ABOUT

"The protagonist falls into their own mind, embarking on a journey to untangle the knots causing strife in their day-to-day life. The game takes place in a surreal, ever-shifting mental landscape divided into distinct regions, each representing different aspects of the protagonist's psyche and stages of change."
For this project I was tasked with Character Design beginning with the protagonist, the brief asked for a tired expression as well as their overall design being plain enough that players can insert themselves into the character. This presented a unique challenge to portray two contesting ideals.

I approached this project with a very practical mindset, being that the style is more minimal there are much less design decisions to be made, meaning every one needs to count. As always the best starting point is with the silhouette, I love designing hair with big shapes and a tired character was a perfect candidate for a messy bed head. It took a few iterations to capture both the right expression and style for our little friend. When sketching the outfit I followed the logic used by the Legend of Zelda series; Link began as a silent player insert protagonist but over the years he has maintained a distinct green tunic which lead to me also using colour to do a lot of the heavier lifting.

Thus we ended up at our final design, I'm pleased to have created a character that is both expressive while leaving enough room for the player to put themselves in their shoes. These ideas going on to inform the choices made when creating other characters in this project.