Saturday, March 02, 2013

J&K - The Road to Daxter - Part 6

There comes a time in the design development of a character where after many attempts to define the look you get to the point where you know you nailed it. That's what you see in this group of core drawings that became the final version of Daxter from "Jak and Daxter". Created in 2000 the consensus from Naughty Dog centered upon one of the designs I came up with in the extended process of developing Big D. The first image is from a concept sketch showing this particular design from the side and back. You can see what it was based upon by referring to my previous entry about the subject. The following drawings came about once it was decided that this was the way he would look. Daxter was the first character ND won an award for. It occurred at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose California in 2002. Daxter won Best Original Character.






5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome arts as always :Dò
Did Crash influenced the design od Daxter? And also do you designed human Daxter?

Charles Z said...

Crash wasn't a part of the design of Daxter. If there happens to be any similarity it's purely coincidental as far as Daxter's look is concerned.

Yes, I designed the human Daxter as well.

Pulpo Designer said...

I've just found your blog, and I'm blown away for the quality of your work. I'ts amazing! I'm a great fan of Jak and Daxter characters, and I would to ask you something about your work with Naughty Dog. When you created the designs, ¿Did you make any kind of suggestions o guidelines about the animation of the characters? Sorry if you have already answered that question, but I really find interesting how much do you involve in the creation of a characters.

Thank you for such incredible work :).

Charles Z said...

Hi Pulp Designer and thanks for your comments and for checking in.

Sometimes I'd work out some animation suggestions as part of what I was developing for J&D. My involvement was primarily design based. Concept drawings mostly along with some anatomy guidance for a few of the characters including Jak.

Mister Twister said...

All hail Charles, the creator of Daxter!

..... guess that makes you a precursor ¯\_(o_°)_/¯