TWA Character Designs: Apple (Patreon)

Hey everyone,

Back at it again with The Waters Above concept art. This time we'll be taking a look at Apple, who's kind of the most important character in the story. They're a regular kid, fun-loving and carefree. They just also happen to be a celestial anomaly and throw the entire world into an uproar. Ya know, kid stuff.

Apple is a star. Not necessarily of the story, but IN the story. They appear to Maera in her time of grief, months after losing her previous star Leannan. All of the stars are genderless and use they/them pronouns exclusively, Apple included.

Apple had the most difficult design process of all the characters. They were the only one whose initial ideas from Namie we had to reject and ask her to go in a different direction. Those first ideas had Apple's hair as a more prominent star, as seen here.

Their hair was a lot floppier and kind of reminiscent of puppy ears or cat ears. Just like how Maera has the jellyfish theme and Clio has her squid theme, Apple has a very obvious starfish theme. Unfortunately, we thought this direction with the star head was a bit too goofy. It's been a couple years now, so my memory on it is a bit hazy, but I'm pretty sure we were still in the process of finishing the initial outline for the game as well. That meant that personalities and roles of the characters might change a bit, but we still knew more or less what we wanted. Fortunately, Namie's next revision was perfect.

She made the points of the star shorter, and also one color. We ended up going with number 6, which still had some puppy-esque elements, but that wasn't quite as silly. A key part of Apple's personality is that they may not always know what's going on, and they also don't always grasp the full consequences of their actions, but they DO always have the best intentions at heart. Ya know, puppy stuff.

The outfit was perfect, so from that point, it was all about refining and finalizing the design. I'm a big fan of tassels and ribbons and other adornments on characters, so Apple's sort of old-timey stage clothes really appeal to me. As usual, when it came down to the final character sheet, Namie was a genius and everything was perfect. They're the most expressive character in the whole game, and probably rival Tara for our most expressive character overall. When I think of Apple, I don't ever really imagine them just walking. Instead, in my head, they're always running, skipping, scurrying, or dancing. Just enjoying life to the fullest.

I've told this story a couple times, but the way Apple got their name is kind of funny. Or dumb, maybe. They're the only character out of the 4 that I named myself. When coming up with a name, we already knew that the character was a star, of course. So, when brainstorming with "star" in mind, I started thinking about Ringo Starr from the Beatles. I'm not really a Beatles fan, but I can't deny that Ringo Starr is a pretty cool name. Ringo, of course, is the Japanese word for "apple." So, with that in mind, I suggested Apple as the character name. Everyone liked it, it stuck, and here we are today. 

Tl;dr, though, Namie kami. We hope you've enjoyed this deep dive into yet another TWA character design. Look forward to Iris' in-depth look in the future, as well as some new updates on the direction of TWA, including a title change, in the near future 👀🌊

Thanks for reading!

Josh