Concocting a Witch, Part 1

Hey there!  Today marks the beginning of week 6 of Senior Studio I, so I'm going to take this opportunity to talk about the development of the main character for a project I'm working on called Bala (find out more here!).  The character's tentative name is The Dream Witch, and her beginnings are far from witchy. 

Conceptually, I wanted to create a character that sports a giant scarf that does most of the leg work for them.  In other words, a scarf that can act as their arms and has the capacity to grab things, throw things, you name it.  The Dream Witch was born in the sketch below, close to half a year before I even decided to work on Bala.  

 Here, she's depicted as a snot-nosed punk who wears vulgar sweaters and a scarf with three arm-like appendages.  While I liked the silhouette of the giant scarf, I couldn't find a use for her character, so her design sat unused in my sketchbook.  But she was not forgotten, and I thought on a use for her design a couple months later.    

The intention of the giant scarf was to be used to navigate a 3D platforming world, where the scarf would assist the player in hoisting, grabbing, and punching things.  I explored a kind of circus theme in an attempt to figure out the kind of world she was from, and what she would be doing with such a big scarf.  There was even one design where she didn't have a scarf, but her arms imitated the big-armed silhouette that I was after, and wore a ring master inspired outfit.  It was also at this stage that I grew attached to the big eye-lashed eyes (illustrated in ink above), and began using them as a motif for her identity, as well as people associated with her.  And then, all of a sudden, a more workable design popped into existence.   

Above, The Dream Witch was finally truly born.  She had the big-armed scarf with a claw-like fringe, a cat mask and tail to complete her creature-like package, and a cloak to give her a baggier appearance.  She's topped off with traveling boots and a satchel for traveling, and a giant bow to prevent her from using her actual arms.  Weird?  Confusing? Way too busy?  Maybe all of the above!  But it was a starting point full of interesting elements I liked.  Regardless, her design once again sat in my sketchbook for a couple months before her official school day debut. 

Dawn of the second round of pitches in Senior Studio I, her silhouette made its first public appearance.  She was called simultaneously cute and creepy with no real complaints, so I basically ran with it.  Ran with it fast so I could get her design out of my sketchbook and into the real world.  This is where her development really started to take off over the course of the last few weeks.       

The first part of her design I really started to explore was her hairstyle and face design.  I really wanted a hairstyle that would read as crazy hair from behind her mask, and didn't want to ignore the existence of her face, either.  So, even though the intent was for her to wear a mask in the game, I didn't want that to restrict her design to always wearing that mask.      

After trying a couple different styles, I decided on giving her big eyes with lots of lashes to form a strong relationship between her face and her mask.  Because of the chaotic nature of her design, I also gave her way too much eye shadow, just to show that she's not a stable character.  Below is a study of The Dream Witch with different layers of clothing and how they work with one another. 

I decided that because she has the title of Witch, that she needed to be wearing a cute (albeit dirty) dress with striped stockings.  Because one of her stockings is falling due to a broken garter, one of her boots is folded on itself while the other is worn properly in juxtaposition. 

So to the far left, she has her face exposed and free arms.  Second to the left, her arms are bound with a giant bow, and she is sporting her cat mask.  This is to illustrate that her arms are only bound when she's wearing that mask.  Second from the right, she's also wearing her claw scarf, the bow binding her arms poking through the middle.  Finally, at the far right, her cloak conceals her "secret."  Her real arms are not visible and the claw scarf pokes out where her arms should really be, creating the illusion that the scarf is indeed her actual arms.  In this iteration, her claw scarf is two different colors so that the scarf around her neck does not appear to be the same scarf poking out from beneath the cloak.  Making the scarf two colors was a sloppy solution, and removed from her near final iteration, as seen below.      

In this final iteration, she has been stylized close to how she will appear in the game.  The way her hair flows and works has also been fixed here, as well as her face in general.  It was also at this stage that I wondered how necessary it was for her to be properly wearing her mask, and so put it on the side of her head (it was also really hard to draw for some reason, but let's keep that between you and me).  I also included what a child might look like, and how the player will be able to distinguish them as an ally.  The child depicted has a similar cat mask, a cloak with big buttons, and a limp scarf that trails behind him when he moves around.  Stay tuned for more on children development.

That's all I've got for The Dream Witch for now.  The next step is to create a turnaround so that she can be properly modeled and textured.  I don't know what I'll talk about next time, but see you then!