Kingdom Maker Nobles
Some 'behind the scene' work I did for Kingdom Maker's Noble Creator.
It was a huge task to re-design the visuals of these characters, which had previously been simple place-holder art. Once the Art Director and I landed on this style, I illustrated a huge number of assets with the intention of offering players a wide variety of physical features and colorization to create their Noble families.
Sketched up lots of guides & notes to plan; aiming for unique facial features and constantly revising after feedback. The lower portraits of the King & Queen are the results of all this iteration. They were created using the final, in-game assets.
While developing assets for the Noble Creator, these were some characters I illustrated in order to experiment with swapping physical features (like noses, or face shapes); making sure everything lined up, and that there's variety in shape and size.
Developed a range of hair styles for the Noble creator. These are a set of rough concepts for a variety of hairstyles that were requested. Some of them were cut, and others were revised. This was done for both male and female art.
Developed a range of hair colors for the Noble creator. This was done for both male and female art.
Developed a range of skin tones for the Noble creator. This was done for both male and female art.
When it came to the full body, I used one of the roles (that of the Merchant) to create the first outfit concept. Establishing their proportions & visual style. They had to be easy to read in a side-scroller type screen and mimic a low poly, 3D look.
This the final Merchant set for female and male Nobles and set the visual style going forward. Building the art files for these was important too. Every piece was drawn separately for animators to easily rig and animate.
Nobles in Kingdom Maker had Outfit/Armor sets that could be leveled up. So ways to 'tier up' were always considered. Depending on the Outfit, tiering could be subtle, but others were more dramatic. Variations of Male & Female sets were common too.
A set of all possible colors for this particular outfit, and how all outfits could be colored going forward.