Character Design Mood Boards

The brief that I have chosen for this module is the character design brief. In this brief I am a freelancing character designer and have been selected by a new AAA development studio where I will research, develop and produce concept character designs for a game based on one of three main sources of inspiration. I will create a protagonist of my own design that will fit the role of a 3rd person action/adventure game as well as a antagonist. 

Within the brief I have been given a description from the client: 

‘Project ‘Odyssey’ is a 3rd person action/adventure game for the new generation of consoles! Set on a sprawling planet far from our own solar system, the game will be free from our ‘natural’ conventions. You are free to design fantastical elements and styles uninhibited by earthly restrictions. We have a few key design inspirations we would like for you to explore.

We loved Bobby Rafei’s work on the classic Jak n Daxter series! But perhaps it is a little too cartoony by today’s standards. We also absolutely love the unique twisted-but-humorous character designs of Valves ‘DOTA2’ franchise.  Further, this is wildcard, but, we’re long-time fans of the work of Ashley Wood and we’d be interested in how his crazy style might affect your vision for our game.

The first source of inspiration I can take from is Bob Rafei's work on the Jack and Daxter series. Rafei's work is very clean and precise and he uses a lot of traditional mediums such as pencil and markers. The client is worried that his style is too cartoony for this project and I agree, I believe that it is also quite dated in terms of style. If I were to use this as a main source of inspiration I would have to do a reboot of this style and possibly take inspiration from something more modern too. 

Bob Rafei

The second source of inspiration I can take from is the work of valve's DOTA 2. The client has stated that they love the unique and twisted-but-humorous character designs. The silhouettes of the characters really appeal to me, I quite like drastic shapes and angles so DOTA 2 appealed to me. There's also a huge amount of colour that would make for a very interesting world, it might need to be toned down though as having every character with such variety of colour could be too much visual information for the player - less is more in some cases.  

DOTA 2

The last source of inspiration my client has given me is the work of comic book artist and illustrator, Ashley Wood. They described him as the wildcard for this project and that they are interested in how his crazy style might affect my vision for the game. I really like Wood's style of painting and his use of colours and textures, he is certainly an artist that I want to look into more. I think his visual style will make for a very interesting and fun game.

Ashley Wood