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Character concepts: Building Alliances

 Character Concepts: All characters



The first character I did concept for our Mushroom merchant NPC based on moodboards from our lead 3d artist Holly. When designing this character I kept in mind that wanted them to have a mushroom-esque silhouette hence the large hats and relatively slender form for the majority of them. For thumbnail 4 and 5 I went a little further out, I gave one of them a large jacket with plenty of pockets ensuring they have all the goods you could ever need a little added detail of mushrooms growing on the jacket. Thumbnail 5 is the odd one out, his hat is a pun on flat cap mushrooms and he’s the only one that doesn’t fit the general silhouette of a mushroom.

Character number 2 that I designed is the junkyard boss. The first three designs were influenced by animal traits. I gave design 1 frog like feet to imply that it could walk on walls, because it is a robot in a junkyard I had imagined them to be electromagnets meaning they could fight in an unorthodox way with their feet as well as using metallic shrapnel as weaponry. Thumbnail 2 is based on apes more specifically orangutans and chimpanzees. The long arms are based on orangutans and the way they are pose is similar to that of chimps in motion. The lower half of this design is inspired by bovine legs to imply that this enemy is fast but moves in predictable patterns. The third design is inspired by squid and octopus although they don’t have the requisite number of tentacles or arms to be considered either of them. I wanted to give them long limbs capable of extending and multiple arms adding to the potential challenge of beating this boss. The final two thumbnails are more like sentry units - they stay in one place and usually use their environment to block and attack.

The companion was intended to be a dog from the start but I wanted to push the boat out a little to see if any other ideas came to light. I chose various dog breeds although I do not know the names other than the Doberman. I gave the companion accessories and one of them a mechanical leg to match its owner. Along the way I had the thought of the companion being a frog mostly because the main character starts in an aquatic area, it wouldn’t be very practical considering frogs can’t carry things like dogs can but they can get to places dogs can’t offering different ways to pass obstacles in our game. The last design I did was a robot with tank treads to get around meaning that it would be able to traverse almost any terrain however it wouldn’t make sense for it to be in the starting area with you.


The penultimate designs I came up with were for the final boss of the game. The concept is of a human transformed into a monster either through mutation or the sentient plastics taking over their body. The first and last design are for all intents and purposes the same except for the addition of ropes and chains to the last one implying that this transformation may have been forced upon him by another outside force. The first design came about from just wanting to design a hulking and intimidating enemy to face. I gave them a weapon that could potentially change form based on the number of attacks it has thrown-it would change forms because it’s made from plastic and as plastics impact harder objects they can shatter and fragment creating microplastics. I also gave them a mask with a smile on it to mask the emotion underneath this enemy is conscious enough to know what it has done is wrong but doesn’t have enough autonomy to stop it . Design 2 is further down the path of the mutation idea - this one is a little more conscious, it hides its face and I often imagined it wailing from sadness and despair. This design includes blades similar to the first design however these are a biological complex formed by the microplastics in their system, they act in a similar way to the first design.
The middle two designs are the ones that have a human inside but the microplastic amalgam has wrapped itself around their body forming a new creature. Design 3 is based on Congolese art made from trash this can be seen in my thumbnail blog page. I found this art interesting as quite a few of them have human features and proportions generally so I found it fitting for this project. Design 4 is your classic interpretation of evil, a swirling floating mass that has a vaguely human form underneath, there’s not a lot I can really say about it.

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