Henry! (its a working title)

"My comfort zone is drawing delicate women wearing flowy dresses. Lets do a 180 to challenge myself"

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  Initial Design 1

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  Initial Design 2

(click on the images to expand it)

I knew I wanted a sea animal, and jellyfish just seemed fitting. I had cool ideas of Henry not having any eyelids and used his little jellyfish head, shaping him like some 2000s rapper that thinks he's cool.I wanted him to like humans, and want to become one how a little girl might want to become a unicorn. Picking up discarded scraps of clothing, he would dress himself up and walk in a humanoid fashion to seem cool.Although he started as a jellyfish, through iterations and mini doodles, he began to resemble more like an octopus, and I went along with it.

Concept:

It wasnt... cool enough- it was just so generic and lacked features that really made him unique. He wasnt dramatic enough and the shape was boring. There will always be character archetypes that focus on wanting to become something theyre not but what makes him different?I tried to experiment with different shapes, using shape language as a way to set himself apart from any generic octopus.Despite looking objectively cute, he lacked personality.

Stuff like this was just lacking...I had to revisit the drawing board and start somewhere else that isnt so vague. I needed clear artisitc direction.

Going back to my mood board and references, I started to pick apart why I liked each character on that list. Why how despite looking cute and obeying all the 'rules' that made a character relatable, mine lacked the charm these characters had. Henry lacked depth.Caine and Megamind seemed like the perfect reference for adorably relatable characters that were somewhat morally ambiguous.I loved the idea of an evil scientist on the surface but a cute boyish cat-like personality behind closed doors.

Here is where I really put that evil scientist feel into his character, and suddenly the designs made sense. Even the more rounded egg-shape designs looked cohesive and reasonable, and they even carried a little more charm.I eventually landed on a triangular / pyramid head to not only represent the sinister obsessive side of Henry, but also to contrast the fleshy organic shapes present throughout his design.

(not sponsored by jurassic park)The triangular oversized head also allowed me to almost point it like an arrow, making poses fun and dynamic.

This is the first detailed concept of evil Henry. Now, he didnt just want to be a human one day, he was going to do everything in his power to make sure he is one.Grafting cybernetic limbs onto himself, experimenting on fellow sea life... grafting a human eye onto one side of his head... all to the point where he has to be on constant life support to sustain it.His body dysmorphia was really unsettling, but yet- relatable.

I then sketched up a quick overview of what poses he might possibily find himself in, and how he may show his expressions.

Although I originally found it difficult to express exaggerated emotions without eyebrows or a real mouth, you'll soon find out that I managed ;)

FINAL PIECES!

As to why I named him Henry?I wanted his name to reflect who he was on the inside. A little boy, who just had a dream to become something else.

Choice was originally made as a stupid project for my friends because I wanted to convince them that their personalities reflected in everyday choices. It was originally called 'The Alcie Psychic Project' and was built entirely online using a visual novel maker.I then used the available generative AI at the time (running locally on my own computer) to create unique backdrops based on each player’s ending. For example, if someone got the 'MBTI: INTP ENDING- you didn’t water the flowers,' DALL-E would generate a new scene reflecting their choices, which would then show up in the next player’s playthrough.Since it was made just for my friends, the choices limited and were tailored to their MBTI types. (figuring out every possible personality combo would’ve taken forever.)When I then shared my progress on Twitter, many other friends in the community got curious and wanted to try it out, so I then sent the game to them too, making it a limited access- but public game.(Fun fact! Before this limited semi-public release, I also added in a global chat function, which was extremely broken and almost crash the game)

For example:

Ending/ upon next play through/ next player:

Based on my hair in real life at the time, I made the 3D character asset Kalifornia.

Blender + Liquid Sims