Tofu - Character Concept Art for "Catography"

"Catography" is a cute short game about an adventurer cat. This cat is called, Tofu, and he arrived to an island where all the citizens have lost their houses. Your purpose is to collect every yarn out there, and buy their houses back.

In this character concept process, I show the very first iteration of the protagonist, and the final iteration. In the first run, we wanted to create a small adventurer cat. I thought making his eyes huge, would make it adorable, and it was in the concept art, but when I did the 3D model of it, it didn't fit at all.

So, we decided to do another iteration to create an easier character to model, and a more soft one. After some iterations in the thumbnails, and showing them to some users, and the team, everyone said that the pillow shaped cat was the vest option. When the shape was decided, it was time to create some iterations of the same shape, and the other one that some people selected too, to try which face would fit better. Then, with shape and face decided, I made some color tests, having in mind the different cat races that exist, and choosing a neutral color to make the character stand out over the environment. White, with dark and orange ears, was the best option for all users. Other options were the white and brown cat, or the orange one. But this last one was very similar to Stray's protagonist. So I ended choosing its final color palette, and did some action poses to see how we would make it in game.

It was a very difficult process, but we wanted to make an original character that can stand out over another games. This process make me learn to iterate over a result, and not settle the first idea. It's difficult to redo things, but if it didn't work in the first place, users go first than personal opinion, so it is better to change it to make it better. Before reworking the character I thought it was unnecessary to make a new one, but after finishing the rework, I saw that iteration is a really important thing and can boost up an idea.