Over the last two weeks I’ve managed to draw and finalize the designs of all eight playable characters. For me, this is quite the accomplishment since every time I’ve tried in the past to do the whole set I’ve fallen short (especially when I get to the last 3 characters). From frustration or any other factor I tend to give up especially when I have to settle on designs for Shion and Yoshitaka. But no longer! The hurdle has been crossed, and now for the first time ever I have a clear picture of the entire cast.
Today I’d like to share the final design for Morsett, the thief from the Kurokaji Syndicate, and one of Arashi’s potential party members:
Morsett has been a troublesome character, much like Ket. While he is one of the longest-running characters in my story setting, I’ve never quite managed to draw him the way I see him. But I feel like this portrait finally conveys his over-confident, ninja-wannabe ways. Coming along for the ride is Hato, the bluebird, who has followed Morsett to the new world, Lexis, as he spends days and nights looking for… someone. Hato spawned from an inside joke with my friend from a few years back on the blog, and became a full-fledge sub-character. One thing I focused on this time is ageing Morsett appropriately; he’s always been “stuck” in his younger design from the story to Memory of Fractalis but by this point in the story he’s actually a competent thief working his way up the ranks in the infamous Kurokaji group. I feel like this design accomplishes everything I wanted for the character, finally!
Refining the game engine has been a slow and daunting task. After XNA was officially put to rest, I attempted to develop the game for PlayStation Mobile, which as you may or may not know has ALSO been shut down. I really appreciate the opportunities that these platforms provided for untested developers like me, and the engine I had developed is quite strong after porting it to the Vita. But… now I am working in MonoGame in Visual Studio 2015, which is allowing me the chance to further refine and expand the engine to accomplish some amazing things. For the first time in years I actually feel like this game is a real thing again after losing my footing with the death of earlier platforms. I know it’ll take some time to regain interest in the project, but I feel like once I am ready to start sharing the actual game again there will be a lot of excitement.
Until then, Happy New Year! See you in January with more character art!
