Marcel Sprite Development

Unlike our other main guys, Marcel had an early appearance in Akello's beta chapter so he had kind of an abnormally long time to percolate. One of the things I wanted for him was just a palpable aura of confidence, right off the bat. I wanted Marcel to feel like someone who had no problem taking up space, saying what he feels, and knowing when he's right. But also to temper that, he's not afraid to admit when he fucks up and has the humility to learn from his failures. And Atlas had a big task incorporating this into his visual design.

The body language in the first two sketches are great indicators of this, imo. In translating this to a more neutral sprite, Atlas took his smirk and half lidded eyes into the sketching stage. To me this feels like Marcel's rarely out of his depth, even in crazy circumstances he's got the wherewithal to make funny quip or comment and he always looks ready to entertain other characters' drama with a degree of dryness that strikes me as a fun reinterpretation of Akello's calmness.

Atlas also experimented with a few different body shapes- one leaner, one more muscular- and we both ended up preferring the more muscular body as it better shows his relationship to college football and his Jock archetyping.

I asked Atlas to keep Marcel's complexion pretty similar to Akello's, more to strengthen the visual cohesion between them than realistic genetics, however the more I look at Marcel and Akello side by side the more I really love the warmth of the tones Atlas used. Atlas is a VERY talented artist but I think one of the things they do best is the avoidance of Same Face Characters. Akello and Marcel share similar features but Atlas did amazing work making sure they still maintain their own looks and vibes.

Marcel's style was another facet deeply discussed during production. We wanted him (again) showing off his physique and confidence and we wanted him to really bring a younger man's black style vibes to the traditional collegiate jock look. We gave him a crop top that more resembles a football shirt with the sleeves ripped off and pulled both color inspiration and structure from looking at really cool sneakers. Atlas cleverly used muted colors from Akello's palette to mock up some ideas of Marcel's color scheme and it really turned out to be a gold star idea. More visual links between these two characters without sacrificing their individual identity was really important to me in how their relationship is depicted visually.