Moodboards

Moodboards for each character:

The Doctor:

This ended up being my most detailed one, although the range of images is quite wide, so a lot didn't end up being used as visual inspiration in the end. I would have preferred a more curated board.

The Marine Biologist:

My favourite board is as I love underwater themes and fish patterns, etc. The board was a little too glamorous for the final design,n but it gave me the inspiration I needed.

The Gardener:

This was the clearest vision of the designs - cluttered and earthy. This gave me plenty of inspiration for what I was aiming for with this character.

This board served as tips for when I was going to present my final illustrations, I like the look of lots on the page, less clean and orderly. Obviously, this only works for artistic presentation and not if I were to give this down the pipeline for a 3D Artist to work on, luckily for this project, that is not the case.

I chose a couple of different artists and designs for what I want my art style to look like. Sort of semi-realistic, messy and stylised. Loose brushwork with the paint strokes visible, giving a sort of traditionally painted feel.

Main Artist for reference:

Alberto Mielgo (AlbertoMielgo n.d.)

Jodie, Mielgo

His work is phenomenal. I adore his painting style. This is one of his digital works. I love the way he put more detail into the focus areas like the face and less into things like the hand and arm, and the table in the back, simple boxes of colour.

One of his most famous works is Jibaro from Love, Death & Robots (Netflix n.d.). It is a wonderful piece, and his concept work for it is so unique.

Jibaro, Mielgo

The rendering for each element is gorgeous and so detailed, if you look closely, though some are done with not many strokes, just very intentional ones.

Bibliography

AlbertoMielgo, + [online]. AlbertoMielgo. Available at: https://www.albertomielgo.com/ [Accessed 1 June 2025].

Anon, Digitalzz — + [online]. +. Available at: https://www.albertomielgo.com/digitalzz/guc2po8q1k5crt2hzrqxaz2sc4jd69 [Accessed 1 June 2025 a].

Anon, Jibaro — + [online]. +. Available at: https://www.albertomielgo.com/jibaro/cxl0a7ctpi9kb4gvjbrbjp20pmpjoe [Accessed 1 June 2025 b].

Netflix, Love, death & robots [online]. Netflix.com. Available at: https://www.netflix.com/title/80174608 [Accessed 1 June 2025].

Research through studies

I did some studies from references on clothing to warmup to the design process.

I also did some life drawing from websites like Proko (Proko n.d.) and Line of Action (Line of Action n.d.) to loosen up, I tended to do this for about 10 minutes before each session of drawing, with each one being around 2 minutes. These are some of them; they really helped me to stay loose and not stiffen up, especially when doing flowy materials!

Bibliography

Line of Action, Line-of-action.com. Available at: https://line-of-action.com/ [Accessed 1 June 2025].

Proko, Proko [online]. Proko.com. Available at: https://www.proko.com/timer [Accessed 1 June 2025].

Research and Planning

Early notes on general ideas:

Planning:

I decided to plan by using a traditional notebook instead on Trello or other planning software, as I attempted to use online software for other modules and ended up setting it up but not using it beyond that. I find this to be the best way to track what I have left to do and get my ideas out.

This is the plan I came up with that allows me to reach the deadline, along with extra time at the end for if my schedule falls behind.

Ethical Issues

Within the Games Industry, there is a trend of sexualising female characters (Flamma 2015). I directed my dissertation towards this issue, specifically costume design, in the essay For Frock's Sake: The Importance of Effective Women's Costume Design. (Nicol, K, 2025). Women are costumed in outfits not fit their personality or their professions. I am hoping to tackle this with my designs, I am trying got prove this is not a necessary issue to have. For the amount of female characters in the gaming world now, it is hard to believe so many are put in skin-tight outfits and high heels, a perfect example being Widowmaker from Overwatch (Blizzard, 2016).

Image from Blizzard's Reference Guide of Widowmaker

By the end, I would like to feel like I did the characters justice, having their personalities shine through and not putting them in an oversexualised outfit that they naturally would not wear. This is a big issue for the gaming industry and and although having plenty of research into it, it hasn't changed a ton throughout the years. We have had some improvements, but not enough that it is still not in the way and is still actively talked about.

World Building:

Although there will not be environmental art within my project, I want to be able to conceptualise where my characters would exist to get a better grasp of their personalities and inform how their design will interact with their surroundings.

My biggest game benchmark when it comes to how I would want the game to play is The Borderlands Series (2K Games, 2025). 

Image from Borderlands 4

A loot n' shoot where you pick between four or so characters and play through the main mission and side missions either on your own or as a group. The story remains the same, no matter which character you pick, the only thing that changes is the skill set you have. You also use a skill tree to level up. I would imagine that this concept game would be similar, except your character's visuals evolve with it, similar to Pokémon (Tajiri, 1996).

A screenshot from the Pokémon database showing the evolution of a Pokémon

So, you start in a normal world, and each character has a normal job at the beginning. They each start in their place of work and get called out in some way. A slightly fantasy creature, i.e a horned rabbit or a mouse with antlers, leads them to a place that is slightly off, slightly fantasy. Sort of like the start of Alice in Wonderland (Carroll 2025), where Alice follows the white rabbit down the hole. They have to go through trials and tribulations in an open world where they gain skills and evolve, becoming more and more fantastical as they go along with the world around them. 

I also did some research looking at what professionals say about costume design. This video by Proko (Proko n.d.), focuses on talking about the elements of the character that make up their personality. What are the key elements? face, pose, outfit or hair? I am focusing on costume, accessories and hair - therefore I should not be focusing so deeply on their body and face.

Bibliography:

Blizzard, Blizzard.com. Available at: http://media.blizzard.com/overwatch/media/reference/widowmaker_reference.pdf [Accessed 1 June 2025].

Blizzard Entertainment, 2016. Overwatch.

2K Games, 2025. Borderlands.

2K Games., 2024. Borderlands [online]. Borderlands.2k.com. Available at: https://borderlands.2k.com/en-GB/ [Accessed 1 June 2025].

Carroll, L., 2025. Alice’s adventures in wonderland. London: Puffin Classics.

Flamma, A., 2015. Sexuality as a temporary identity of female characters in video games. In: PanEroticism. Leiden, Netherlands: BRILL, 2015, pp. 129–138.

Nicol, K., 2025. For Frock's Sake: The Importance of Effective Women's Costume Design.

Pokemon, Pokémon evolution charts [online]. Pokemondb.net. Available at: https://pokemondb.net/evolution [Accessed 1 June 2025 a].

Pokemon, The official Pokémon website [online]. Pokemon.com. Available at: https://www.pokemon.com/uk [Accessed 1 June 2025 b].

Proko, - YouTube [online]. Youtu.be. Available at: https://youtu.be/zUATd5Lbo-w?si=nJ-xOlBh8PT8jLR2&t=567 [Accessed 1 June 2025].

Tajiri, S., 1996. Pokemon.