Art Bible – Esi Amoah

As stated in my Art Direction post, I’ve decided to go with a low-poly pixel art style inspired by artists Keven and Priichu’s art styles. For my concept art, the style is sketches and renderings (my preferred style), so you’ll see a mix of those in my art style.

Art Programs used: Paint Tool Sai, Photoshop

Design Principles (R.A.T)

Realism (To what degree?): The rat character should act as such, and the humans should have a range of personalities too. Cartoonish elements are absolutely encouraged but have a 1-1 ratio of each.
Adjectives (What first comes to mind when looking at the game?): Vibrant, Punchy, Expressive. Take note of Keven and Priichu’s art styles.
Theme (What is the player’s experience?): Playful and pixelated. A grey concrete jungle mixing in with the neon saturation of nature. Go wild with it.

Rats

The Rat characters have a culture of their own, heavily inspired by imitating human styles. The Rat base character will be extremely plain, this will allow you to change the character as much or as little as you want. For players who don’t care much about customising, there will be 6 base colours to choose from which I think is a reasonable amount. Colours include: White, Beige, Grey, Orange, Brown, and Black. In my art, I used the white rat as a base to make the different colours. Rats will be gender-neutral in appearance, but players can choose their gender. Characters and NPCs who know the player will refer to them as such. If I had enough knowledge, I’d allow players to customise their height and width too.

If you’d like to change your skin or get any cosmetics, you’ll have to visit Rick at his Rat Parlour to get customisation options like tattoos, dyed fur, perms, hairstyles and accessories.

For Rick himself, I wanted his character to demonstrate the capabilities of Rat customisation. His character is a very laid-back mid-50s eccentric Punk who is very friendly towards the player. I also took some notes from the London rave and jungle scene which was popular in the 90s. He has a Rat mullet and a few ear piercings as well as a “french fry” tail (just a little bit inspired by Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives that used to show on Food Network in the evening).

A Rat Character, Rick, who can customise your character at his Parlour.

Representation of your Rat character in the 3D space. Process here.

Humans

Level 1 Sisters

The main two characters I have right now are the Level 1 Humans. These will essentially be the tutorial humans that you first invade. I wanted them to be a pair of sisters as I’ve been thinking of ways to create interesting dynamics between humans, and sibling duos are a typical media cliche. I decided to go for the “opposite sisters” vibe, where one has a “lighter” aesthetic, while the other is dark. Both the sisters are inspired by styles I’ve seen in London, and as it’s a capital city, there will be a higher concentration of fashions and subcultures.

I used Photoshop to draw the art as it has a neat symmetry tool allowing you to accurately reflect the characters’ drawings. If anyone decided to develop my game, I’d want them to have the easiest time making any 3D models for the game. In all of the designs I will try not to overcomplicate, the baseline is that I want to communicate the style of the character.

Eden

Level 1 Character. She lives with her twin sister, Evie.
Normal State: Shy and reserved, Indifferent personality
Threatened state: She’ll defend her sister at all costs and hunt the player down on sight
Level of Threat: High
Gothic Rose Color Palette

Eden is inspired by Whimsigoth and the general goth subculture of collecting trinkets and oddities. Her sister on the other hand is inspired by contemporary UK street fashion and brands like Boohoo, Pretty Little Thing etc. so I think the contrast makes for an interesting dynamic that players can discover.

I created character mood boards for each sister’s style to further illustrate my point. You can see the Whimsigoth influence and vintage fashion elements of the style. I like the “witchy” vibe of the character and it suits her calm and solemn personality. Can you see the influence of the mood board on the character? I had to drastically simplify the colours as many others I used didn’t look good on the character. I love the little moth detail at the back, it’s very endearing and quirky. If I make her personality convincing enough, I suspect this character would be a fan favourite, a lot of people like sad women in the media right now.

. . .

Evie

Level 1 Character. She lives with her twin sister, Eden.
Normal State: Loud and Brash, Scared personality
Threatened state: Freezes in her spot or cowers away and calls her sister over
Level of Threat: Medium

For Evie, you can see the influence of popular UK fashion styles (e.g. streetwear) on her style. Her vibe is clean, fresh and slightly tanned; a style that is popular with women in their early to mid-20s in London. I like the slight 90’s influence on the style too, the layered fluffy hair with the denim is really stylish. I admit the similarities between one of the pictures on my mood board and Evie is quite similar, but it was the perfect style that I envisioned for the character. If you saw my previous concept art for this character, I changed the bag and dress colour to be slightly different from my reference photo as it was a bit too similar. . . I felt like the dress suited this character, so I’m keeping it in the design still. The overall look is based on current popular fashion trends, and denim and leopard print are very much in (as they will always be).

Levels 2-5

For future level characters, I want to keep exploring the different fashion styles of modern London which will serve as inspo for Rattham. I have ideas for Old punks, young Goths, Urban Streetwear, Cosy “Mum” wear, and Minimalism. Continuing to analyse the style of London will give me some really cool character ideas to use as both level characters and NPCs.

More about NPCs

The NPCS in the game will only be visible from their shoes to their knees and their faces will be obscured by a cloud if they aren’t a level character. I want the shoes to represent the NPCs’ personalities, especially what fashion styles they’re into, but they won’t necessarily clue you in on their personality type. Matte and plain shoes on a girl may clue you in that she is a schoolgirl, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she will scream if she notices you. As well as the possibility of encountering a scared character with super high platformers with spikes all around them. Shoes showcase not only the quirky styles of Rattham but also the personalities of the people themselves.