The Domovoi: Character Concepts

The Domovoi, a Twine game by Kevin Snow, has been released. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be posting my art and sketches from the game. If you haven't checked it out yet, please go take a look -- it's free and short!

I began work on The Domovoi with a series of character concepts. Although the titular creature only appears in a few of the final illustrations, his visual design was arguably the most important and went a long way towards setting the tone for the rest of the artwork. To get me headed in the right direction, Kevin provided me with an outline of the story and some extremely helpful background on the domovoi in traditional Slavic folklore. He also put together this wonderful mood board, which I ended up using as a reference throughout the project:

One of the interesting things about this mood board is that, among the Sendaks and Hensons, there's a fair amount of traditional domovoi illustrations as well... and the representations are quite diverse. Sometimes the domovoi is depicted as a spritely little mischief-maker, the Slavic counterpart to Western boggarts and brownies. Other times he's shown as a lumbering hulk, a sort of domesticated Sasquatch.

Kevin recommended leaning a bit towards the latter, as the domovoi needed to be able to physically confront the soldier in the story. But besides that, I was free to come up with my own interpretation.

My very first domovoi concept drawing. I still kind of like this guy -- he strikes me as a mixture of Maurice Sendak and Cory Godbey. Kevin liked it too and told me later that broad features were usually associated with the peasant class during the time period of the story.

A lighter, more cartoonish rendition that draws on some of the more sprite-like interpretations in folklore. Knowing what I know now about how the story plays out, it would have been pretty horrible putting this little guy through all of that.

This attempt was inspired by some of the more shadowy, evocative images on Kevin's mood board. Though it was fun to try out something darker, the most interesting aspect of this sketch turned out to be the pose -- it forged a clear connection between the domovoi and household objects and also placed him in a sort of defensive light. Kevin liked that as well and remarked that he looked a bit like a cornered animal in this sketch.

A series of domovoi pencil sketches. If you've played the story, then you already know that the guy in the upper left is the final design. Originally he was just the warm-up sketch for this page, but the more Kevin and I looked at this drawing, the more we both decided that we liked him best.

Looking back, I still think this was the best choice -- he simply had the right mixture of characteristics for our leading role. He was monstrous enough to convey a sense of "otherness," but there was also something expressive and vaguely sympathetic about him that made him relatable. He also had a number of iconic little details that made him stand out visually. My personal favorite is the bizarre nose covered with linear designs, which I tried hard to replicated in each of the final illustrations where it makes an appearance.

I still think this is probably my best drawing of the domovoi. Though I referenced this sketch for the final titles, he never looked quite right to me in the other versions. Oh well.

Another pencil sketch, and another domovoi in the "shadowy" vein. I briefly toyed with the idea of giving him a flaring, cloak-like beard that would drape around his shoulders and arms.

A Photoshop sketch based on the above drawing. The beard idea is illustrated a bit more clearly here, and it was also a chance to show off his glowing eyes and nose. Overall he looks a bit like an enemy from Ico.

The first of a series of pose sketches, intended to be concepts for the title screen. I'm a little fuzzy on when exactly I drew this, but it must have been sometime after we chose the the final design (although he looks a little leaner and more haggard in this drawing). I was fixated with drawing the domovoi crouching behind a chair for an inordinately long time.

More chair poses, displaying different potential moods and stances for the domovoi. He begins to bulk out in some of these drawings.

We decided early on that the image of the domovoi sitting on his master's bench would be one of the key images for the story. Here's my earliest attempt at a sketch. I still kind of like the darkness and texture of this drawing, though it's evident that I was still trying to nail down the creature's body shape and details.

A pencil sketch of the domovoi's head. He's got bushy eyebrows in this version, which I eventually dropped from the final design. I thought they added too much visual clutter (since he already had the handlebar ears poking out at the sides). I also liked the idea of keeping the top of his head completely bald, which I thought lent him a sort of vulnerable, pathetic look.

A very early (and frankly pretty bad) attempt at a domovoi painting. This is actually one of the first things that I tried to draw on the new tablet that I got last summer, so I'm definitely chalking this one up as practice.

Next time -- the samovar!