Junhwan Lee

Πάντα ῥεῖ (Everything flows)

-Heraclitus of Ephesus (535/475 BC)

With the initial concepts out of the way, I moved on to designing the rest of the cast. I thought this would be straightforward. I had my references, I had my workflow. What could go wrong?

Everything.

I designed Nick, Cletus, Michael, and Doyle with the same approach I had used before. I focused on silhouettes, exaggerated features, personality read. I was satisfied. I sent them off.

The feedback hit me like a freight train.

They don’t look English. At all. They look American. Every single one of them.

I had spent hours on these designs and somehow forgot the most fundamental requirement: the game is set in England. The characters need to feel like they belong there. They need to look like people you would actually encounter in an English village, not a Walmart in Ohio.

This was a hard lesson in contextual design.

Character breakdown and where I went wrong

Nick – The “fatass”

I based Nick loosely on Nikocado Avocado.

Big personality, bigger body, expressive face.

I thought this was clever shorthand for a gluttonous character. What I failed to consider is that Nikocado Avocado is aggressively, unmistakably American.

The loudness, the performative excess, the specific brand of online fame all of it screams United States(no offense).

An English equivalent would carry themselves differently(maybe). There is restraint. There is quiet embarrassment(or pride).

There is a whole different relationship with food and shame. I need to look at British archetypes of excess. Perhaps a pub regular. Someone who has been sitting in the same corner for twenty years. The posture would be different. The clothes would be different. The tragedy would be different.

Cletus – The veteran

I gave him big muscles, camouflage clothing, dog tags, sunglasses. He was supposed to look like he walked out of an American action film set in the Iraqi desert.

The name alone “Cletus” is about as American as you can get.

I have no excuse for this one.

I was lazy.

A British veteran of Middle Eastern conflicts would not look like this (probably).

The posture would carry different weight. The uniform remnants would be different. Even the choice to wear dog tags visibly is a very American cinematic trope (I assume). I need to research British military aesthetics. I need to understand how British veterans carry their history on their bodies.

(Source: google search results for: Stereotypical army veteran)

Michael – The wanna be cool guy

This one stings because I almost had it right(I think).

A nerd attempting coolness is universal. But the specifics of how that manifests are cultural. An American nerd trying to be cool might emulate hip-hop culture or California skater aesthetics.

A British nerd would emulate something else entirely.

Maybe indie band culture. Maybe football casuals. Maybe something I have not even considered because my reference pool is so thoroughly Americanized.

I drew a typical broccoli head, tiktok addicted, grass avoiding guy simply because I don’t like their mere existence and I assume they were nerds before they discovered clip farming in tiktok

(source: google search for: gen z broccoli hair meme, gen z broccoli hair)

Doyle – The carpenter

I have zero excuses. Zero thoughts went into this one.
I got lazy. I was so done with trying to make new people and ended up making a person you would never find in a grocery store. You could find them in a Home Depot. Which isn’t British.

Now that I think about it, he does remind me of Steve from minecraft.

Shame.
Shame on me.