
The second one looks more of a calmer version of the first sketch, the shadows on the character show where the blood or scars are going to appear. unlike the first one that has stitches this one is more gory.
The last sketch is much more creepy (again not the same as its personality). Providing more details on the hands and feet and a more defined face showing a clear set of teeth.

Lazy sketch of character (original sketch)

Inspiration:

Character Readability in Team Fortress 2 and Overwatch | by Xavier Coelho-Kostolny | Medium — The Mercenaries in Team Fortress 2 all have very distinct silhouettes which allows the player to identify who is who. The characters also have very different personalities and its shown in the game.

Don't Overlook Risk of Rain 2. It's super easy to pick up and super… | by Casimir Mura | SUPERJUMP — Risk of Rain 2 also does a good job at having silhouettes. Also the shapes and animations of the character can tell you a lot about what the character specializes in.

Steve and Alex From Minecraft Block Off Some Time to Join the Cast of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate | Business Wire — Alex and Steve from Minecraft do the complete opposite at the other two games. It makes sense for a sandbox game to have pretty blank characters since it allows the make there own characters and personalities.

3 characters. I used shapes to make each of the three silhouettes very distinct. I imagine they would be some kind of magical fairy thing. i made them super simple.

Jordon Bolt- Character Design

Inspired by early Pac Man and arcade game characters

Character Design – Jingyue Gao

Inspiration

① The first character I want to share is Yoimiya from Genshin Impact:

I like her cute costume because there are many fine details representing her cultural background, including but not limited to goldfish (a symbol of wealth, fortune, and good luck), Shimenawa (the red waist rope holding religious significance denoting points of spiritual convergence), and a lot of pyro elements. Also, her color combinations look like my favorite dish: stir-fried tomato and scrambled eggs.

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② The second character I want to share is bird chef from overcooked:

Overcooked 2 Concepts Characters/Environments

This character design is simple but detailed. It personalized a bird to a chef. This design omitted lower limbs so that it emphasizes the key elements of this character, such as a huge chef hat and big mouth (represents it is a gourmet).

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③ The third character I want to share is the main character from Sky: Children of the Light:

This character design represents the character’s mode and abilities by changing their outfits or appearance, such as low energy (partially discolor the cloak from orange to grey) and inability to fly (remove wings).

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Character Sketches

Inspired by these three amazing resources, here are my variations of the same character:

The character I create is gender-neutral. If it looks like a girl or a boy from your perspective, please try to rid of stereotypes.

The left one is basic/peaceful mode. I used green and rounds to represent the peaceful mode. When nothing happens, this character has a small grass green bag to hold magic medicine that can heal energy and change mode.
The middle one is attacking/aggressive mode. I used red and triangles to represent the aggressive mode. When this character needs/wants to fight, the color would change to red after taking a red pill. Also, the shape of the hair and bag would change accordingly. This character has a small bloody-red triangle bag to hold magic rocks that can hurt others, riddles, bricks, and so on.
The right one is thinking/wisdom mode. I used blue and rectangles to represent the wisdom mode. When this character needs more clues to slove the pizzle, the color would change to blue after taking a blue pill. The long scarf and a pair of glasses are two signs of this mode. (My family member told me that this one looks like SpongeBob was eliminated from the Harry Potter audition. (╯°Д°)╯ ┻━┻)