[LakeFeperd]

EDIT: ok, so, that was HUGE, anyway...
(tl;dr a few things about spark's design and a picture with some characters and bosses for this game)

I think in the end I'm going to place more effort into the game's backgrounds than character design. Although, in a game like spark, the design of the main character is pretty important.
If end up one day making a official "box art" artwork for Spark, I think I would end up making the characters take a backseat to the backgrounds.


@Chimera

I have to admit, every other character design posted here and elsewhere are probably better than what I've designed. And yours is no different.
But only if spark was a 90s mascot platformer. I think I have explained before the reasons why spark's design looks boring and why it's not affected by the element which spark is able to control. He is not the only one who has his jester had, although the hat is based of the beam ability from kirby superstar(with mirror kirby's color scheme), the hat is only a product that can be bought by anyone, but like a sword, you need to know how to use it.

Here's the current character lineup for this game:

It's incomplete, missing an important character, but as you can see, they are also not very complex, which makes them easy to work with.
And going back to the "spark's hat is a thing that can be bought thingy", the sword for the still unnamed blue robot is also a powerup for spark.

And there I went again with a "why I made spark look like the way he does post", it's not like I don't want people to post their ideas for spark, no, I'm glad you guys are doing it. I feel like I've reached my limit when it comes to redesigning spark, so, it's really good to see what other minds can do and re-imagine the character.

Thanks. =)

@ ICEknight

I'm not sure if bending his hat that way would be much better because there was a reason why I made his hat go behind his head. Spark is not a very fast game, so having the hat behind his head like that was a way to showcase some speed without the character actually going fast.
Although, you could say the same thing might work for a hat like that or it would be even better. But I'm not sure if bending it backwards while running would feel very natural. In the end, what chimera did, having both behind and bending forward does looks pretty neat.

This post has been edited by LakeFeperd: 22 July 2014 - 08:30 PM

[W.A.C.]

I highly recommend continuing to improve his design. Character design is extremely important for a game like this and I feel many people will be put off by how the main character looks, especially if this is ends up being a commercially released game.

[360]

Promising to see your making such good progress. It would be pretty awesome if this can achieve the same success as Freedom Planet in terms of getting green-lit on Steam and so on. The only suggestions I would have is definitely follow W.A.C.'s advice on that character redesign. Your central character design is paramount (look at Sonic for example, his distinctive design is partly the reason for his global success). I'd also suggest a name change too or rather slight name adjustment. "Spark The Electric Jester" is cool for the retro Sega nostalgia and all but something tells me you might need something catchier and "cooler" to encourage people to download your game when it hopefully hits Steam. You could go with just "Spark" which might be a better alternative or just change the final word in "Spark The Electric Jester".

The word "Jester" might sway people away from your game because it's a strange name choice. Personally I'd go with just "Spark" with a cool electro-charged font and logo.

[LakeFeperd]

@360
I was worried about the name for a while when I saw microsoft's "project spark", they both put a lot of wheight on the word "spark". In the end, if this game sees a name change, the "Spark" word might have to go away.
Not sure if that's really a problem though, but it got me worried for a while.

@ W.A.C.
I'm not sure if I agree or disagree, I most likely agree with you but, shovel kight was popular wasn't it? Even though a some people were put off by his design. Same thing happened to freedom planet as I recall, even after lilac's re-design.
But I see, that is no excuse for me not to work on a re-design for spark. I will, but as long as it doesn't take too much time away from the actual game.

[W.A.C.]

LakeFeperd, on 23 July 2014 - 08:40 AM, said:

@ W.A.C.
I'm not sure if I agree or disagree, I most likely agree with you but, shovel kight was popular wasn't it? Even though a some people were put off by his design. Same thing happened to freedom planet as I recall, even after lilac's re-design.
But I see, that is no excuse for me not to work on a re-design for spark. I will, but as long as it doesn't take too much time away from the actual game.

I love Lilac's current design and like the appearance of the main character from Shovel Knight. There will always be people who aren't fond of certain art styles and whatnot, but I feel Spark's character design just hasn't come close to its full potential. He could be a cool looking character but as of right now, his design is lacking in interesting qualities. If you want, I could attempt my own version of your character by modifying the main sprite for him. I'm not good at traditional art, but I'm decent at pixel art. I won't do it without your permission though, since I don't like modifying other people's art without their permission.

This post has been edited by W.A.C.: 23 July 2014 - 02:18 PM

[LakeFeperd]

@W.A.C.
If you want to, you are free to draw or change my original art of spark in any way you want, as long as it is tagged as a fan art.
Just don't feel like this is anything official.

Actually, I'm not a person that will get mad if anyone "steals" os changes my art, so, feel free do do whatever you want.
Also another thing that I realised is that no fan art at this point made spark look like he does in the game, all have their own spin on the character design, which is very interesting to see.
There are those who make spark similar to his original design, but change his "style" in a interesting way.

Spoiler

By Andy (BTS/ATS composer)
So far, this one is the only that made a desing that works with the universe and yet, it's somewhat different from the original. Kinda showcases what I said before: "I feel like I've reached my limit when it comes to redesigning spark, so, it's really good to see what other minds can do and re-imagine the character."
Do you think something like this might work?

If you want anything as a referece, there is this artwork a made a while ago but haven't shown yet (probably because is doesn't look that great:

why did I made the background transparent

[Chimera]

I think the reason everyone puts their own spin on your work is because honestly Spark doesn't have any unique features about him outside of his hat. His face is a circle with eyes and a mouth with some fluff on the ends, his expressions so far have mostly been closed mouths without much push, and outside the official art you've just shown us, his shoes always have just looked like red blobs.

When you only present us with minimalist pixel art, people really don't have much to work with and kinda go the next step and make it more detailed, usually because it's more fun.

A big thing about character design is you need to make it something that people enjoy drawing. I admit Spark is cute, but really he seems like early stage, template character design. what his official design needs is some more accessories to him; this is not to say clutter him up with design, but make HIM have recognizable features. Like, think of what Spark would look like without a jester hat or his scarf if those are intended to be interchangeable with other items. If your character in his most seen state looks like he can look like someone's original character just with a palette or clothes swap, well then we have a problem :P

Think of it like this: would you consider it strong character design if an anime character looks like another completely different anime character just by swapping hair? Or clothes?

[Tiller]

I'd actually really like to see Andy's design with the forward facing frills on the Jester hat. I think that does enough to still homage without looking like a yellow blob with the kirby hat. Gives him a fairly distinct shape and keeps it simple.

Though I also like the shoulder puffs and two tone boots in Chimera's art. But that nose and lightning bolt is giving me some Chris-chan flashbacks.

This post has been edited by Tiller: 23 July 2014 - 09:53 PM

[Falk]

Chimera, on 23 July 2014 - 09:42 PM, said:

what his official design needs is some more accessories to him;

Just add 20 belts of various sizes

[Chimera]

I always thought the coloring made the piece look worse so here's just a sketch, sans nose and bolt. This actually looks better to me!

[LakeFeperd]

So, here's something I made up last night:

Click on the image to see, if you browser allows it, with a white background.
What do you guys think.

And also, what would you guys think if I renamed the game: "Spark: Glitch Rampage" or something similar (glitch is a reference to what made the robots in the game go in a rampage)

This post has been edited by LakeFeperd: 24 July 2014 - 08:54 AM

[winterhell]

Nice. Also I think the deep black eyes suit the character, please don't change the color

LakeFeperd, on 24 July 2014 - 08:45 AM, said:

Click on the image to see, if you browser allows it, with a white background.

I don't get it why people use the dark theme.(does it have more features?) Reading just one paragraph on it gets me a nasty lined afterimage. Couple of pages and I get a headache.

[Chimera]

Definitely looks interesting! I see you took a lot of notes from Andy's design. Also, is Spark supposed to be a sort of insect esque creature, or just an alien?

[LakeFeperd]

A Demo has finally been released: Download
Hope you guys enjoy it.

[Falk]

So I've been told it's okay to announce; Andy Tunstall, Maxie and I each have one track in this demo. Since we seem to have set this hilarious precedent that projects of this sort in recent history need to have a giant roster of composers, there's also a few hidden cards up our sleeves right now.