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[panrac]

I'm looking for feedback and thought on character design.



We are making a sci fi game where the player trades between different planets. We want the trade to have significant impact on societies. The life of societies will me shown mostly environmentally. The game is 2d and the graphics are done i vectors.

The solar system where the game takes place is colonised by Ludings (or Ludons). They are a specie that evolutionary is rooted in jellyfish alike creatures. They grow up quickly and live very short. They are very vibrant and energetic and create quickly developing civilization.

The characters have a number of roles to play in the game:

- variety - very roughly, we'd like to have thousands of distinctive faces that can be then used as players counterparts in trade and general folk on the street


- ageing - it will be important part of the games topic, so every individual will have to change it's appearance with age. This as well as variety will have to be done procedurally to some extent.


- light-hearted - The game will touch upon some serious topics so to lighten it a bit we chose comic style and a little silly look.

some concepts:

[-Ross]

A bit on the creepy side of cute, but maybe that's just me. If you want them to look more natural you should make the irises be overlapped by the edge of the eye (usually the top). Your very first character looks a bit more pleasant because of this. He doesn't have as much of a wide-eyed stare as the rest of them do.

If you want a lot of variety you could also vary the eyes more - shape, slant, openness, spacing, etc.

I would get rid of those neckties sticking out at the crotch. They kinda look like . . . something else . . . and it doesn't make a lot of sense that their ties would hang down to mid-thigh to mid-shin level.

[panrac]

We want them to be sit widely on the scale between creepy and cute depending on the role.
You're right about the eyes. I tested dozens of combinations and still looking for the right one. I want them to have big eyes, not to big foreheads and not seem as they are looking up, and that i surprisingly challenging to balance.

This is how they look with bigger irises:



we also want to have the real creepy ones like these:


As for variety I plan to have different shapes of noses, mouths, eyes, eyebrows and on top of that they would be shifted and change size a little. Will be posting the results here once I have some kind of prototype.

The tie was an accident that I found funny. I didn't think it might be taken for something else, given the colour.

Thanks for feedback.

[panrac]

Some concept drawing of the Ludings as the protagonists.

[8loop8]

I totally agree with choosing a more light-hearted artstyle to pair with more difficult subjects.

I think you found an unique artstyle with regards to characters, I would love to see where does that approach take you in evniroment design.

My only suggestion is that, because the characters are mostly pretty unsaturated colors with no outline, make sure that they pop out of the enviroment enough, but this is all very hard to judge without an in-game background.

Overall, i really like the artstyle, keep up the good work

Cheers!