I've been on a hiatus for a long while now. A lot things have changed in my personal life.  I wasn't sure if I would actually pick up games development again. But, here we are.

Let's talk characters!

If you follow me on twitter or played a version of OverGem, you are probably somewhat familiar with him already: Ronin.



I grew up playing Samurai Warriors on PS2, watching Samurai Jack on the telly, and even now I would still be down to watch many shows featuring samurais (Dororo 2019, Demon Slayer etc.) A Samurai was bound to make an appearance in OverGem.

I drew inspiration from my many favourite samurais to design the Ronin. I did work with an artist (Aki-chan) to draw a concept of Ronin:


Outside battle, samurais would wear a Shitagi (shirt) and Hakama (robe pants thing), with an Obi like a belt. However, we wanted to make the design simpler so that it is easier to animate. Jack, from the show 'Samurai Jack', wears the traditional clothing described above. But, Jack's Shitagi is actually really long, after tying the Obi it looks like as if it was a 2-piece (Shitagi, Hakama) but is actually only a 1-piece.  We decided to go for something similar.

I was also watching Demon Slayer when I designed the Ronin, and really liked the design of the Shitagi that was worn over the uniforms. 

I decided to mix the two ideas. I would make the Hakama stretch all the way up to form a 1-piece (similar to Jack's), and don a semi-long Shitagi on top of that. 

The design allowed me to do a wicked running animation



Not being bound by an Obi allowed for me to treat the Shitagi's tail like a sort of cape, flowing in the wind, it made for a really nice effect to emphasise the running. It was quite difficult to get tail to flow nicely. At the moment it flows from side to side like a 2-motion. But, I would have liked to make it a 3-motion, like a wave effect. Maybe in the future.
I also bounce the sleeves of the Shitagi to emphasise how baggy the outfit is, really liked how it turned out. I opted to keep the sword draw stance whilst running, unlike in my final Shield Maiden design where her arms were flailing about. I wanted to create a sense of `discipline in combat` with this stance, as it was stoic and still.