Scene Dog Character Set (c) ShadownChaosforevr.deviantart.com

Some have chosen to invent new eye colors, hair colors & skin colors. Others have chosen to use piercings, sparkles, tats, deformities, outlandish costumes or new twists on old favorites (like wings on the head instead of on the back because now wings on your back are boring). Since every conceivable eye color and bi-eyed combination has been thought up and used, we now have artists doing characters with eyes that are three different colors at once!

Sometimes, this stuff is realistic. I myself have one green eye and one gray/blue eye where you can’t even see the pupil really.

So how far is too far? That’s something each artist has to decide for themselves. It depends on who and what you’re designing the character for. If you just want something cute to stick on your online art gallery, well, there really are no limits. If you want your character to appear in a serious series then you might not want neon pink eyes and a bionic ear – or maybe you would!

If you’re giving your character weird parts and eye colors just because you want to give them weird parts and eye colors or only becuase you want to make sure him/her is original, you may want to think a little bit more before you make a final decision. But, if your character’s outlandish colors/exaggerated traits/bionic parts serve an important purpose to the story then you might be on the right track.

Sometimes it works to have one character that is strikingly different from all of the rest of the characters in a set. Sometimes it absolutely fails. To further confuse the issue, there is, as with most art related subjects, an element of subjectivity to this.

What concerns are there? If one character has different proportions from another it can suggest that the character is a different age (A bigger head suggests a child, for example). So, unless you intend to suggest a character is a different age/species by altering their proportions, then it is best to follow the rules you have created for your set so that people are not confused.

Having characters that look like they were all drawn by different artists is also typically a no-no. If you have one character drawn with thick black lines and finished with cell shading next to a character with thin colored lines and soft shading it might look like you ran out of money on your project and had to hire a different artist. It also doesn’t work well from a design prospective. It messes up the balance/chi/juju/continuity/whole-ness/feng shuei of your project – however you want to phrase it. Just throws things off. It would severely annoy someone with OCD and it doesn’t look particularly professional. If you don’t care, or have a good reason to do it, then it might work but this is rare.

Finding professional examples of this is nearly impossible. If you find one, feel free to submit it to me. I can only think of one right off: Kai Leng from Mass Effect 3 (awesome RPG from BioWare)

The whole game looks and feels like a modern star wars – and the worlds/characters are almost as well developed as those in the SW universe. Then, out of nowhere, comes this super flat (writing wise, though he is pretty thin, too) assassin who looks and acts like some 10 year old boy’s anime-ninja alter-ego. It’s almost embarrassing how badly written he is (mostly because he is quite stereotypical, cheesy, overdone). The rest of the characters look so unique and developed (even some that don’t get a lot of screen time manage to feel round in spite of it). Kai is very hard to take seriously and I hated every interaction with him. I couldn’t wait for my chance to kill that little design failure.

Mismatch that works:

If you have many artists working on your project and you can’t find a style they all can match, here are some things you can do about it:

1. Have one artist do all the sketches, one do all the inking, one do all the coloring, and one do all the shading – or some variation of this so that everything still meshes.

2. Have one artist do all of the work for certain sets (like one artist does the first level world/creatures/items and a second artist does all of the work for level 2 so that everything is congruous within those levels).

3. Don’t make anything match. I have below an example of this tactic and how it works:

http://www.pookapetz.com

This site has a neat ‘scrapbook’ feel and contains art done by probably over 100 different artists with totally different styles. I know because I am one of them! The game is designed to appeal to creative types and has something for everybody (whether you like simple and cute, absolutely ridiculous, hideously ugly or majorly mechanical). The worlds and items are completely unique from one another, too, not just the creature and character designs. It works because everything is so different. It’s not just a few out of place pieces of art.

These simple game characters work well because they are appealing (cute lol) and because their design reflects their role in the game. Most of these characters are from puzzle games with fairly simple plots. Their simple design does not distract from the game play. Games with this type of character tend to be more about what you’re doing than who you interact with. Cordy (Cordy – a popular game for mobile devices), Sackboy (Little Big Planet), Toadstool (Super Mario Brothers) & Bob (Puzzle Bobble). You may have noticed I left the last guy out. That’s because his case is a little different.

#5, The “Moogle”, comes from the Final Fantasy series, which is a complex game that deals a lot with character interaction. Its world is equally complex. But the Moogle serves simple functions (to save your game, for example) and its design reflects that. It is one of the most doodled/tattooed characters from that entire series.

Some of these characters have a little more going on than is immediately obvious (Cordy, for example, has little mechanical doohickeys & the original Sackboy has a detailed texture overlay), but they can all be simplified into a big circle for a head & a smaller circle for the body. There is a lot of ’roundness’ in all of these character designs that adds to the appeal factor.

Game characters can get even simpler than that (Pacman & Kirby, for example). Simple characters are also common as company mascots and logos because they are easy to identify which makes them highly marketable. They also cost less to print which makes for good merchandising possibilities (Think “Angry Birds”).

How simple is too simple? Even stick men have their place in character design. Characters can really make a game (again, think Angry Birds. It’s similar to “Worms: Armageddon” in terms of game play but Angry Birds has many more fans and tons of merchandise. The poor worms really got the popularity shaft and it is likely because they lack the charm of the birds.

Sometimes, as we grow up, reality just kills the imagination, creativity and the romantic worldview of childhood. You can’t just strap balloons on your back and go to Africa. You can’t catch fish in a bath tub. Your dog is never going to talk to you telepathically. Life is lame. But wait – there is a secret to ridding yourself of that pesky sense of realism: your inner child.

The companionship of my own inner child has allowed me to fly through my art and writing. I have to admit, even though I was once a child myself, I really didn’t have much use for children until I discovered the one that lived inside of me.

I was one of few females I knew that didn’t gush in the presence of a newborn. I still don’t want to start a daycare, but thanks to my youngest sister, I now regularly babysit three nephews, and not only have we found some common ground, but through them I have found a well from which creativity and inspiration spring freely.

For people like me, it might be hard to accept the idea of allowing a child to take up residence in your house for five minutes, let alone letting one live in your mind on a permanent basis. For them, I explain the benefits: Having a strong imagination and play instinct can keep life from bringing us down. It can make us valuable as professionals by improving our ability to creatively solve problems. It can prevent boredom at business meetings and keep you entertained on cold, rainy days. Your inner child can stop you from becoming completely disenchanted by the less interesting realities of life.

What’s cool about a kid? I found out one day after 4 and one half hours in the car on a family trip. We stopped, having decided it was a good time to let the little squirt, my oldest nephew Cartier, out for a run off some energy in the grassy patch between a gas station and a bank. There, standing out like the ivory tower at night, was a single, red, burning bush set against an otherwise solid green patch of grass.

In order to keep him out of the landscaping, I had explained to him that bushes were actually hiding places for trolls. Not the cute little trolls with the bright colored hair, but ugly, bad-tempered trolls with sharp teeth and a tendency to snatch buttons and toenails from unsuspecting children. So, Cartier ran to the bush but stopped short of venturing into the stones surrounding it. He got down on his knees and peered carefully under the bush, inspecting things. He tilted his head and asked,

“Troll in there?”

To which I replied,

”Do you see one?”

His eyes did not leave the bush.

“Yes!”

I asked him what color it was, to which he answered yellow. I told him that if he was close enough to see what color the troll was, he’d better get back. His eyes were wide and he got up right away. He lifted his hands and looked at them in horror. I followed his gaze to a tiny hand that was covered in something warm, brown, and as stinky as it was sticky. I realized, with disgust, that he has put his hand in a pile of unnoticed dog dookie. Before I could react, he started shaking his hand at me and shouted,

“Ew, troll poop!”

Once he was properly sanitized, I returned him to the car. He talked about this for days after it happened, reliving the story to his mother, aunt, grandmother, and anyone else who would listen to him. While the story was cute, funny, and a little gross, that wasn’t what made that day memorable to me. It was written all over is face and in every gesture that he literally saw the troll looking back at him – waiting to steal his buttons.

He saw it there because I suggested to him that it was. In this same way, he sees a monster in the closet. His mind fills in every detail for him – his imagination makes it real. It made me sad to realize how much is lost as we grow up and stop believing in that silly nonsense. Imagination is often bullied to the very back of the brain by realism and practicality.

I am not a silly person, but I have an active imagination that allows me to be a lot happier than most of the other 30 year olds I know. Finally, in the eyes of a two and a half year old, I met someone who understands the world that lives just barely inside your peripheral vision. In him, I see the reflection of my own inner child.

Together we see lots of things that nobody else does. It makes my world just a little more colorful. We can look at an old rotted log near a river and imagine the family of cranky coons that lived there before the tree fell and are struggling with the trials of relocating their children. The father is a fat old fisherman and the mother is a brazen thief. Together, they are raising three little ones and struggling to teach them balance between bravely raiding trash cans and secluding themselves in the dark ancient forest, fishing for survival as their father and his father before him had done for many generations back.

If you can’t find your own inner child, borrow a real one. If you need inspiration, go and spend the day with a kid and a refrigerator box. It is a wonderful remedy for any mental rut. If you want some real fun, ask the kid questions. Why does the sun do up there all day? How come the moon only comes out at night? Kids will amaze you with their answers and can provide you weeks worth of inspiration from just a few hours of interaction.

I spend a lot of time with my nephew now that I realize the full value of it. Whenever I need an idea for a new story or drawing, I can count on him to provide it. He, after all, was the inspiration for this article. He often brings me invisible gifts, carried to me carefully cupped in his hands. I always take the offered gift, thank him for it, and look it over while I wait for him to tell me what it is. Sometimes it’s his brother’s nose, sometimes it’s a horse, and every once in a while, he brings me troll poop.

I completed a logo for an elementary school in New Jersey. I may be doing a Skype session with the kids at an assembly to talk about it (I don’t know if I’ll be talking about art in general or how I designed their mascot – we’ll see what they ask me, I guess!).

I entered 3 short stories into the American Short Fiction contest. Each story was under 1,000 words (I think the shortest was 400 words total). The first one is about tradition and has a surprising, slightly creepy ending. The second, my science fiction entry, is a speculative piece on commercialism, lazy teenagers and the next step in technological evolution. This story is unique in that it only contains dialog: there is not a single line of narrative. The third story is more of a fantasy piece about the surprising things children can inherit from parents. You may thing twice about getting tattoos.

I have an article about finding your inner child and the benefits of doing so currently submitted to Slate and Style. I used to subscribe to this magazine and I think there’s something extra special about being published in publications that hold a personal interest to an author I also have a short piece, The Change, submitted to East Of The Web, an online collection of short stories.

My sister has created a piece of wearable art I will be modeling (only because she’s my sister) at an upcoming art show. It’s made of recycled materials (as that is the theme of this particular show) and is a comment on the media’s effect on a person. See pictures and info here: Desiree Joy: Visual Artist/Animator

A good friend of mine, JJ, Graduated with a BA, got some book cover jobs, set up an unreal tournament server – oh yeah, and I got poison ivy rash. o.o

“Just A Girl” is a story about a jaz singer who was reanimated by a bunch of mini cyber bugs during an attack on her homeworld that killed the rest of her species. I won’t spoil anything else, but, it’s awesome.

I’ve followed his work for years and from time to time I like to illustrate his work. This one, a character named Kali, is from an as-yet unwritten piece in that universe. Space, guns, girls, ships and awesome. Check him out here:

GunMetalBlack

Kali, pictured below, took me 2 hours to paint in photoshop7 with a wacom intuos2.

Harry Hanes was an average American teenager: a scrawny, girl crazy, school skipping troublemaker. He had a mess of reddish brown hair and light skin that had not been treated kindly by the onset of puberty. His voice was becoming squeaky and an army of rust colored hairs lurked just below the surface of his skin, waiting for the right moment to break free from their fleshy prison.

He thought to himself about the awkward embarrassment he would have to endure for the next few years while he went through puberty. Becoming a man was certainly appealing to him – as it was to most boys. The squeaky voice and possible pimples, however, put him off. His private wish on his 15th birthday was that he find a way to skip the awkward years altogether and go straight to the being a man part of his life.

It seemed like he was making good progress. As his appetite grew, so did his body. Lately his parents’ grocery bills had become ever-so-slightly inflated. Harry was eating about twice what he used to. Just last month he ate one egg, one slice of toast and a bowl of cereal before going to school. Now he ate three eggs, two slices of toast and a bowl of cereal – and sometimes he still got hungry an hour before lunch was served. Each day he would eat more than the previous.

Things continued on like this for nearly three months. His parents, friends, teachers and even the school bully were concerned about the once lanky kid’s size. The coach was now considering the newly bulked boy for the football team. The doctors were baffled by his sudden appetite. It could never be satisfied.

One day after school Harry disappeared. He’d become sluggish recently and complained of stomach cramps. He had also been doing a fair bit of sleeping. Days went by with no sign of Harry. Finally, friends, neighbors, his parents and yes, even the bully, were out looking for him. They didn’t find Harry but they did find one of the Eaton’s missing cows and a stray cat. That wasn’t all they found.

Two and one half weeks after the boy’s disappearance, a call came in to the police. A farmer two miles out of town (he had no idea who else to call) had discovered something terrifying in his barn. He wanted it investigated and removed immediately.

In the barn, the police discovered what could only be described as something from a horror movie. It was a shell of solidified, sticky, dark brown plastic-like flesh. The flesh was split down the middle and completely gutted. Strings of something slimy dripped from its’ edges, crisscrossing over the opening of the stinking skeleton. The strings of liquid were coated in dust and bugs (as was everything else in the barn). There were heavy tracks in the dust and straw that lead out to pasture. The police followed the tracks through the open double doors.

Outside they saw a man in the field. He was wearing nothing. He was light skinned, well muscled and sported a mop the color of rust. He sat Indian style in the grass, surrounded by corn husks and broken stalks. He was eating ear after ear of corn, voraciously. He did not seem to notice the officers – his interest in the juicy yellow and white kernels was intense. His eyes were glazed and his skin was sticky and glistened in the sunlight.

“Hey you!”

The officer called to the naked fellow.

“I’m so hungry.”

The words were barely understandable through hurried chewing. He looked to be twenty years old. At 6’2”, sporting a fine compliment of muscle and facial hair, it looked like Harry Hanes got his wish: he’d become a man.

On another note, I plan to begin work on a web comic with a friend of mine, Ben. It will feature creatures from an alternate dimension. The story is going to be fun and casual with a balance of scientific speculation and silly explanations for life’s little idiosyncrasies.