03 Apr Momonga Monday: Fry the Firefly

This Momonga Monday (okay it’s Tuesday, we ran into some practical difficulties posting it on Monday) we will have a look at Fry the Firefly.

Fry is a firefly from a lineage of martial art masters. His father is the head of the Ha Chi Order, and one of the finest firefly warriors. Fry, however, failed to live up to the expectations of his parents: He was defeated by a bunny who he was supposed to chase away as an initiation rite. He left his hometown because of shame.

(Note that the bunny was the legendary aikido warrior Boo, who remains undefeated to this day. Her most famous move is the Graze, in which she seemingly knibbles on grass while overthrowing her enemy without even a breeze of effort.)

After leaving his town, Fry got caught by the owl bandits. They used him as a lightbulb for the owl camp. Bummer.

In the game you save Fry from a lightbulby life, and he becomes your trustworthy sidekick. Fry is heavily conditioned in the firefly school of martial arts, and he goes into a frenzy whenever he hears a ringing bell. This comes in handy when you have to defeat a whole bunch of owls.

Then it became a little more refined. We had the idea to go for a lazy little firefly.

These sketches show some of the coloring schemes we tried out. Real fireflies are red, we played a bit with some tints.

The “final” concept art shows a slightly younger and much more energetic firefly. We dropped the lazy Fry because we felt that it wouldn’t be any fun dragging around a lazy insect. Not much story in that.

And here is the fully rigged in-game model for Fry:

See you next Monday! (And that will probably be a Tuesday again, because of Easter)

– Peter & Derk