"Espri" - Sci-Fi Ghost Character
This design was for a playable character made for my Game Design senior project, Rushdown, a competitive, free running freeze tag multiplayer game set in the future. In making Espri, I wanted her to have a spooky but not horrifying feel, portrayed with her aesthetic of ghosts, skulls, and tombstones. I wanted her outfit to have a cyberpunk feel while portraying her as prideful and egotistical, wanting to shine above others in her league.
Given the initial challenge of designing characters for a free running freeze tag game, I came up with some basic illustrations for different characters to get ideas flowing. This one was chosen to be refined and continued.
Maintaining the idea of negative space with her clothing, I also wanted to start touching on the effects of her ghosts and how they might be in-game.
I began to continue working on her outfit, working towards a "witchy" vibe with big brown boots, buckles, and keeping a green and black aesthetic.
Another design that was thrown was to make her a little more ethereal, and as the game was going to be set in the future, to make her ghosts more digital than they were fantastical.
Finally moving towards a future-punk aesthetic, I came up with this third design, giving her shorter hair and a vinyl coat over her clothes.
I pushed the concepts further, finalizing her outfit and giving her more personality that fits her punk aesthetic. I also added some gold to contrast her black, and finalized the digital ghost effects.
In order to get Espri into the game, I created orthographic images of her for our 3D modeler to replicate in game. I added a few more motifs to incorporate the undead vibe and gave her a little logo on her back as well.