Hey gamers, how are you? I hope you're doing well! Well, today I'm bringing you a post about a particular game, right here at HIVE; not exactly from a player's perspective, but from the perspective of a character designer. About nine months ago, since I started drawing, I decided to venture into the world of character design. A while back, I wrote a post about it showing some things, and recently, I posted on one of the art communities. But anyway, this post is directly related to games and one of the most fundamental jobs in the industry. A while back, I started playing Demicore, and well, in my Character Design studies, one of the assignments was to work on a personal or third-party project. I'd never had any previous experience working with a third party in this field, so I decided to venture into it instead of working on a personal project.
So I decided to contact the creator of Demicore and ask if he'd be interested in me creating and designing a character for the game, following the same workflow as studies: sketches, iterations, selections, coloring, rendering, and finalization. The premise was the exchange of experience and that if he liked the character, he would use it in the game. To my surprise, he thought the idea was great, so I started working. There were some delays due to work, but getting back to it, I've been able to generate four designs in total, which are part of the selection process. The idea is to have at least 5-6 designs to choose from. Then, I select 3 of them to be colored, and finally, I select a final design, which will undergo at least 3 more iterations that will lead to the final design.
All of these designs are based on a lore and a hidden story of Demicore (which I can't comment on here), but from what I understand, it's something that will come in the future. Now my task has been to try to conceptualize all of this in these designs, exploring different forms, elements, references, and aspects for this demon. A demon can exist and be represented in many ways and forms, accompanied by characteristics that highlight a particular element or space-time to which it belongs.
I've created four unique designs precisely to exploit completely different characteristics and allow each one to represent a distinct archetypal element, yet belonging to the same universe.
Many times when we're playing games, we can overlook all the work that goes into character design. Character design isn't just about knowing how to draw well—it's obviously the foundation—but it also requires many other things and skills. It also requires communicating ideas with the developer(s) involved in the project. Depending on the project and the requirements, the designs and explorations vary. Personally, I'm very grateful to have the opportunity to design for a game for the first time and immerse myself in the process, the experience, and working toward a final goal.
Thanks to Demicore and well, gamers! I don't know if you've played Demicore! I recommend it. It's a pretty good role-playing game about demons and exorcisms, native to HIVE. Also, tell me what you think of the character design, and I'll see you in a future post!