Developing a Boss

I began to develop the boss character and decided to rename her as Matramara instead of Rangda. I wanted this game to be inspired by southeast Asia rather than being fully based on their mythologies as to not appropriate any significant themes or symbols. Rangda also has a specific look in the Balinese dance, which I strayed far from. I want to respect the original dance so I instead just used the idea of a demon queen from the dance’s narrative.

I showed my work to a tutor, who went over some ideas with me and did a paint-over. This tutor works as an art director and helped me think about character design for games in particular. Firstly, he talked about scale. He said it was important that I think about how big this boss will be compared to the player. He told me to consider how much of the boss will be seen on screen by asking me questions such as “is the camera first person or third person?”, “what is the position of the camera?” and “how close will this character be to the camera?”. All of these made me realize that there’s actually a lot to consider when designing bosses for games. Another piece of feedback I got was that the idea was too convoluted; she’s the mother and queen of all demons, who is also a centipede with lots of human arms, and she’s pregnant etc. My tutor said that I should be more picky with what ideas to keep for this concept, and save the other ideas for another character. Above is a quick sketch example he did to illustrate his point.

I tried again with my tutor’s notes in mind. I reduced the number of arms and simplified the body shape. I also kept in mind that I was designing for a game so I made certain shapes bigger. I still wasn’t satisfied with this direction so I consulted my mentor.

My mentor gave me some notes on this design, saying that it should have sharper shape language to convey that she’s a villain. During this feedback session, I confided with my mentor that I didn’t like the direction I was heading in. He advised me to take a break from this and not to be afraid to start again if I didn’t like what I was making. This character is meant to be the final boss of the game, so I can’t just let her be an okay design. She needs to be bold, intimidating, yet elegant and effortless. I decided to take a break from her phase 2 design and focused on her phase 1.

These are my sketches for Matramara’s phase 1. I wanted this character to look like a demon’s parody of a woman. I wanted her beautiful face to draw victims to a false sense of safety, but when you take a second to look at her, you would notice her uncannily large belly and eerily-off proportions. I got a lot of positive feedback from these sketches and moved forward with my favorite elements.

These are the sketches I ended up with near the end of the week. My tutors said they really liked her phase 1 but phase 2 still didn’t feel like a final boss. I decided to start again from the beginning.

I completely scrapped my ideas and started fresh. I began by listing her main defining features; lots of arms and pregnant belly. I also defined her fighting style; she is a magic caster. This means I can get away with her being a larger scale because her move set will include a lot of jumping far from the player to cast spells. I was really happy with these sketches and concluded the week inspired.