From character design to sprite: Personal projects

by Aviala

Last time I wrote about my character design and sprite process when working with clients but when I do work for my own projects, I'm my own boss and the way I work is different.

With my own character, I usually start with a broad idea about the character's personality. It would be better to have all the details down but I'm usually really excited about drawing the characters so I start drawing before I finish writing the backstory, etc.

Based on the basic personality and the fashion style I've established for the world the characters live in, I start sketching, usually with a pencil.

For Aifao, the character above, I knew that he was a 25-year guy who's a soldier. These are some of the first sketches for him. In Skyfish, it's very common for guys to have long hair, so I decided it was suitable. You can't see it from the sketch, but since he's related to Captain, who's a brunette, he also has dark brown hair.

After the initial sketches, I start working on the sprite. At this point I usually don't have a clear idea of what the character will wear. I start by drawing the character nude, and sketch clothes on top on different layers, like a paper doll. I often look at references for the poses. I usually leave the sprites rougher under the clothes and only spend time on refining the visible parts.

I try out different base colours for the clothes by drawing them on different layers and fiddling with the hue, saturation, etc. The design above might not be the final one, but I had a feeling that she needed a long skirt. She's also not very rich, so the colours aren't very bright for the most part, and her outfit is clean yet simple.

The "professional" way to do everything would be to do separate character and outfit designs properly, and draw separate sprites based on them. But because I'm in charge of my own project and this method seems to work for me, this is the way I work.

Charon here is from a wealthy family so his clothes have brighter shades like blue, and he has some embroidered details on his hat. 

And last but not least: When I need to design new outfits, I hide most of the layers and just doodle on top with different colours. I don't know why, but this method has produced some of my favourite outfit designs. The key thing is probably that they're really fast to draw on top of the naked sprites so if something doesn't work it doesn't take long to come up with something new.