Character design
At first, she had short messy hair with proper clothing because this is all I knew about the character:
- She has social anxiety and hides it by dressing “proper” like other people
- She is alert
- Her anxiety and raging thoughts still show through her messy lively hair (plus curtain bangs to represent her hiding herself)
Even though what I knew about her was enough, I couldn’t figure out a way to show how inadequate she feels compared to other people, so after a few more sketches I realised that longer thick hair could be used to depict a weight on her head that is always there and dumbbells came to mind. First, I drew her hair down, looking messy and all over the place, then I thought about how she would try to keep it in check. this led me to having her hair being in two equal ponies and be tied at the ends and hanging in front of her to make her slouch over.
However, they did not come off like weights, and I also felt like she wouldn’t be wearing pigtails because the average person doesn’t as its often a stylistic choice and she’s trying to look like everyone else, so I reduced it to one ponytail over one shoulder even longer than before, then made there be more hair bubbles to make it look like a bubble braid.
For her colour scheme I just chose something simple and monochrome, blue top, blue jeans, black hair and tan skin because I wanted to, however I’m considering changing her top to a light purple since it’s a colour often associated with fear.
Art style
It took me quite a while to figure out what style I wanted, I just knew I wanted it to be simple, like a mix of anime and cartoony. I My first iterations were boring and just looked like my own art style but with bigger eyes, so I made a moodboard.
I was trying to figure out the general art style and proportions the people in this game had underneath the plastered eyes on top.
(The ones on the left are the last closest iteration to the final choice.)
After a few trials I got to this.
After I figured out the art style I got to creating visuals for the game since I can’t 3d model and wanted to check that the vision I had worked, which I believe it does.
To make this one I looked online for videos of people grocery shopping in the UK in first person, which was hard to find, but I ended up finding the perfect video, one that was recorded in 360, meaning I could spin the camera to look around the store even if the man was walking in the opposite direction which was super useful. I took a screenshot and traced over the image to create the line art, then I worked on the rest. The final image depicts the store and NPC at a mid-level of anxiety.
NPC Design
The eyes are huge and sticking over the faces like stickers completely flat but will follow the player around whenever in view range. Their appearance should give the impression that they could be removed or fall off. If they were to wear glasses the eyes would still hover on top.
Animation
I feel that animations for this portion of the game are necessary to demonstrate that she is talking to herself and that she is also responding to herself. The use of the characterising animations that are more detailed than the still/blinking sprites playing in between dialogues is important as it’s supposed to give the player insight into how the girl is truly just talking to herself in the mirror as if she were two separate people. In the mirror you only see the mirror self-talking, but in between certain dialogues the reflection on the mirror will act out of character, and when that happens it’s us getting a glimpse into the real self’s emotions and how they are just one person.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy is a big inspiration for the animation style, simple low frame animations that look both simple and not out-of-place within the usually still visual novel style.