Ideas and Moodboards

The description I have of this character above is "wolf-inspired, grunge aesthetic, street-smart, and edgy to an ironic degree". With these core characteristics being my driving motive for this character's creation, I hopped onto Pinterest and built this moodboard. Along the way, as I searched up random buzz words and aesthetics, I created a more fleshed-out idea for what this character is going to be. Streetlights, leather, motorcycles, and cigarettes all became features of this design.

There are a few things that I decided about this character: he's going to be a biker, a smoker, have a really rough exterior, but actually be really sentimental on the inside. I imagine him having a grating, deep voice that sounds a little bit like a growl (he is based on the stereotype of "wolf" after all). After finishing the mood board, I named him "Ross", after someone else I know with a similar personality.

Something else that this mood board inspired—or rather, that one image on the board inspired—is that Ross is going to be a trans man (that is born a girl, and transitioned into a man). In the bottom right corner of the board, you can see the words "self-made man" with images of syringes. I think this is a good allegory for being trans, as hormones are often delivered via injection daily, and the phrase "self-made man" could be a pun on how he made himself into a man, in a sense.

Before I even started on this character, I was already excited to create their design. They're initially described as being "lolita-cyber, non-binary, curious, eccentric, and positive". I tried to emphasise these character traits in this character's moodboard. Again, I entered buzzwords such as "cyber", "robot", "tech", "androgynous" or a mixture of each of them, and selected the ones that I thought fit them the best. The theme colour came out to be primarily neon blue and purple, and a theme of anime, Japan, and screens emerged.

I decided quite quickly that this character was going to be ethnically Japanese, for a few reasons. For one, one of the words I used to describe them was "lolita", which is a fashion style originating in Japan. As well as this, the overwhelming theme of neon colours and futurism reminds me a lot of the pop-culture view of Japan, as it is often seen as a more "futuristic" society and aesthetic. These factors led me to the obvious conclusion that this character should be Japanese.

Given that this character is canonically gender-non-conforming, I gave myself a little bit more freedom with their name, under the presumption that they chose it themself. With their influences from Japan, I decided to go a little basic and call them "Tokyo"—perhaps  it's their place of birth, and the name is a homage to that? Either way, it's definitely a fun word to say.

Every gay dating sim needs a token twink. The initial description of this character was "cute, twink, casual, effeminate". As I started gathering images for my moodboard, the "casual" element quickly went out the window. Of course, the majority of these images are very pink, so that became his core colour, and the ideas of soft masculinity, hyperactivity, and unapologetic sexuality began to take root. This character quickly became loud and dysfunctional, almost on his own.

Unlike the other characters, not a huge amount changed about this guy from his initial characterization and after making his moodboard; I had an idea of what he was going to be, and not much changed. One of my peers mentioned that he would definitely be a theatre kid, and I agree with this wholeheartedly. He certainly became less "cute" and more "dysfunctional" over the course of this moodboard, as I imagine him having an incredibly addiction-prone personality, and while on the surface he appears to be cute and innocent, he is actually incredibly erratic and unstable.

Name-wise, I was pretty stuck. I looked through countless websites of "pink"-sounding boy names, but then I thought up "Romeo". Some of my peers said that the negative connotations of the Shakespeare character (who is, objectively, a misogynistic creep) would carry through to him; however, the name was too fitting to lose.

I didn't really give myself much to work on right off the bat; the only initial inspiration I had for this character was just a kind of "regular guy". Depending on your target audience, that can mean many things; however, I wanted to specifically go for that "basic blonde white boy" genre of regular guy. Torn grey hoodies, joggers, and trainers were all themes that came forward in my moodboard.

One of the key things I wanted to include in this character is an intriguing backstory—something specific that came to mind was perhaps gang or cult activity, so I tried to include images alluding to prison and street culture. He developed into less of the "Joe Schmoe" that I originally thought of him and more of a manipulator or perpetrator. Still, the stereotypical "pretty blonde boy" is how I imagine him presenting himself, and that's clear on the moodboard. His theme colour appeared to be either grey or yellow, so I mixed these into beige, which fits.

All of the other characters have some kind of interesting meaning behind their names; however, when it came to naming this one, it was a fairly simple process. I had a group of my peers talking next to me when I finished this moodboard, and I turned it to them and asked "What should his name be?", to which one of my peers confidently replied "Noah". It sounded perfect—it holds the beige, basic energy that this character exerts.

The final character on my initial ideas list is described as "Otter archetype, lean, wily, genderqueer, and emo". This is certainly an intriguing place to go, with a lot of different ideas piled into one character. Nevertheless, I began to build my moodboard. This character's primary inspiration was otters; however, I decided to lean much more heavily into the emo aesthetic and decided that this character is going to be laid back and fun, hence the images of cats and the outdoors.

This character quickly developed a personality that was fun, easy-going, goofy, and chaotic. I think that out of the five of them, he feels the most real. At some point in this moodboard's creation, I decided that he would play the guitar, though perhaps it's more of a hobby than a career. Many of these images also include people taking photos with nice cameras, so perhaps he is also into photography. The colour scheme of this moodboard is a little more varied than the others; however, I think that black and white is a good shout, given his emo fashion sense.

I did a quick scan of some online websites to try and find a suitable name for this character. Of course, he is based off of otters, and one of the websites recommended "Oran", as it sounds similar phonetically. It is also an Irish name that means "little green one", so perhaps he could have some green accents in his design?