Concept Art: Hector (Patreon)

The first love interest for our kind-of dating sim! Hector is a knight within the Knight's Order. An old friend to the king, Hector has been in love with His Majesty for many years. 

Step 1: Thumbnails and Finalized Sketches

Designing Hector, I wanted to give him a jocky/boy-next-door vibe. In addition, he's a knight, so I wanted to obviously work that into his costume, but wanted to give him a soft enough look that he could be standing guard in the throne room all day. After getting the permutations down, I polled a couple of friends about what they thought of the character designs. Lancelot and Tristan were the most popular in costuming, but Gaiwain was actually the favorite for hair, so I combined the three versions and then threw in the boots from Gaiwain for good measure. In addition, I created an insignia for the kingdom as a whole. I wanted to go with a phoenix to allude to the nature of the game (the king has died before the game even starts).

Step 2: Color

I knew I wanted to use orange as the main color for Hector (all of the love interests are secondary/tertiary colors), and then otherwise figured a fairly earthen palette would reinforce his "salt of the earth" type of personhood.

Step 3: Recolor

I wasn't totally sold on the colors, so I pinged my friends again for some feedback, and one suggested adding some highlights to the hair and brightening the eyes to draw the viewer to his face.

And voila! Hector the Knight, certified Good Boy.