Design Process
This design was the first elf design developed, the eye shape and hair, were largely inspired by this image:
However, after showing the image to several other designers, their first impression was that the elf was “cute” (which is not a desirable trait for a villain). Further questioning revealed that they thought the short, stout body and large eyes were primarily to blame.
Keeping this feedback in mind, in my next iteration, I created a taller villain with smaller eyes (1 bit).
I drew inspiration from this image, to create the side position and the way that he held the bow and arrow.
This design was better received, however, after a meeting with other members of the design committee, we agreed that all characters and objects should have a black outline.
Initially, I struggled to create a 32-bit character with a black outline. The black outline looked heavy and the curves looked very jagged.
I did not mind the black outlines around the body of my character in the third iteration (I didn’t think that they were too heavy), but I disliked the outlines on his face and around his hood.
I decided not to include any black outlines on his face (only on the outline of his body). I also decided that the hood should be thicker and darker so that the black outline was less obvious. This lead me to create this sprite.
I gained feedback from other design students, and one pointed out that dark elves were commonly purple. They recommended that I look at the elf characters from the tv show Dragon prince.
Rayla
Aaravos:
Moon shadow elf:
I loved the design for the Aaravos and decided to modify my design so that my character was purple.
I liked this design and the purple skin for my character. I decided to use this design and create left, right, and back-facing sprites.
I believed that his brown clothing did not match his skin tone, so I decided to change them so that they were dark purple.
I also shortened the cloak, as one of my testers did not know what it was at first. They referred to it as a “strange shadow.”
We had a design committee meeting, it was decided that we would use 64-bit sprites, rather than 32 which I had been using. Whilst I agreed with the design choice and believed it would be far more suitable to draw curved objects like axes, this meant that I had to considerably re-work my designs.
64-bit designs are considerably larger than 32 bit and allow for far more detail.
I had really loved the design for Aaravos from Dragon Prince, so I decided to research him in greater depth to drawing inspiration from different clothes and positions that he had used.
I wanted to include the white tattoos that he has under his eyes, but even with the more detailed 64-bit image, they looked too large and heavy and it was unclear what they were.
I had also wanted to include pointed ears, which are a part of elvish folklore, however, I felt that the ears did not look natural, they seemed to stick out from the side of his head. A tester stated that they “didn’t look quite right.”
I decided to include white hair, similar to Aaravos’.
I also used the same bow position, colouring, clothing, and eye colour from my 7th iteration.
I really liked this design and decided to use it for the game. I also created left, right, and back-facing sprites based on this design.
