Initial Rule Application: The Reasons Behind The Designs

Below I have gone into detail about my character concepts and the reasons for designing them how I did. While I was drawing a lot of my decisions were sub-conscious but on reflection there is a lot of reasoning to why my characters have turned out the way they have.

Design 1: I took inspiration from the
LEGO brand and also from ServBots
from MegaMan Legends. I combined this
with Fleischer Studios-era cartoons as
reflected in the cut-out eyes. A lot of early
mascot characters exhibited this trait. 

Design 2: My focus with this design 
was on the shape of the character. He 
has a triangular torso so I wanted to 
keep the design simple to highlight it. The choice 
to have his face hidden was because 
I feel the face is often the most important element of a mascot and was curious if other people would
feel attached to a faceless character.

Design 3: I took inspiration from the
characters from Dr. Seuss novels. The
lines on these characters is more
complex and sketchy, but characters
tend to look "soft". I wanted to explore
this to see if more detailed lines would
be a detriment to a mascot or not. 

Design 4: I used hands which were
quite large compared to his head, this
led me to create a character with a
boxer vibe. A lot of mascots are
inherently happy so I took a different
spin by giving him a determined
facial expression.

Design 5: I chose to make this 
character an alien because it seems

that mascots are often either human

or humanoid animals. 

Design 6: With this design I focused on
having the character's gender be
ambiguous. A lot of mascots are male
and I was curious about whether a
more neutral character might appeal to
a wider audience.

Design 8: I drew inspiration for this
character from "___" the "___" types
(like Sonic the Hedgehog etc.) - I
returned to the pill-shaped eyes that
are prominent on the likes of Pac-man.
I feel this was a typical mascot type
design, I hope to learn about why
this is the case through my
questionnaire.

Design 7: This design was heavily
inspired by Sanrio characters such as
Hello Kitty. I wanted a cute female
animal whose facial features focused
on her big eyes. Her outfit was
inspired by the likes of the classic
Minnie Mouse design.

Design 9: The silhouette for this
character has an emphasis on
rubber-hose limbs that were prominent
in 30s era cartoons. I decided to create
a character who almost contrasted
with the playful vibe of the
silhouette and ended up with a cocky
viking character.

Design 10: When it came to this
design I started with a typically cute
silhouette. I specifically chose to
deviate from this by making a grumpy
old character. I hoped to gather an
understanding for why younger and
happier characters might be preferable
as mascots.

Design 11: I drew inspiration from
animatronics in places like Disneyland
and chain food restaurants for this
design. I also found the creepy
spin on these characters portrayed in
Five Nights At Freddy's interesting.
Animatronic characters are supposed
to be well-loved by young audiences
and I was curious about why they
usually have the adverse effect.

Design 12: For this character I thought
about how a keen sense of adventure is
often tied in with an overall likeable
character. I took some inspiration from
the likes of Alex Kidd and Link as he
appears in Majora's Mask.

Design 14: This design has an
emphasis on child-like proportions
(a big head and smaller body).
I believe there is a correlation between
these features and a successful
mascot, I hope to prove this in my
questionnaire.

Design 13: On this design I focused on
giving the character obscure
proportions; his large feet for example.
If he were in colour, I would give him
a larger palette than the typical
mascot character. 

Design 15: This final design aimed to explore
different gameplay possibilities for a mascot
character/game protagonist. I made her a
humanoid fish-like being to give her the options
of both land and sea movement.

I'm pleased with the variety of characters I managed to create using this exercise and I hope that I'll be able to gain valuable feedback on them once I create my questionnaire. I'm going to be asking my surveyors questions like "Would you buy a product or play a game featuring this character?", "Which of the characters do you think exhibits (X personality trait) best?", "Which is your favourite character? Why?" and so on. I think gathering personal opinions from a variety of different people - such as friends around my age and with similar interests, older or younger people with different interests, family members or even people that I've never really spoken to before - is a very important step to creating a character that is going to appeal to a large demographic. I'll be using the qualitative information I gain from this exercise to iterate on my character designs, rinse and repeat, until I end up with one character who I am truly happy with. The step after that will be exploring how to market the character and create a game for them.