Tyler has a triangular motif, is social, outspoken and confident, so I wanted to draw him in a wide star shaped stance that would make him appear bigger despite being young since he’s popular but avoid making him look intimidating or mean. His jacket is big because he either got it from a brother, or his mum bought it large so he’d “grow into it”
I began looking for references that matched the character description and started sketching.
When sketching his hair, I decided I wanted the spikes to symbolise mountains and that I would try to include design motif about videogames and sci-fi, so I included symbols known for being on controllers, specifically PlayStation, and also gave him an alien keychain. His hair also kind of looks like fire.
The process was smooth and enjoyable, and I think the design came out well. I like that despite the jacket looking really big, you can still tell the character is a child. I was concerned about making him look too long from the odd proportions, especially as I usually don’t draw children in my spare time. My teammates thought he looked cute, along with some other members of the class, so I took that as a success, however they all saw his face together with his outfit. When I added the scribble over his face, I felt that it was a bit harder to tell that he’s 11 years old, so I decided to ask some people that don’t know at all about the game a question regarding his age.
I asked my sister and my mum how old they though the characters were. My sister guessed 11 years old exactly (so happy about this), and my mum guessed 14, so I may have been worried over nothing.
Sprites:
To come up with the different sprites for Tyler, I made a body language mood board with character making poses and facial expressions I felt matched his personality the most. I had to do this as body language is one of the only two ways for the player to know if they had a successful interaction or not.
I then sketched some poses in my sketchbook and replicated some of them on Krita by copy-pasting his existing sprite and moving things around.
Animation:
Rough animations for how each sprite would be animated. One is normal speed, the other is really fast. They both feel lively in their own ways, for instance the slow one feels more real and casual, the fast one is more anxiety inducing, less realistic but full of life.