Characters Creation
Welcome to my Product Design portfolio! Here you will find design processes, ideas, and endproducts I have created inside and outside the school. I hope you enjoy them!
Xolotl: the creation
From design brief to videogame implementation: How Xolotl has evolved during three semesters, two classes, and countless Procreate files. And how my first version of Mictlán is born!
The quest
Winter semester 2021
During the first semester of my bachelor’s, we had the challenge of developing a game idea from start to end. My lack of experience back then in game design made it a pretty difficult challenge, but it did not stop me from going all in.
Create a concept/pitching document for a game idea of your own. Develop a mini pitch bible with story, game, and character concepts.
Asking the right questions
I did not need to ask what makes a fighter. But what makes Xolotl? Why is he a fighter? Who is he fighting for? What drives him? And so the real journey began.
Using what we learned during this semester, I did character design 101 and define who is Xolotl, and how people could get to know him only through the drawing. For that, I redid the story I created during the first semester, and it helped with my goal: knowing the WHY.
Chosen Xolotl parts
To fulfill my defined game brief and lore, I chose to equip him with armor from a Nobel background, made with precious stones and light leather, that would protect his primary attack extremity: the tail. He has a blindfold to hide behind and some tribal markings to show his culture.
His horns/gills would be mostly used for defense, hence they do not have an armor (and so he did not hit himself by accident, that would hurt). Nevertheless, his second main component, the fists, do get an extra element: a bracelet that both serves as protection and attack.
First iteration
Xolotl is an Ambystoma Mexicanum (aka, a pretty Axolotl.) I studied its anatomy and created a skeleton out of it to make it a humanoid! Some people find it kind of creepy (seeing only bones), but in my culture, we love the skeleton!
In día de los Muertos, we have Calaveritas, and we even put out own names in them!
The idea: Xolotl starts the game in its normal skin and while you lose life, the skin starts becoming more and more transparent until you only have bones left.
As you can see below, the skeleton creation went for a ride. Xolotl started being this little clumsy goofy character and developed into this more masculine figure. You can clearly see that his character idea was not yet defined…And it stayed like that for a while.
Back to the drawing board
During my first semester, I did not create the normal skin-form version. So, for 2D Game animation, I started the life-form character creation (and it was more complicated than expected).
I went right into drawing (mistake) and, because he is a fighter, just made him buff based on my old-skinned drawings.
Even though it lets me do things like try-out animation for the first time (as a profile view with no textures nor props was a fantastic canvas for it), it was missing something: the soul.
A character is more than just its muscles, and even though they do form part of who Xolotl is, I needed to give him more than that. And so the real journey began: creating the character.
The real character development
First final render
For my first render, Xolotl had cream-skin and blueish-green accent colours, which made him look still human-like.
Nevertheless, after thoughtful consideration, I decided to spin-it-off and step closer to what he is: an Axolotl humanoid, not a human. So I went back to the drawing board and changed his aesthetic. The final render can be seen on Figure 9.
Now it made sense!
Xolotl is an Axolotl, with pinkish skin and texture. He is good at heart, he is round and soft around the edges…But he is angry. He is tough. He has built himself to be his own person, and he is not afraid to step up.
He is ready to give it all for the truth, and die for what he believes in. He does not only now look like a fighter, but he is also one.
Run animation
Idle
Heavy breathing
Toño the tortilla
My cutie pie!…Or cutie-tortilla? (Sorry, I could not hold myself).
Bringing him to life
Brief for 2st semester creative codelab
For the first semester, we had to create our Game Engine in Java Script, and the game I did was Taco Tuesday, which you can check out here!
Toño was my very first take on character creation! I needed someone who would be fun, playful, colorful, and shows one of the elements I love the most about my culture: food! His rame-by-frame animations were made using procreate, my imagination, and tutorials on creating sprite sheets.
TEaching
Because, why character design, when we can character design together!
“The cool Art Theory”
Getting to know my classmates through sharing
During my first semester of university, I realized some of my classmates came from a super technical background. This meat that they did not have the early acquaintance I did with Art. And, even though I am no expert, I could share with them a little of what I knew so far!
I used this presentation to teach them the basics of Character design, color theory, composition, mood board, and generating their design sheet. I now know way more than before, but this early knowledge helped me connect with my now friends and pass-on tips and tricks they told me were useful for them!
Fred
My first tiny baby animation. He helped me understand procreate, create my first sprite sheets, and have a cute little character!
Fred’s birthday
Creative CodeLab 1
During the first semester, I created Fred as the main character for a classmate’s Videogame. He would be the “ball” tossed around in a Pong game redo.
I created the pixel art using Procreate and did hand-made sprite sheets with the same program. I also did the Pong bars as cucumbers and all of the UI buttons.
Lovin’the Sprite Sheets
To create the explosion, I based on random animated bomb explosions, and used the sprite sheet to then break down Fred into those pieces and make his explosion happen.
