Hero Design, Character design for the mains Options

[MEands]

I was just talking about the design of the guy. He looks stereotypical cause that's the general clothes they wear, he can still have a pretty cool backstory.

Except we're really focusing on him as a person and an entity, not really on his life.

Hm..

[bulmabriefs144]

So nobody likes my take of the junkyard guy? :|

So Rosetta is kinda the outgoing girl while Maya is the introvert right?

For Rose and Maya, i'm pretty sure. I know we had to reverse them at some point anyways.

And XDDDD, idk, I wanted the junkyard guy/person to be interesting and intriguing. Like they have a life story and are something beyond a... stereotype..? ..
That's just my opinion anyway. Originally I wanted him to look like yours, or make an old-man "inventor" type.

Well, it might be a sort online/offline difference, where they're quite apart from what they look like in layer 1.

Yea, we should background events for these characters. Where's Rosette from, and Maya? What do they do in their off hours from the game? Characters are less a stereotype when we flesh them out.

[Sparrowsmith]

I was just talking about the design of the guy. He looks stereotypical cause that's the general clothes they wear, he can still have a pretty cool backstory.

Except we're really focusing on him as a person and an entity, not really on his life.

Hm..

The Rogue Program wasn't/isn't always a bad guy. He just kind of lands in the position. He doesn't want to kill, and only resorts to it in anger and when he's threatened. In fact, I imagined him looking more like a good guy. He chases the layer 2 kids off his property because they're breaking the law and it's dangerous. He's not an antagonist by choice basically. From his perspective, he's protecting the characters, and then when he goes rogue, he believes he's showing them the way out.
He's a nice guy who goes mad.
In a different story he could be a hero, so a design that reflects that would be good. I'm thinking he's quite a simple guy, probably a plain white shirt and denim jeans, sometimes where's half a jumpsuit tied at the waist. These are good clothes for that environment. They're also probably filthy. He probably spends most his time there, so he's not exactly groomed for outside, but he does care how he looks (he's not a slob). So medium length stubble, and kind of straggly hair.
Hell, maybe at one point the L2 characters see him out and about the town (before he goes rogue) and he's shaved and cut his hair and is *gosh* wearing a suit! Because, you know, people actually have lives outside of their work. Teachers shop in supermarkets and junkyard owners go to social events. So he doesn't get out much, but he's not a living stereotype either.
In one of the threads we talked about a part the players can find that means he lets them off when he catches them. Maybe he uses the scrap parts to rebuild cars and sell them on? Or maybe he's working on a classic car for himself.
These are things that make up who he is and what he looks like. This classic car he might be building, maybe he owns a hat with the company logo on it.

Anyone else got ideas for him? We really have to get him designed.

[bulmabriefs144]

We mentioned how the item found might make things easier later. Maybe it's not equipment at all but a usable item! Such as, a favorite wrench or whatever, that if used in a battle vs him at the final part (however we play it), it causes a short memory cutscene which changes his character to one with reduced stats and hp. That is, his memories of the past make him take it easy on you.

Urrgh, I'm tired of redesigning this guy...



This was the last one. Ummm, let's say on average he looks like this (he's a hard worker, and people are always bothering him for parts, so he doesn't always have time to clean up). And after he cleans up...



Shorter hair, clean shave, nice jacket, and some decent jeans and boots.

[MEands]

Maybe black hair? We're gonna need to do some editing to get him to look dirty and sooty. Also, the jacket doesn't exactly seem like something a junkyard owner would wear.

[Magical_RuNE_Kni...]

I dunno, I kinda imagined the shirt a little shorter maybe..?.. And I'm not sure about the black hair;
kind of makes me think of Gankutsuo, or like a vampire..? (' ' )


Also, I imagined the jeans as like a washed-out jeans kind of thing. Like an 80s dude haha. But if it's too much work, it's okk.



Hmm.. maybe a Wallstreet buisnessman look for the formal thing? Like the long coat look. Or even a white blouse w/ a tie?

[Sparrowsmith]

I dunno, I kinda imagined the shirt a little shorter maybe..?.. And I'm not sure about the black hair;
kind of makes me think of Gankutsuo, or like a vampire..? (' ' )


Also, I imagined the jeans as like a washed-out jeans kind of thing. Like an 80s dude haha. But if it's too much work, it's okk.



Hmm.. maybe a Wallstreet buisnessman look for the formal thing? Like the long coat look. Or even a white blouse w/ a tie?

I like this design, though I'm not sure about wallstreet businessman. He probably wouldn't have enough money to buy something particularly nice. Maybe a brown jacket.

[MEands]

Ooh I like this, I think brown hair works with this design. When I was saying black hair i was thinking more with slicked back hair. Sprites are hard to see designs from.

But I really like this design, I think it's perfect for a really nice guy who ends up getting his life ruined.

[Magical_RuNE_Kni...]

@sparrow: Hmm; well for the jacket, I was thinking something more like... Bargain Mart-ey? Like kinda rough and old?:

[Show/Hide] .

I drew a version of him with the jacket too.. I can't tell which one I like more.
He originally had black-ish pants though, and I have to admit they looked pretty great.

@MEa: Thanks >< the black hair sounds cool with the formal outfit actually.
I'm taking this as an opportunity for more practise. (!)

This post has been edited by Magical_RuNE_Knight2001: Sep 9 2012, 12:49 AM

[Sparrowsmith]

Both of the new designs look good. The first could be something he wears when he's done working, the second could be something more formal he wears.
Either would work though.

[bulmabriefs144]

(Aww crud, I lost the picture)

I came up with a few drawings (trench coat, and jacket). I'm going with black hair. Now it might actually be brown, but let's think here, he's on a junkyard working with auto parts. He's probably covered with soot and axel grease and all manner of things to the point where his hair is filthy and difficult to clean. When he finally does clean up, it would make a huge difference in his appearance.

Also, if someone wants to tweak this a bit, we could have streaks of brown and other colors, to make this less like natural black, and more like a "sooty" black, this would be great. I'm gonna tweak Rosetta some more.

I finally finished the striped red/white dress Rosetta had. Along with the fishnet mesh she was wearing.



This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Sep 9 2012, 10:45 AM

[shinyjiggly]

I'm sorry if this action constitutes stealing of any thunder, but I fiddled with your Rosetta sprite's dress so that the stripes followed the contours a little bit more. The ones with the lighter background are the ones that I have messed with so far:


Edit: photobucket seems to be acting a little wonky. If the charset doesn't show up in this post, blame photobucket.

[bulmabriefs144]

Not at all, I encourage stealing. Stealing constitutes helping (well, unless you go run off and make a game with it, and then... well, I still don't care). I like the more contoured appearance, she was looking like a fattie, and I couldn't figure out how to fix it.

For that matter, you're welcome to "help" with the rogue program (please do it, I've redone numerous times, and ppl keep changing their minds).

[Sparrowsmith]

The rogue program is such a central character, it's hard to decide what he looks like.
I think dark brown/black hair would be fine either way. And his work clothes WOULD be covered in all sorts.

I think the biggest problem is putting all of that detail on a sprite. We can represent it better with face images, still art, and possibly flash animations (if these are a thing we do), but putting the stubble, the greasy hair, the oil splatters, and all that jazz, onto a sprite? difficult to do (it's why I don't sprite in RM).

[shinyjiggly]

Keep in mind that I would prefer to only get to spriting a character when the design for that particular version of that character is completely decided upon. I can make the junkyard guy's sprite (he's not considered rogue until after he dies for the first time, right?), it's just that with the aforementioned indecision it's hard to know if I should jump on any particular bandwagon for any particular design.

(and by stealing thunder, I meant it in a I-grabbed-the-glory-of-your-hard-work-by-changing-a-couple-pixels-to-make-it-look-slightly-better, not in a literal I-yoinked-your-sprite-ha-ha-ha sort of way. I think I might have spun the expression the wrong way in my post or something.)

[bulmabriefs144]

I think the issue with the junkyard guy is his appearance varies depending what we're talking about.

A guy who lives on premise of a landfill (very dirty and hairy, with everything from wood bits, to dirt, to shards of glass)?

A guy who lives in a car junkyard (sorta car mechanic type, with more grime. Clothing might be oil soaked and/or eaten up by battery acid)

A guy in a waste disposal/incineration yard (covered in soot, to the point where his hair could be brown and his face pale, and you wouldn't know)

A guy in a recycling bin that resells goods that couldn't be trashed (sorta respectable looking)

It took about five hours in real time, so no I don't mind it getting done by someone else. I'd mind it not getting done and having to try that rounded look myself alot more.

[MEands]

I think he works in like a scrapyard. Like nothing huge like cars, but enough to make large piles to hide in.
He's probably not that wealthy, but he does have a nice home to go to after work. (He works late)

[Sparrowsmith]

I'd say scrapyard as well, but there could probably be some cars in there. I imagined there being lots of old machinery.
Early in Final Fantasy VII there's a part where AVALANCHE scale a wall, and they have to climb scaffolding, put batteries in places, climb cables, and all that jazz. I imagined something like that for the scrapyard, but more horizontal. Walking along rusty parts of old cranes, sliding down the cable, leaping from piles of scrap metal, landing on a couch, all sorts.

[MEands]

Oh I like that. Parkour! Ooh what if there are cars and stuff that if you make a bad leap or something you'll se the alarm off and the guy will come after you.

This is kinda making me think of the puzzles in Phantom Hourglass.

[Sparrowsmith]

I like the car alarm, we can work with that.

I'm thinking we can make parts of the puzzle complicated as well. Like there's an area with extra items that can only be reached if you have the best jumper on your team, but they're at the bottom of a pile and you're at the top. However, if you grab a rope near the beginning, you can lower it to them later, then they make the jump, move a crane's arm around, and give you access to a new area.

Like, there's jumps that only some characters can make, machinery that only some characters can move, etc etc. If you don't choose the right character, you lose the puzzle, get caught, and the game continues.