Where do ghost chefs come from? They do not spring, fully grown and battle-ready, from the head of Zeus. They are a product of several revisions.
Here, for your potential amusement and edification, is our character design process.
First, Steph’s inaugural doodlings:
Ghosts in all shapes and sizes, ranging from Waffle House short order ghost to spermatozoid gumdrop ghost. I particularly gravitated toward the “Zut alors!” ghost in the lower right. Simplicity was the prime directive, and we’d begun eyeing the titular Blob from A Boy and His Blob as a reference.
He’s only a few lines, but is overflowing with personality. If the three minute mark in the above video doesn’t elicit some sort of emotional response from you, get off my lawn.
Round two for the ghosts involved more calculated experimentation with body shapes and features– namely, small mouths versus larger, more expressive ones.
The small mouths are considerably cuter, but since this is a console game, the ghosts’ expressions had to read well to someone parked several feet away on a couch. Bigger features were a necessity. We also settled on the third body shape. Along came:
So close. Not quite there, though, and the arms were the culprit. They were a bit too masculine for our asexual ghosts, and my animation budget quivered at the detail on those spectral claws. Steph and I were simultaneously struck by the solution:
A bit of spit and polish later, the basic ghost design was done.
Steph cleverly worked it so that we can have our Kraken Cake and eat it too– the ghosts’ expressions and appendages are context-sensitive. Flippers and big expressive mouths appear when the situation requires them, then vanish into cute oblivion when there’s nothing to get uppity about.
Oddly enough, one of my initial requests was that the ghosts not be “too cute”– because that would be girly and predictable! Cute is so passé! I cannot deny my inner sensibilities, however, and ended up eating a seven-course meal of crow.
Fluffy, adorable baby crow. In a bonnet.
