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Belief - Week 1 (EDIT 2)

5 years ago3,045 words

Here's what I've managed to achieve in the first week after starting this new project, currently called Belief. I've made a working 'battle' system, I've planned the primary protagonists and an outline of the story, and I've started on the stylised character graphics.

I've posted about these things on Twitter a bit already (where they get a whopping < 20 likes because I am just that famous and social), and I'll likely continue doing that as I make things. SO FOLLOW ME ON THE TWITTERS MY RADICAL DUDES FOR HOT-OFF-THE-PRESS UPDIZZLES AND BE SURE TO SMASH THAT LIKE BUTTON YEAH SPONSORED BY SKILLSHARE. YOLO. AREA 51. What's some of the modern slang the kidlings say these days? "Flex". That's a newish one. "Drop a mad flex". That's what they say, definitely. I know that because I am part of the social world, you see, and not an insane recluse. Buy my games. When they're out, which Sindrel Song isn't yet. Will it ever be?? Who knows?!?!

Anyway, here are some images of this thing I'm working on!



This continues on from some experimentation in the previous post. I liked the proportions of the person in the upper left, so I made a male variant, where the legs are the same length but the torso is longer. I was going to redraw some characters from ∞ that screenshot from my old game ∞ using these bases to see if they looked okay, but I only did the one of the annoyingly-named 'Basic Bitch' (the term seems to be 'Thot' these days, but that feels mean-spirited too?), before attempting to draw the female protagonist on a whim.

This game is directly inspired by MARDEK and Taming Dreams, so I wanted the three primary protagonists to be based on Mardek, Deugan, and Eme(e)la from those.

The influence from Taming Dreams' Emeela was heavy at first, in that I had her hide her ears - the thing that made her Different to the Bold around her - under a bandanna (which I think also suits the pirate feel the Bronze Archipelago has), but I decided instead that her relationship with her abnormality should clash with the protagonist's. While he's isolated himself out of shame and a feeling of not belonging, she exposes her big ears and has become known as a particularly good listener because they're so big, or something.

The layout of characters on the page isn't sensible! The ones in the upper right are the newest. You can see the design evolving with each iteration, and which of the palettes I felt worked and which didn't.



Since I'd come up with ideas for one protagonist, It seemed wise to move onto the other two. Unlike her, I was fairly happy with the first things that came to mind, so I didn't draw a bunch more. I feel I should play around with different possibilities just in case I come up with something better, though, so I might.

I like designing simple clothes the characters might realistically choose to wear (rather than extravagant anime-like costumes with tons of fiddly details), and I've thought a lot about all kinds of details with each protagonist - I didn't just draw something 'cool' and leave it at that - so I'll talk about a few here:

Blight

For the main protagonist, I'm currently using the name 'Blight', which is essentially a disease of plants, or by metaphorical extension "Anything that impedes growth or development or spoils any other aspect of life". Strange name for a 'hero' trying to convince others to believe in him! He's of the race previously called the 'Mhandisi' (though I want to rename them, as their petal and culture is now more based on Indian mysticism than African tribalism), and I imagined that he was left as a baby in a forest, and found by a woman who's now his 'mother'. She tried to get someone else to take him, but nobody would because he looked deformed to them, so she, out of the 'goodness in her heart', looked after him instead, but felt that all he was was a blight on her life. So she has a personality that's a combination of nurturing and resentful; she can't not look after him, but hates that she has to. He, however, especially after the god possession thing, tries to see his name as meaning "Bringer of Light". Alora Fane has an overarching plant motif, so his spreading his influence through it, a blight through the flower, would add a layer of ambiguity to the justness of his quest which I find intriguing.

His race are of the Creation sentiment (side note: there are the 'elemental sentiments' (Courage, Fear, Bliss, Destruction, Creation, Sorrow) and the 'social sentiments' (Amity, Enmity, Joy, Sorrow, Desire, Fear), which both exist in the world but have different roles). As such, and especially considering his loneliness, he's especially inclined towards invention and art. So his design incorporates little practical inventions he's made - like a watch idiosyncratically on his bicep - and pouches for putting supplies in. He's wearing a yellow tunic, because Yellow was Mardek's theme colour in Taming Dreams and because it signifies light in Sindrel Song (and in general), and it's a tunic rather than something more revealing because he's shy and modest, though his forearms are exposed so long sleeves don't get in the way when painting. I also originally wanted him to be wearing a skirt, which added to his differentness, and it'd turn out that the others of his race all wear skirts too... but it felt too odd, so a tunic gives a similar feel at least. His tunic is full of paint splodges because he's not well-off or taken care of, so he rarely has a chance to change or wash it. He's painted a personal symbol he's invented to give him hope right in the middle, and a group of splodges on his shoulder looked vaguely like a face, so he painted a circle around them and now talks aloud to it as if it's his only friend (though later he'd talk to the god in his head instead).

Flaymh

I still don't like that name! I could go with Flaime or even the Latin 'Flamma', or even 'Flammo' - anything six letters - but perhaps the obnoxious spelling of Flaymh might not be inappropriate? "Flame" has several meanings: fire (obviously), a romantic partner (he's Lacuna's boyfriend and Blight's rival in that regard), it's what people do when insulting others online, and it means "burning zeal, passion, imagination, excitement, or anger". His gameplay role is to rouse excitement, and his personality is 'choleric', extroverted, outspoken and tough (RTJ). So all of that fits.

He's sort of a combination of Deugan and Steele from MARDEK/Taming Dreams. His appearance is more based on a maturer version of Deugan, though his personality and role (as a childhood bully) is more in line with Steele's, sort of. Steele in Taming Dreams replaced Mugbert in the intro events, here this character replaces them both.

He's noticeably taller than Blight, and he's Bold enough to show off his toned chest and the flame tattoo on his arm. That and the orange top are obviously inspired by his flame name, but his green shorts are based on Deugan's thematic colour; I think the combination of strong, almost clashing colours looks quite appropriately brash. He lost his foot in an accident, partly to show that he's reckless, partly to give him a deformity too, but one that he isn't impaired by at all, to contrast with Blight's self-pitying about his own defects. Plus it adds to the pirate aesthetic.

Lacuna

I wanted a water-based name, because her role is to calm excitement, and because Emeela, who she's inspired by, had water as a motif (and a literal element, as Emela in MARDEK). I was going to go with Laguna, but I can't think of anything other than Final Fantasy VIII when I hear that! Plus it has this 'goon' sound in it, which doesn't sound very elegant. "Lacuna" sounds like it could mean something to do with lakes, but it actually means "a small opening; a small pit or depression", "a small blank space; a gap or vacancy; a hiatus", "an absent part, especially in a book or other piece of writing, often referring to an ancient manuscript or similar". There's more to her than appears on the surface, especially since she, like Blight, isn't one of the Bold, and this name hints at something more than just a water theme.

I've always liked red/orange/ginger/whatever hair because it's unusual and suggests 'otherness' (here in the UK at least, 'ginger' is sometimes used as a dirty word). The Meek race, which she is, often has that hair colour anyway since they have a Celtic aesthetic. I like the idea of her hair resembling a fish tail at the back, with a lick on top suggesting a dorsal fin, and two floppy bits at the sides like fins. I really like the colour teal, so I've gone with that rather than a more boring blue for her top (though maybe it'd register as 'blue' to most people anyway). She's modest in that she covers her upper chest and neck, but was self-sacrificingly compassionate enough to cut off one of her own sleeves to use as a ribbon to wrap Flaymh's stump leg (for comfort after the fact, not directly after it was wounded!); she also wears some of the ribbon on her own foot as a sign of solidarity, to remind her of what her dear partner has lost. It shows her compassionate nature, and particularly her connection with him. Similarly, he wears an earring because he's cool and piratey, and he gifted her a similar one. She'd always been ashamed of her ears because they made her different, and she has scars at their base from when she went crazy and tried to cut them off when she was younger so then she'd be less weird, but Flaymh's encouraged her to bare them openly, and he wanted her to wear the earring on one because he thinks they're so beautiful. It's like he's given it his 'seal of approval'.

She wears a necklace with a gem she's had since she was little; perhaps it has some significance with where she came from? She doesn't remember. The weather in the Bronze Archipelago is balmy and hot, tropical, so she's not wearing long pants, which I was uncertain about because it doesn't exactly suggest shyness, but perhaps Lacuna's not especially shy because she's had the support of Flaymh? She's still introverted, but better able to cope with her flaws because of social support, which Blight has never had. So the contrast there would be interesting to explore, how differently two people with similar reasons to feel alien might turn out with different support from others.

I experimented with navel-baring designs because I liked the aesthetics, but I think the long top feels more fitting. One of the navel-baring designs here shows her personality rune glyph surrounding her navel, the same glyph sindrels have on their foreheads. I imagine it forms 'where the soul goes in', which in mammals happens through the umbilical cord, but in sindrels it's directly through the skull. So Alora Fane races in general might all have these runes, but for most of them it's around the navel. (I'm not sure where they are on varnyn - I'll need to give that some thought!)

Oh, and nobody wears shoes in the Bronze Archipelago, usually! It's just not a part of their culture. Most places are sandy beaches which are soft on their feet, but the forests and canyons and such 'toughen up!' their bare feet, or so the cultural idea goes. (Perhaps Blight should be wearing shoes, then?)


In the design notes I wrote a few days ago, these three characters are called Mardek, Deugan, and Emeela because I hadn't come up with names yet, and the god that possesses 'Mardek' is referred to as Rohoph. So there's also an image there of Blight with 'Rohoph eyes', which probably would be how the deity manifests itself in the game. I've yet to design or name the deity, but I really liked the design of the gods, particularly Rohoph, from Taming Dreams, so I'm wondering whether to just reuse that mostly as-is. That's if it even appears in any form at all outside Blight's head. I'll need to give it some thought.


Also with that image, I planned out the proportions/anatomy of the character models, in preparation for modelling. Then I jumped right in:







I like making progress screenshots like these while making these things, so there were many changes between the earliest and latest here. The head size was reduced, though I'm not sure how clear that even is!

The proportions are deliberately stylised, inspired in part by those of Wind Waker (∞ though not quite as extreme ∞). The legs are relatively short, though in females the torso will be smaller so their legs will appear longer despite being as long as the males'. I think that long legs in females and long torsos in males helps to accentuate some of the dimorphism.

Before I make the female version, I'll need to play around with the facial features, which might mean redoing some topology and will mean adding some more bones to the rig. Technical stuff! I also feel that this particular face maybe looks a bit weird at the moment rather than appealing, so I'll likely play around with it until I have something that I like. I like the extremely cartoony faces in Wind Waker, but I'm limited a bit by how I'm handling eyes (it's technical).

It's important to do a base model like this and tweak it until it's just right before trying to make derivatives, because if these problems are solved right at the beginning, making new models based on this one should be fairly fast and painless. Already I've been basing a lot of this game on ideas I'd spent much longer devising and tidying up in the past, and it's been nice how quickly those things have gone as a result!



Here's what that model looks like in place of the white boxes I originally had. I think it looks like a bunch of naked men or creepy mannequins in the desert looking at each other sceptically; it's silly! Their eyebrows look huge! I need to decide on how to handle the visual style, whether to do what I did in Sindrel Song where characters were unaffected by light and had outlines, whether to use cel shading, or whether to just use this standard lighting model (but with textures etc, obviously). More on that next time, probably.

So yes, I've done quite a bit this week and feel that I have a good idea of where I'm going with this!

Sindrel Song's release date was meant to be next Wednesday, but I'm not sure what's going on with that at the moment. I'll post again when I know.



EDIT: A couple of comments spurred a possible change! One person mentioned that Blight being black could be offensive if he's treated as different and defective for his skin colour. I'd hope that people would understand that people who treated him as such would be portrayed negatively and that the whole point was to make them see the light, but even so, it's certainly a panic-inducing thought to think that I might have been accidentally racist! I wondered whether the same offence would be caused if his skin was a non-human colour like blue or green, or if he was white and everyone else was black.

Another comment mentioned that "Bringer of Light" is actually the translation of Lucifer, which I'm annoyed I forgot since I knew that once!

Since I'm still in the process of deciding what exactly to do with Alora Fane's creation race, and I've been concerned that whatever I did with them might be seen as racist if they were based on an ethnicity like Africans or Indians, perhaps I could do something like this instead?



Having a demon-looking person whose name is basically Lucifer be Jesus, trying to convince others to believe in god, seems quite interesting! This would also help to explain why he's called something as dark as 'Blight'.

I'd also like it if the race were more distinct physiologically than just 'the same as the Bold but with darker skin'. This gives me an intriguing direction to experiment in, so I'll likely do that and see what I can come up with! (Ideally something that still looks like a demon, but not quite as boring as in this quickly mocked-up edit!)



EDIT 2: I've been experimenting!



I was trying to combine demons with a generic antennae'd 'alien' look. They remind me of Star Trek species!



I feel like I'm onto something! Here, the horns are reminiscent of the halos you see around the heads of religious figures in paintings, plus they're curled at the end so they look like the Creation symbol, the elemental sentiment of this race. Physiologically, they'd be sense organs, instead of ears. The nose is similar to the nose the Bold race - and by extension Mardek, sort of - had in Taming Dreams. Together with the literal gem in the forehead - which is suggestive of the dots Indian mystics might have there - it forms an 'i' shape, which I think goes well with this race's notably high intelligence (they're the most technically advanced of the Alora Fane races).

So this is certainly... different to the 'just African or Indian humans' "design" I had before! I'll probably continue playing around with this, but I feel more excited about going in this direction! Let's see how it goes!