Now it's your turn to practice the thumbnailing process. This assignment will help you generate multiple ideas quickly and effectively.
Your Task
Choose one of the 4 character descriptions provided below and follow these steps.
- Create 7 to 10 thumbnails for the description you selected.
- Focus on creating a variety of ideas. Each thumbnail should feel like a brand new concept.
- Pay close attention to the silhouette. Make sure the changes from one thumbnail to the next are significant enough to create a unique and readable shape.
Character descriptions
Maren Asando - For this quest we need a character that the player meets and is trained by before heading into a dungeon. She's an archeologist that specializes in finding, exploring and excavating ancient magical ruins. She is a natural linguist that can learn any language in just a few days, and can decode writing and hieroglyphics that have been lost for thousands of years. She has a small otter (or whatever, a small cute animal) companion named Glub that she uses to scout out dangerous ruins and her linguistic skills are strong enough that it seems like she can talk directly to it in a combination of squeaks, whistles and simple english. She has a deep distrust and suspicion of the academic elite and hates having to prove her work to them. She is fastidious, meticulous and can come off as aloof - but that's to mask a deep passion she has for her work; she doesn't want to get hurt again by people she trusts. She's the one who teaches the player to decode the puzzle runes that are scattered throughout the dungeon, and then accompanies them through, providing tips and pointing out secrets. Eventually the player can recruit her as a companion.
The Entity - The final boss in the Prison of the Broken Sword, The Entity was imprisoned by a dynasty of warrior-kings who have since fallen from grace and nearly passed into memory. The Entity is chained to a wall in a full body restraint system that was repurposed from a suit of armor. The Entity's eyes and mouth are visible through the mask but nothing else is. No one ever sees it moving (but it definitely moves) and only occasionally do you hear it breathing, and patches of moss cover its armor. Every so often a curious visitor will receive a fragment of information, delivered in a low raspy tone that is somewhere between garbled prophecy and insane wisdom. It only seems to eat rodents as evidenced by the piles of bones around it and offerings of food and drink rotting in piles. The player can only defeat The Entity when they reassemble the Broken Sword and use it to open the locks that bind it. During the boss fight, The Entity uses the huge brass locks fastened to it's chains in wide swinging attacks that the player can get inside of and stab at weak points in the prison armor.
Mikkles - This is a type of creature we're adding to the upcoming DLC (downloadable content/expansion pack). Since the theme of the DLC is around material transmutation (but we can only afford one new enemy type), we want them to be usable in a variety of situations but also be able to provide a bunch of different material drops when the player defeats them. The idea is they are sort of furry goblins that come in all shapes and sizes. Kind of like angry raccoons? We want them to have a manic energy and are sort of unpredictable, and they can use the new traversal system we are adding - so we see them climbing up walls and dropping down on the player, or maybe rolling into balls or something. Scrambling up ledges, climbing vines - you've seen the demo so you know that this is a pretty versatile system and we want to get an idea of what's possible, so some action shots and behavior sketches would be great just to get the designers and animators thinking outside of the box. This DLC is a little more zany than we're used to doing so we're ok with a more slapstick approach. Consider a bunch of different silhouettes so we can make different character classes so it's easy for the player to make them out at a distance and decide how they want to deal with each group.
Inkpot Sam - We need a character to introduce the player to our Book Making system - the general idea is that he's wiry and tall, but sort of got a bent over look from hunching over a writing desk, copying scrolls and various tomes. That's a kind of classic nerd/crafter look, but we could also go for a brusque craftsman look but he has to be appealing so that players want to listen to him and take his advice, like he has a natural warmth and seems wise. We also wanted to capture some ideas for the Book Crafting Workbench, it should look like a cluttered desk with pots of glue, inkpots of various shapes and colors, partially bound books and different embossing tools, brushes and pens, something that gives it life and sense of character that would be appealing to support players that also like crafting.
You have until 11/29/25 to submit your art for possible inclusion in the critique video!
