Meet Our Character Designer: Ellen Alsop
Did you know that the Guildlings team scouted its character designer, Ellen Alsop/@ellenalsop, right here on good old Tumblr? As the game’s lead 2D artist, we thought you might like to learn more about her!
Be sure to check her out on Twitter and Ko-fi! ^ o ^
Could you tell us a bit about your background? Did you study art?
Yes! I graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a bachelor’s in illustration. While I was in school, I thought I’d end up in the animation or comics industry, especially since all my friends seemed to be heading in that direction. But when I got approached to work on Guildlings, it just clicked that I really wanted to work on video games. I’ve always been passionate about games, but I never really considered that it was a career path for me. Which is funny because I feel like concept art for video games and animation can be pretty synonymous!
What was it like when the team first approached you to work on Guildlings?
If you can believe it, the “wizards and wifi” tagline was there from the very first pitch! I loved the idea of mixing the old with the new and making something visually unexpected, so of course the pitch extremely resonated with me.
The thing that drastically changed from the pitch was that Guildlings was supposed to be about a road trip (hence the car in the very first key art). Even then, the road trip element still emphasized how big and grand the world was supposed to be, and that never really changed!
Ellen’s first key art for Guildlings.
How defined were the characters and setting by the time you came on board?
There were preexisting concepts that Chelsea Saunders/@pixelatedcrown had made before I was hired on, so the visual style felt fairly defined… low poly, cute, colorful. That was always the constant. Meanwhile, characters used to be nameless units you’d send out into the world. No names, only the class they were.
Jamie Antonisse, the game’s creative director, was pretty clear with what he had in mind visually and personality-wise! For Chazazz, he was thinking something like a Gene Belcher-body type but with a very kind-hearted personality. I ended up filling in the gaps with other bits that seemed to resonate with the characters, like giving Chazazz’s jumpsuit a Sonic-Tails-Knuckles color palette or Palance a sort of disheveled Sportsknight look compared to Gwynn.
Unused ability art for Chazazz. “He’s my own Sonic OC,” says Ellen.
I felt like Chazazz would have definitely been inspired by Sonic growing up. I guess now that I think about it, I put a lot of my own interests in the characters at the time. Like Prisma was DEFINITELY originally inspired by La Roux a la ‘Trouble in Paradise,’ which was something I had on repeat while designing her.
All of Prisma's designs are amazing. Was she fun to work on?
Oh yeah, Prisma was probably one of my favorites. I always related a lot to her -- being kind of shy, awkward, but really loving the thing she was born on this earth to do. It’s hard not to be biased! She also went through the most costume changes as well. I really wanted her to resemble a magical girl raver as much as possible, and it took a few tries to get it just right.
Some early looks for Prisma. 👀
Who do you find most fun to draw? Who is the most challenging?
The most fun is Chazazz because the sky’s the limit with how goofy he can get. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve laughed from drawing Chazazz’s selfies.
The most challenging is Coda’s wisp because I almost always forget to draw her in any promo art! I’m the worst!!
What would you say to artists who are interested in getting into games?
My big one for artists is make the art YOU want to see in games, and fill up your portfolios with such. If you keep active and work hard to promote your work, eventually someone is going to look at your body of work, understand your message, and want to collaborate with you. Most people can tell when an artist is making work they're excited about, and it can be strangely infectious.
Below the cut, you’ll find a gallery of never-before-seen concept art and other goodies, hand-selected by Ellen!
