I originally posted the first concept design of an "Angel" in the characters topic, and it seemed a bit popular given IMs and PMs recieved afterwards.
so I figured I'll show a bit more. a warning about the quality though: these were never meant to be shown to anyone. they were just to help me flesh out my ideas. so there will be mistakes, there will be proportion issues, some stuff may even be drawn in a way that doesnt make any goddamn sense.
there was a TON of concept art done for this game. everything was drawn and redesigned dozens of times before it was turned into a sprite. there's stuff I did concept art for that never made it into the game. characters and areas completely removed from the story because I decided to go back and change the entire direction of the game.
Designing the "Angels" was of course, the first part of making the game. My goal was pretty intimidating: make them look other-worldly, a bit dangerous, but also noble and trustworthy. This (I hope) was accomplished by their facial designs. even in the final game, it's unchanged - even the framing of their faces remained exactly the same. no matter how oddly I designed the rest of their heads, if I kept the eyes big, easy to focus on, and the face with as little detail as possible, they looked friendly. so they don't have pupils. the skin around their eyes is black, to further emphasize their eyes. the mask that slides over their mouth is rarely detailed. when they don't have their masks on, their noses don't have nostrils, but rather small slits along the sides of their nose that can seal shut, making them completely invisible. their lip color is the same as their skin tone. everything about their faces is designed to look friendly, to offset the often intimidating armor they wear.
originally, their eyes were going to be white. but I didnt think that would look good as a sprite, and it didnt really show any emotion. so it was changed to yellow. with yellow, I can shade the eyes and give them a bit more life.
So here's the first ever design for an "Angel" I did. this was a day or so after the idea popped into my head. I'm still quite fond of it. pulls off the armor look well, doesnt look mechanical, doesnt really look like anything familiar. but the damn thing ended up being too complicated to convert into a sprite. so I started adjusting the design.
This IS Lucid, by the way. if you remember his profile, it mentions he broke the visor off his armor because it covered his eyes and made it hard to see things the way they were supposed to be seen. that's included here. look at the top left side of his head. you'll see something that comes to a jagged, black end right above his eyes. yeah. that's where the visor was. When I first posted this, I didnt remember if this was supposed to be Lucid or not. but then I remembered the broken piece of armor.
oh, another thing. while the "Angels" are primarily white now, originally, only their faces and face mask were to be white. they could be all sorts of colors. they werent seperated into different classes back then either.
Below, we have an image drawn a month or so later. It is, of course, Lucid. and Megan!
Megan isnt standing upright in the above image, she's supposed to be in the process of collapsing to her knees, but when I got down to her waist I realized the bottom of the paper was dangerously close, so I stopped. why do I point this out? because the height makes no sense at all if it's not stated! also, she's wearing overalls. she's a bit of a tomboy. she doesnt wear overalls at all in the game though. she ended up looking like a hick with them on. and since the game takes place in the south, I didnt want to cross that line.
I REALLY debated showing this here. because it shows some things about Lucid (some of which are still in his current design, go look) that I havent touched on at all in the story or character write ups. can you guess what I'm talking about? yeah, I bet you can. I will say this: the blades are not really important, they are a modification made to his "unknown type" armor, and he doesnt have them for very long. I don't like the body design at all, but I really like the head design. he still has elements of this head model today.
anyways, I showed it because I think it shows their relationship pretty well. and having said that, and remembering exactly what the pose in this image is, I will step in and say that at this point, the angels were ASEXUAL. Lucid isnt shoving megan's head anywhere bad. I swear. oh my god, how did I not even notice this until now. if you look, her head is turned towards whatever lucid is pointing at, so... yeah. it looks bad no matter what. urg.
Random story development stuff -
Megan wasnt named Megan at the point the above image was made, she was Alice, and she was an orphan that Lucid took in. she lived with him in the supply "shop" he ran in town. the exact location wasnt nailed down yet, and neither was most of the story.
so I figured I'll show a bit more. a warning about the quality though: these were never meant to be shown to anyone. they were just to help me flesh out my ideas. so there will be mistakes, there will be proportion issues, some stuff may even be drawn in a way that doesnt make any goddamn sense.
there was a TON of concept art done for this game. everything was drawn and redesigned dozens of times before it was turned into a sprite. there's stuff I did concept art for that never made it into the game. characters and areas completely removed from the story because I decided to go back and change the entire direction of the game.
Designing the "Angels" was of course, the first part of making the game. My goal was pretty intimidating: make them look other-worldly, a bit dangerous, but also noble and trustworthy. This (I hope) was accomplished by their facial designs. even in the final game, it's unchanged - even the framing of their faces remained exactly the same. no matter how oddly I designed the rest of their heads, if I kept the eyes big, easy to focus on, and the face with as little detail as possible, they looked friendly. so they don't have pupils. the skin around their eyes is black, to further emphasize their eyes. the mask that slides over their mouth is rarely detailed. when they don't have their masks on, their noses don't have nostrils, but rather small slits along the sides of their nose that can seal shut, making them completely invisible. their lip color is the same as their skin tone. everything about their faces is designed to look friendly, to offset the often intimidating armor they wear.
originally, their eyes were going to be white. but I didnt think that would look good as a sprite, and it didnt really show any emotion. so it was changed to yellow. with yellow, I can shade the eyes and give them a bit more life.
So here's the first ever design for an "Angel" I did. this was a day or so after the idea popped into my head. I'm still quite fond of it. pulls off the armor look well, doesnt look mechanical, doesnt really look like anything familiar. but the damn thing ended up being too complicated to convert into a sprite. so I started adjusting the design.
This IS Lucid, by the way. if you remember his profile, it mentions he broke the visor off his armor because it covered his eyes and made it hard to see things the way they were supposed to be seen. that's included here. look at the top left side of his head. you'll see something that comes to a jagged, black end right above his eyes. yeah. that's where the visor was. When I first posted this, I didnt remember if this was supposed to be Lucid or not. but then I remembered the broken piece of armor.
oh, another thing. while the "Angels" are primarily white now, originally, only their faces and face mask were to be white. they could be all sorts of colors. they werent seperated into different classes back then either.
Below, we have an image drawn a month or so later. It is, of course, Lucid. and Megan!
Megan isnt standing upright in the above image, she's supposed to be in the process of collapsing to her knees, but when I got down to her waist I realized the bottom of the paper was dangerously close, so I stopped. why do I point this out? because the height makes no sense at all if it's not stated! also, she's wearing overalls. she's a bit of a tomboy. she doesnt wear overalls at all in the game though. she ended up looking like a hick with them on. and since the game takes place in the south, I didnt want to cross that line.
I REALLY debated showing this here. because it shows some things about Lucid (some of which are still in his current design, go look) that I havent touched on at all in the story or character write ups. can you guess what I'm talking about? yeah, I bet you can. I will say this: the blades are not really important, they are a modification made to his "unknown type" armor, and he doesnt have them for very long. I don't like the body design at all, but I really like the head design. he still has elements of this head model today.
anyways, I showed it because I think it shows their relationship pretty well. and having said that, and remembering exactly what the pose in this image is, I will step in and say that at this point, the angels were ASEXUAL. Lucid isnt shoving megan's head anywhere bad. I swear. oh my god, how did I not even notice this until now. if you look, her head is turned towards whatever lucid is pointing at, so... yeah. it looks bad no matter what. urg.
Random story development stuff -
Megan wasnt named Megan at the point the above image was made, she was Alice, and she was an orphan that Lucid took in. she lived with him in the supply "shop" he ran in town. the exact location wasnt nailed down yet, and neither was most of the story.
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