To illustrate the progression in Emi's design, here is a timeline of her changes from Raita's original sketch (Originally black and white, coloured by Syureria) to Ke^4's design, then Ambi's design, and finally, Emi's current in-game sprite:
As you can see, Emi's design has stayed relatively close to the original, with the exception of her prosthetics. Those shown in Raita's original page are rough adaptations of running blades, which are used mainly by disabled athletes for running. This being the case, running blades referenced from those used in the real world are used for her gym sprites, with Emi opting to use something a little less overt in her day to day life. Her gym outfit design and colour scheme were also decided on early in the development cycle, being designed by Ke^4 and modified only much later on.
Ambi, Emi's original artist, did the initial redesign and basic sprites somewhere around February 2008, which is why the style she was drawn in is somewhat different to the other girls and also the reason for her uniform having some minor discrepancies. Ambi decided to change her "pageboy" bangs into something more modern, as well as generally sprucing her up.
With Ambi leaving the project in mid 2009, there were major difficulties in keeping consistency with his established artstyle when drawing the CGs and other art assets, so another redesign took place in December of 2009. While differences from her previous design remained at a minimum, her hairstyle was slightly edited towards something a little easier for Pimmy and I to draw. The end result of this redesign can be seen in Act 1 V4.
Finally, as an extra, here is Emi's character sheet for her current design:
We're also looking to do these kinds of posts for the other characters in due time, so stay tuned.
- Moekki
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