Character Design - Alligator

Alligator Design

While it may seem strange to use an alligator as inspiration, it really was born from all of the urban legends which revolve around people flushing baby alligators down toilets, etc. So far I had covered the traditional ‘average all’ stat character (Raine) and the rival character (Spider). My game doesn’t really have ‘speed’ or ‘handling’ attributes so it is difficult to really think of a stand out way to define the characters aside from using the Sheds/ Lives as the basis. For the alligator character I think that his special ability should be to have some form of extra protection but less sheds (i.e.: 2 sheds but 4 lives). This could be suited for elimination style battles (trying to outlive the other players) and also if there are ‘boss’ races in the game.

The actual character design was quite simple. All my other characters had more a futuristic theme so I decided to move away slightly from that and have the character as a muscular guy with a t-shirt and body armour. I looked at the way that Alligators have both a softer looking underbelly and a tough back so I made the body armour reflect this.

I did suffer from some criticism that people thought the character was female instead of male so attempted to rectify this by making the hips not rounded (although I kept the long hair – it was a character trait that he is messy so it is suitable). One fear I did have was that people might think that the character was themed from a dinosaur instead of an alligator (due to the tail) but fortunately I had no such feedback.

I also did an extra edit, this time much darker, perhaps more suited should the character be some form of ‘boss’.

Overall, I have been quite happy with the outcome of the character – I was disappointed with the early ‘female’ feedback but as the artist it is often that you will see your art in ways other people cannot – which is why I have valued the feedback throughout this entire process as invaluable. To shield work from people due to fear of criticism will always damage the final outcome so it pays to take even the most painful criticism to better yourself as an artist (however difficult it is!)