Making Melody: Character

Melody was the first character I started making, and she went through a lot of style experiments. I wanted our characters to have bigger heads and chunkier limbs than realistic, having references of elements we wanted to mimic, but no close style to match. I started out by going a bit too realistic, with bones showing, etc. Texturing was also a huge part of matching the style of the environment, being stylized and painterly to match. Jamie helped with re-texturing the characters to better match the environment, since he did much of the texturing for those assets.

We decided she was going to be the ‘preppy/cheerleader’ archetype without just giving her pom-poms. She has small elements that reinforce this type of happy character, like the side ponytail and her star earrings. Her clothing choices are not exactly the stereotype of the cheerleader, but have the same upbeat ~vibe~. We also wanted the characters to have different body types and silhouettes. Melody has chunkier limbs and is rounder than Bass and Harmony, in both her body and clothing.

Because the game is shot from a ¾ angle and a little far away, we wanted the characters to be mostly blocks of color, primarily their main color. For Melody, her primary color is yellow. We wanted to incorporate yellow on most of her, and especially on her big sweater. Because of this she stands out from afar and is clearly ‘yellow’ to the characters who need to quickly discern where their character is on the screen.

- Savannah :^)