Dev Log 01 - Developing Misho

Original Character Premise

From the first couple team meetings its been decided that for now ill be working on two characters from the vertical slice this being Misho and Zingo. As Misho is the main character and represents the player I thought it was best he gets the most development time out of all the characters so I shall be starting work on him now. Work on Zingo will start when im happy with the overall look of Misho this way all other characters I work on can feel like they fit in with Misho's design.

"This is the main character, called Misho. The player is playing as him and helps him overcome his fears. He is just a normal mouse in the real life, but in his dreams he looks like this. I wanted to make him cute and innocent, almost like a new type of a Pokemon. There were a few characters that inspired the design: Jerry (Tom & Jerry), Pikachu (Pokemon), Stitch (Lilo & Stitch).

Misho is scared from lots of things and his whole life he used to hide and run from them. This makes him have a lot of nightmares, while he sleeps. His dreams seem to be repeating and he decides to explore them and find the meaning behind them. In the world of dreams he is able to learn about himself and turn to the best version that he could think of.". This is a part from Valkars GDD that describes the character of Misho (below can also be seen Misho's original designs), First thing that came to mind with this character and what I've always considered the most important part of a game being is the gameplay. With the abilities detailed in the GDD It feels like movement is a big part of the exspirenece with the player moving quickly around creatures to avoid detection and attacking with powerful moves unlocked later in game. With this in mind I feel like this base character could not express these core gameplay mechanics in animation and in believability in executing these moves. So when designing this character further I'm taking on board one of the things said in Valkars GDD "almost like a new type of a Pokémon." with this in mind I'm gonna make this design look like the next evolution of the character as seen with the creatures from the Pokemon games. This new stage I will focus on making the body of Misho more capable of movement and add more animation opportunities though at the same time keep the Innocent and cute look of the character.

Another thing I wanted to make sure to keep in mind that how this character would compare to other similar video game characters that I fit under the same sort of brand. I want to make sure there's not too many obvious parallels to these characters but also is there anything I can learn from them. One thing I've notice about the overall shape of the character is the size and shape of the ears seems to be a great factor in getting an iconic shape seen in characters such as Jax and Ori. Another thing I've noticed is the use of some kind of Sidekick character and them having affects on gameplay. These side kicks also lead to great interactions and even more character to the game in my opinion. This is an Idea Il have to bring up to the team soon if they feel like it will be a good idea to add a companion to the game and its story.

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Exploring My Own Take

Coming from this I then compiled a mood board for the character, using a mix of the original concept work for him and real world references I felt matched what I was trying to capture such as Sphinx cats for overall face shape and then for areas like the ears to an animal called a Fennec fox. These references are used through out all of the characters features from rat paws for the hands to a Lion's tale for obviously the tale. Once this mood board is to a point where I can look at it and feel like I've captured what the character is, I go straight into sculpting the base shape of him using base cubes and sculpting them into areas of the body.

Below you can see the final shape and design I ended up with, the biggest change being the slim more agile look to the character. When making the shape I wanted to pull the arms and legs out make the overall shape more free and ready to move. Some areas there's little to no change such as the tale, others having a morphed version of the Original design with an animal such as the ears using elements of a Fennec fox's with the interesting point shape of Mishos staying. The big worry is that this design is going down a completely different path to the original but personally I think it will lead to an overall improvement in the games presentation and gameplay, yet I will have to see what the rest of the team thinks.

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