InDee Toons - Customizable Animated Game Characters

[BaneTrapper]

Here is another image, with the mouth even smaller and less make-up.

Stellar work!
On looking cute rating it went from 1/10 to 7/10

The wizard girl actually is a gnome (so the proportions are not supposed to be like a human's) and I wanted her to be a bit less cute than gnomes are usually depicted, that's why she has those sharp teeth and darker eye sockets.

I have gathered more feedback and the tendency is that most people want a real customization feature.
So I am planning to include Spine source files for the toons, and a custom head generator.

In this clip you can see what this will look like with a female head (not monstery looking!!!) in many different variations:

The first half of the clip is the head composed of the plain parts, the second half is the same with rim lights applied.

Please tell me how you like it.

If my project was about such graphics id want it! it looks high quality work.

[Dee]

Stellar work!
On looking cute rating it went from 1/10 to 7/10

Actually it is creepy to me now, but probably only because I am so used to the original

Thanks again for all the feedback and help. I try to change the concept of the project to customizable characters, with a custom head generator for every toon and I will include the Spine files and body parts, so everybody can compose their own character with parts from different toons and add a unique face to it.

We'll see if I manage to get enough material to save the running kickstarter from starving, otherwise I just start a new one.
I will let you guys know when everything is on the way, so you can be the first to grab the exclusive stuff

[eXpl0it3r]

Hmmm well, I was thinking about back this, but only then I realized how expensive this stuff is.
Personally I'd have gone differently with ramping things up. It sure is not much for a game company to get the $500 perk for all the Toons, but if one wants to support this, while getting some use out of it, $15 for a single Toon or $30 for two Toons seems quite a lot.

Just wanted to let you know my thoughts, I'm sure you've made your calculations.

[Dee]

Yeah, I did.
But I know some of the stuff is too expensive. However, 500$ for 50 toons is 10$ for one toon, including all the stuff of the stretch goals: lighting layers, normal maps and all that (precompiled sprite file size with all stretch goal layers are about 50MBs per toon - compressed of course).
And we are not talking about pixel art, these are high resolution characters with many animations and high framerate.
Do you think really think the prices are too high?
I am open to proposals.

Another question. I'm not sure if anybody knows about legal issues.
If I provide the skeletons and animations and the customization features, everybody can create their own very unique character in a matter of minutes.
How can I prevent people from creating tons of toons and selling them on GraphicRiver and similar sites?

[eXpl0it3r]

Yeah, I did.
But I know some of the stuff is too expensive. However, 500$ for 50 toons is 10$ for one toon, including all the stuff of the stretch goals: lighting layers, normal maps and all that (precompiled sprite file size with all stretch goal layers are about 50MBs per toon - compressed of course).
And we are not talking about pixel art, these are high resolution characters with many animations and high framerate.
Do you think really think the prices are too high?
I am open to proposals.

You must have understood me wrong. $500 for the full package is very cheap!

But the price vs reward for the lower perks is not blanced well. I don't see how a single character can be useful to a game - you'll always need more than one, thus paying $15 for nearly "nothing" in return, doesn't really get me excited.

[Dee]

Oh sorry, I didn't read carefully.
I see your point concerning the costs.

Initially, I priced the full bundle at ~800$ and some people said this was way too much.
I think reducing this caused imbalances to the lower tiers.
Apart from that, I don't really like the idea of huge mass discounts on art.
It depends on the game, but I think the average of characters needed for one, would be about 3 to 10.
Projects that really use 50 characters should rarely occur.

When introducing the new concept of customizable characters, everything has to be changed anyway.
The status quo in my head:
10$ : 1 character pack, containing of precompiled sprites, the Spine file (skeleton and animations), the body parts and four different heads.

20$ : 1 character pack, containing of precompiled sprites, the Spine file (skeleton and animations) and the body parts, two different skins and a custom head generator (a spine file that creates billions of different heads like in the video - every toon gets a different head generator).

The body parts are supposed to be mixable between different toons, and I consider to include extra customization packs with weapons, armor and stuff in higher perks.

Your opinion on the pricing?

I haven't yet thought about discounts for packs of two, five, ten and fifty characters, but I think small discounts would be the best option.

[Dee]

Hey guys,

I have updated the kickstarter with the new customization features and previews on some "more friendly looking characters".
The reward tiers have been overhauled, the video has been changed and I am very happy now and hope to get some more people on board in the 20 days left for this campaign.

Thank you again for giving me all that great feedback.

Here is another small preview for the heads I already posted, but with interpolated skin colors and rim lights applied:



*edit: I have also modified the original post of this thread.