Designing my Characters

When designing my characters, I had to think carefully about the target audience my game was intended for. From the results of my questionaire, I had already decided that I wanted my game to be aimed at a neutral gender audience between the ages of 12 and 24 (Young gamers along with older ones that may appreciate the retro feel i'm going for) I wanted however, to keep my game to a 3+ or 7+ age rating, this was because that way I would be reaching the largest audience.

With these things in mind and with my Synopsis, I began sketching out character designs and concepts for both Wren and ZED900. I wanted both these characters to be quirky in some way and wanted Wren, the protagonist, to take the role of an unlikely hero, much like Mario and Donkey Kong, as earlier discussed.

Below is my design for Wren. I chose to give him a ginger afro, freckles and glasses to fit in with the unlikely hero theme, but also with the nerd persona I was looking to create.

(Click to see in full view)

I also gave Wren some other features such as specific items of clothing and books, this should help to enforce his character and make him more recognisable.

When it came to designing ZED900, it was a little more tricky for me to work with. I wanted ZED900 to be the comedy relief of my game, making him quirky and funny, but also look like an AI Bat, like I had originally planned.
After several sketches and design ideas, I finally came up with a design I liked. Several of my design sketches are below, along with my final Design, which I drew onto A3.

I am very happy with both the designs for these characters, I feel they work well with the idea I wanted to portray with my game, but they also look like unlikely heroes and are not characters you'd expect. I will now be looking into spriting and digitally drawing them, ready for my games trailers and cover.