Character Design and Ignorance

Posted by Charlie Carlo on June 13, 2012, 6:55 p.m.

Giant wall of text incoming.

I've been worried about my character design, I've never been terribly good at it but I've been trying to improve.

I try to make characters that are wholly plausible but still unique. I kinda failed with my last project, according to some, since the main character was just an average looking dude. He's the only protagonist from any of my finished games that I didn't include in my banner because he isn't really that interesting.

That being said, I've been trying harder with Settle. I've gone with a fairly different art style than I usually go for, and I'm trying to work colors/features into character design to be representative of personality and role.

Here's three characters from Settle:

And just for why not, with a Photoshop filter that I use to judge how well I shaded:

The first character is Sid, the main protagonist. I tried to go with unorthodox apparel, to make the characters seem more unique, since clothing is the most common way to express oneself. Sid wears trip pants, and has a silly hat and a scarf. The blue is representative of 'the good guys'.

The second character, Carah is more plain looking, and bears a color more neutral to the good vs evil idea. She's generally serious and doesn't take sides, but she does put effort to resolve the overall problem. The concept behind this design is to make a character that the player has to make an effort to like. She's not just a blatantly likable character, which I thought was an interesting idea.

The last character, Lionel, is an unlikable, selfish jerk, hence his red coloration, which otherwise is exclusive to enemies. Lionel treats Sid as an underdog and Sid treats him as a rival, which makes for interesting dynamics in the case of a pressing alien abduction. They have to work together, but the player will usually hate him.

The last protagonist is a 10 year old girl, Carah's sister, who I haven't designed yet. She's in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I want the player to be able to sympathize with that.

I just posted this to see what criticisms/suggestions you guys have for these designs.

If you think there was something down here, you must be mistaken.

Comments

JuurianChi 12 years, 5 months ago

The connection isn't made instantly. But factors such as personality make up for any problems your design may/may not have.

Charlie Carlo 12 years, 5 months ago

Hey welcome back Juurian.