Kazu Sprite Development

So Kazu has a fun set of challenges that make his sprite semi-easy, and semi-complicated. He doesn't emote super strongly and at ~6'9", his body language is kind of automatically a little intimidating. Kazu's size is an important part of his visual design, but because it's hard to show characters at scale in visual novel format without sacrificing shorter characters, Atlas and I were looking for ways to try and convey the vibes with some artistic smoke and mirrors. More on that in a second!

So you can see again Atlas' process of mapping out a character's face by doing a semi realistic portrait in stages to get the details and features down. TCM has a slightly more simplified style but it helps them control the stylization if they have a strong sense of what features are most prominent.

Kazu's a very stoic guy so we knew that his facial expressions were going to have to be very subtle but still convey a lot. One of the design notes I have on him is that his eyebrows don't go up ever, even when flushed or sad or tender (doodle of flustered Kazu provide by Atlas as an example). So you can see we tooled around with several different looks AND incorporated some various head angles to get the desired amount of flexibility while still staying "on model" so to speak.

Back to conveying Kazu's size- Atlas and I wanted strong, confident-bordering-on-arrogant posture for Kazu. Squared shoulders and firmly placed arms play up his torso size (and slutty waist). We also leaned on this to be a strong way to play up his physicality in the game space since height alone wasn't really an option.

Many of you know coyoxxtl/coyotepussy on tumblr is one of my most supportive friends and og Kazu stan and I wanted Atlas to heavily base Kazu's in-game look on their work. Of course, both artists have their own unique take on him but Coyoxxtl has done a lot of work in helping me refine his design and I was very grateful Atlas was enthusiastic about incorporating that into their spin. Also provided by Coyoxxtl, some clips of Kazu's tattoos. He has a full body suit and I have all the various elements mapped out, however I'm not fully committed to exactly what level of detail we may see on updated Kazu sprites or artwork in the future. Again, my curse as a a writer to make visually complex blorbos that are the bane of artists. I'm sorry lol!