In today's update, I'll be going through the visual design process of the characters.
Behold, the first draft of the swordmaster characters, Emily and John. When originally planning the game, the swordmaster was one of two options for starting characters- the other being the raycaster. The caption on the original sketch read "Hero"- the original name for the swordmaster class.
Art-wise, while they retained their swords and capes, Emily's hair was changed to be different from Jill's, and both were given much more elaborate armor. The armor and weapon needed to be the focal point of characters in this class, due to the "tank" position they hold.
Infighters are very simplistic in design, to match their combat style. The focal points of the characters are the headbands and boxing gloves. When designing classes, we chose two distinct parts that clearly identify what class the character belongs to. Then each character is given two unique visual aspects to separate themselves from other characters of their class. Hair plays a large part in this: Jill sports a shoulder-length cut, while Bruce is identifiable by his lack thereof.
The appearance of wraiths has probably changed over the design process more than any other character. What you see today is the result of three completely different designs. Originally called "Ninjas", wraiths needed to be very threatening looking but also very mobile. I decided eventually to add the tasseled hood as one of the class focal points, and gave them more "casual" clothing. Karina and Toshi did keep their hair styles, though.
Originally called "Spellcasters", Raycasters have probably changed the least over the design process. Other than Mabel's dress redesign and the removal of stars on Jonas's hat, they've remained mostly in tact since their original draft.
Adepts were originally known as "Plasma Users", but got a name change for obvious reasons. Originally these were going to be the tribe from the desert, and dimensionists were going to be from the mountains, but for plot reasons had to be swapped around. Hannah's tiara was replaced with the beaded headband for class-consistency, and also received a mild haircut. Samuel needed a differing hairstyle from Jonas, Martin and Toshi, so changes were made there as well.
Dimensionists had much warmer clothing originally, but otherwise have gone unchanged. They were originally known as "Mirror Mages", though once we saw the potential of a summoner class, many changes were made. They still retain their strange hats, though the stars have long since been removed and replaced by symbols from the end.earth universe. Ariane was given slightly longer hair, and Martin's was darkened for consistency.
