So I’m going to take a look at some characters from other games, as well as really think about how the character in my game should look like.
A little girl or a monster? Or a little girl that turns into a monster?
- What should the character be?
- What should the character look like?
I’m going to narrow it down to characters from game with that black and white silhouette art style.
Limbo
Everyday the Same Dream
Badland
Toby: The Secret Mine
Hue
Soulless
Feist
Albert & Otto
Selma and the Wisp
Tulpa
Bulb Boy
Soulless Night
Comparison
The level of detail and abstraction on these characters varies.
Facial Features
A few of them are black with white eyes, with no other facial detail, while others don’t have any facial details at all.
- Should I include facial details?
As I’ve mentioned before about “That Dragon Cancer”, the faceless avatars actually encourages empathy.
But I also kind of want to include a character with either a fake smile or a frown.
Body Proportion
Some of them are long and lean, while others are short and stubby.
Arms and Legs
This will affect animation a lot. Some of them have knees, while others don’t (which actually simplifies the animation). Some are also more “ropey” (think “Adventure Time”) than others.
Like “Bulb Boy”…
As opposed to “Limbo”…
And somewhere in between, like “Everyday the Same Dream”…
Animation and Different Walk Cycles
Or rubberhose in After Effects…
Before we go down that rabbit hole…
Oh and just some crude sketches from me trying to imitate the characters…
Oh and since we get free Lynda.com accounts from the course, now I’m learning more about Characters and design from there.
- Story and Character Development for Animation by Andrew Gordon, Nathan Stanton
- Sharon Ross: Character Designer for 2D Animation
- In depth: Character design process
- Characters and creatures
- Drawing Cartoon Characters
The last link, Drawing Cartoon Characters, is really good. I highly recommend anyone to check it out.
Some notes and sketches I did as I followed along that tutorial:
Okay, let’s end this post here.
Michelle Chen 