Welcome to the first in a series of Development Profiles, where we’ll feature a succession of Characters, Environments, and other aspects of the game.

For our first profile, we’ll look at the character art development of the Vypress!

Early Design Goals

The Vypress class started out with a desire for a mobile character who was good at flanking, able to quickly juggle targets in order to pick off any vulnerable enemies. Since she was to be a quicker fighter, her attacking style fit better with a dual-wielding weapon style.

Part of our design goals was to implement a unique overall shape for each character. As the assassin, the core silhouette chosen was an hourglass.

The unstable triangles create a sense of disorder and chaos, and lots of sharp, acute angles look more dangerous and painful. The decision to make her female was led by the core shape; we thought an hourglass fit with the character’s design and gameplay best, and out of that it felt natural that she be female.

– Dylan Brady, TB Character Artist

We drew inspiration from the legend of the “Hashashins” which were an order of arab fighters who followed Hassan-i-Sabbah and were known for assassinating political opponents to gain power. This helped inform her backstory as a professional killer, whose job it is to commit clandestine acts of violence, in favor of a larger agenda.

Her play style is very aggressive yet evasive, her exotic, deadly dual-weapon design reflects on that. There was some heavy inspiration from cultures such as India for her weapon design. We wanted her to look and fight in a deadly yet elegant way.

– Richard Yang, TB Concept artist/Animator

While the concept artwork was finalized, the personalities of the Bashrahni and Azar assassins were solidified.

The Bashrahni assassin would be cool, calm and professional, while the Azar assassin would be unhinged and even crazed. The assassin class was given a name; the Vypress. This name would lead to a snake theme for her ability effects.

Once a silhouette was chosen, concept art began to be generated. We started through lots of thumbnails and sketches.

Her design progressed from simple sketches to more detailed concepts, adding in layers of cloth around her waist to add to her unique shape.

We landed on a design language that contained a lot of curvy lines with acute angles that created lots of sharp points in her silhouette.

Dylan Brady, TB Character Artist

I remember going back and forth on what to make her main customization item. At first, I wanted to give her some tools on her hip like in some of the concepts (above), but the team decided that didn’t fit with her sleek aesthetic, so we chose to go with customizing her skirt.

Dylan Brady

And finalized. The textures for her armour and cloth were chosen to give her a more functional and dangerous look.

Final concept

Once a concept was finalized, colour schemes and customization options were drawn up.

Colour Schemes;

Customization concept options;

Polish

Once the concept art was finalized, the character was modeled. The model and animation stances were tweaked to improve and display her silhouette more clearly, both for artistic purposes, but also to help identify class type in-game; recognizing which class you’re up against is a priority for our gameplay.

In-Game

In gameplay, the Vypress plays as a skirmisher, made for flanking maneuvers or hunting down those who stay at the edge of a battle. Her abilities tend to make her hard to trap and allow her to slip into or out of melee range quickly. If you enjoy picking off lone warriors, hunting Alchemancers, or flanking objectives, you’ll probably enjoy playing the Vypress!

Outro

Sign up at Miragearcanewarfare.com for a chance to try out the Vypress in our Beta, starting Summer 2016!

Stay tuned for future Development Profiles, where we’ll showcase our environments, weapons, and other characters!