Wrenny’s bow-tie/vest/dress shirt combo is meant to evoke two images: a magician, and… a waiter! She grew up working in her family’s restaurant, so I wanted to kind of capture these two parts of her life in one outfit.
We decided early on that the game would have a very limited colour palette, both to have a distinct look and to make the art workload more manageable (choosing colours is hard!!)
But why these colours specifically? …Neapolitan ice cream! Haha. We think it suits Wrenny well!
(When I say “we” I’m referring to @bitebitebited who is a co-developer on the game and had input on Wren’s design!)
The palette naturally led to a white witch hat, because it would contrast nicely with her dark hair colour. But I also like that the white hat is more unique for a witch, and sorta signals the lighter tone we’re going for in this world & story.
Her flared sleeves and cape are meant to balance out her silhouette against the top-heavy hat, and lends her more of a traditional witch aesthetic.
We played with the idea of some patterns on her sleeves but they all felt either too garish or whimsical when we wanted to maintain a certain level of grounded everyday realism to her character!
For her hairstyle, it started off as braided low ponytail thing. But adding lines to show the folds of the braids looked cluttered against the relatively simple linework of the rest of her design. So it kind of just looks like a bubble braid now… but the folds are still there in our hearts!! Lol
(I also liked having a bit of a curl to her hair to echo the crescent of her hat, and to honour some of the wavy/curly hair genes that bite and I have!)
Some early sketches of alternate hairstyles. Something short felt best for her silhouette (I’m a big believer in characters having a balanced and distinct silhouette as you can see!) The swirly ones were cute, but similar to the sleeve patterns, felt a bit too fantastical.
The braid won out for a few reasons. For one, I think we just like how braids look lol. But also, it gave the opportunity to add a little pink in her hair in a natural way. And! Posing the braid allows for some fun added expressiveness, similar to a cat‘s tail (or Ranma, which is an early anime influence on me!)
A few final rapid-fire points:
Wrenny is meant to be on the taller side (5’9” ish??) We just liked the idea of some more tall girl representation! Especially tall Asian girl!
Her shoes have a subtle curved-up toe box for another bit of witchy aesthetic. You will almost never see her shoes though because I hate drawing feet lol
Star earring! Like her blush, this is the only part of her design that doesn’t have an outline, which adds kind of a nice, softer accent.
Stars are the general symbol/motif for magic in the game, but also, when I think of pink, and I think of stars, I think of Kirby. And that’s a nice place to be.
Very first rough sketch of Wrenny. How far we’ve come!
I think that sums up most of the thoughts and discussions that went into Wrenny’s design! Thanks for reading, and if you'd like to see her design in action, you can wishlist Wrenny Lee: Witch-for-Hire on Steam! It's a short visual novel comedy coming later this year :)
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