This level example is for a character design animation test. I designed the character in Photoshop, then made custom sprites and flipbooks in Unreal Engine. The purpose for this exercise was to explore the basics of animation for a university class.

The character, named Vellichor, is a enigmatic spirit of knowledge and history that I created for the purposes of class. Most of his design came from our in class discussions of color theory. I wanted to work with a more demure, but rich toned palette, with golds, mahogany, etc. AKA colors that were normally considered rich and bold, but I wanted to soften it. Then, I was also inspired by, "the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows." By definition, "Vellichor" means, "the strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which are somehow infused with the passage of time—filled with thousands of old books you’ll never have time to read, each of which is itself locked in its own era, bound and dated and papered over like an old room the author abandoned years ago, a hidden annex littered with thoughts left just as they were on the day they were captured." It's one of my favorite words, so I wanted to build a character around that, that could also compliment the colors I wanted to work with.


Vellichor is a gentle, floaty spirit, so his in-game animations reflect that. He doesn't express much movement, since he really doesn't need to! But he's still partially a cat, so he loves to "jump" and free fall between the shelves of libraries and bookstores he inhabits. The music I picked compliments his free-spirited, curious nature, with a lilting, upbeat instrumental score. The sound fx for his jump is like a wisp of magic, which I considered appropriate since he is a type of spirit.


((Background image and platform images are labelled for noncommercial reuse. Background music credit goes to bensound.com, and sound fxs were taken from soundarchive.com.))

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