SENIOR THESIS PART 1- Spektrum City Character Development

My last semester was spent focusing on developing a team of characters for a hypothetical urban fantasy RPG loosely based on Norse mythology.  I knew I wanted to play off of the classic Warrior-Ranger-Mage-Pet type of party dynamic and put a new spin on it.   I also was interested in designing potential "good" vs "evil" evolutions for the characters that would develop in-game based off of player choices, just like in games like Mass Effect and Fable.

The game is set in a semi-futuristic city that runs entirely on industrialized magic.  The hero, Vincent, is just an easy going run-of-the-mill garbage man, who collects the expired magical batteries and hauls them to the dump on the outskirts of the city.  While on a routine run, Vincent discovers a dark secret behind the city's power source and becomes an unlikely hero...involved in a quest to prevent a major magical meltdown.

The supporting characters include, Maroon, a high-strung rookie cop who may-or-may not be a double agent working for the demon-mafia,
Rocky, her well-intentioned but destructive canine companion, and Trevor, a punk-rock troll who is addicted to dark magic.  Together they form a lovable but dysfunctional team.

My first step was to break down the characters into extremely basic shapes, again playing back to classic fantasy RPGs with an elemental team of earth, fire, water, and air.

I then did some quick headshots, just to get my gut reaction of what I wanted the characters to look and feel like.  It's interesting for me to see how this initial essence changed in some ways and remained in others when carried to the final designs.

Here is the final team, and in the following posts I'm going to go into developing each character a bit more in depth.