Viking
The Viking is a concept character and style I worked on as a potential video game side project with a couple friends in 2024. I had little experience making specific animations and assets at the time and while admittedly it was a lot of work even for something simple. It did make me appreciate the level of work required for even the most straightforward and light game. I was happy I had the opportunity to learn more about games and the work required to make them come to life.
Initial Character Design
The first pass at the Viking character was a clean lined, simple concept that would be easy to animate and add to.
Character style and refinement
Eventually, I opted for something a little more freeform and expressive as I got more familiar with the animation process. By going with the messier style, it allowed the animations to require less meticulous changes. The rough animations also allowed for some more personality to come through with the character.
Viking 2.0
The rougher style character allowed me to turn out concepts much quicker and to dive a bit into enemies for the character to fight.
Animations
The new version of the character made animating quicker to turnaround as well. The frames could be copied, pasted and built upon with any stray marks not appear as quite out of place as on the clean version.
Environments
This part floated between concept and asset creation quite a bit. I had made a basic tile set to use for environments as we tested playing/mechanics, getting rather proficient at making seamless patterns to make even the initial tiles connect properly.
The character's house was going to sit on a cliff, a path leading to a village below.
Toward the end of our time on the project, I came to really enjoy drawing the character.
I've come to adapt this style into other sketches and pieces that have followed since.
