Hyper Light Breaker: Meet Blu
The Northern Realms are brutal. They’re cold and harsh and demanding.
This is a species (nicknamed “Blu”) from the mountainous north, where the roughness of existence leaves them generally well-suited for action and adventure. It’s a natural step for them to become Breakers.
Species, you say?
…now would be a good time to mention that we will have a limited form of CHARACTER CREATION in Hyper Light Breaker!
WHY CHARACTER CREATION?
Originally, we were planning on creating discrete characters for Hyper Light Breaker. This character had a backstory and a somewhat rigid, predetermined personality and play style.
As we continued development however, our animation department advocated that it would both be far more efficient and lend flexibility to the player experience to instead introduce character creation into the game. We converted the character of “Blu” to a species.
As our Animation Lead, Chris Bullock, puts it, “we decided to have one character "archetype", with a single, larger set of animations that could use any combination of weapons, in order to separate the gameplay from the look a little more. The hope was that instead of doing 5 sets of animations, thus requiring one for each character class where each character had a smaller set of animations that they needed, we could reduce animation scope down significantly by sticking with the single archetype.”
ABOUT BLU
They’re sinewy and fierce, careful but playful and fun, and very clever.
Our Character Concept Artist, Isaak Ramos, worked closely with Alx to develop out facial expressions, outfits, looks, and poses for this species.
Take a look at these original concepts from Alx:
EVO”BLU”TION - OUR CONCEPT ART PROCESS
Based on Alx’s initial concept art, Isaak makes adjustments and explorations, expanding on the original concepts. He shares a few key components and considerations:
- EXPLORATION: Alx will let me know if he's happy with where his initial sketches are or if he's wanting to explore more directions. In the case of the Leaper, for instance, my main objectives were to flesh out the forms since Alx's concept was already on the money. With Blu, there was a solid foundation to jump from, but we still wanted to explore and solve some important elements to the design.
- STYLE: With Blu, we wanted to solve the top by going with a biker jacket or trench coat. I tried some poncho-looking garb, something in the direction of Sergio Leone character. Those kinds of wearables present their own technical obstacles, so we shifted to something more manageable. The short biker jacket came about as I shifted to thinking of a character that was more nimble and athletic. Something along the lines of Canti's jacket (FLCL) with a Han Solo mood.
- POSES + REFERENCES: As production goes along, the poses become more standard as I get the rad sculpts in from John DeRiggi and Jack Covell (character artists) to draw over. As much as I like figuring out poses, it’s better to draw over the approved proportions for the playable characters to maintain continuity and speed. For NPCs and Humanoid Enemies, my pose reference generally comes from fashion models. For the sketches and gestures, sometimes I'll go in without a reference, or I'll browse my personal library of references that I've gathered over the years. There are so many pose resources out there now. Weapon references range from museum display images to blocking things out in 3d. Outfit references usually come from a 500 hour Pinterest deep dive, ha!
- ITERATING: Alx will go over his initial design and lore thoughts with me, so I've always got a good direction to go on from there. The rest of a character's vibe will flesh out in my head as I gather references. Blu's vibe shifted as our design goals called for different references, for instance. My personal view of the character’s attitude shifted from swift and stoic to nimble and determined as we went along. I imagined a blend of Trinity (Matrix) and Driver (Drive) as I worked on the later concepts.
- FEEDBACK: We've formed a great pipeline where I can get solid feedback from the character centric departments. Part of that process involves me checking in with John DeRiggi (Lead Character Artist), and he's been a rock for me as we check in daily. Alx and I have always overlapped a good amount with our tastes, so a momentum is always sustained. Feedback from design and animation is always crucial too... it's all a team effort. Every concept is the culmination of good ideas and notes from across the board!
Fascinated by the concept art part of our dev process? Check out our previous piece where John DeRiggi shares our character art process! Or stay tuned for more :)
LET US HEAR FROM YOU!
Are you excited about the shift to character creation?
What do you think of this species and all their varying looks?