Niobe Character Design
Early concepts, character development, and asset design for Niobe from PermaDeath: A Video game Opera.
From Cerise Jacobs, the librettist:
"Niobe - the leader of Team Nyx. She is a powerful alpha female who has the qualities of the marble/stone she's eventually turned into - cold, hard, maybe a little brittle, definitely of the night. Her children are very much like her. Their characters are not delineated in the libretto, but you should think of them as being their mother's children. They are children of the cold dark night. Niobe is a soprano."
Like a general ready for anything: final color turnarounds and render for Niobe in her Stage I form
Expression Sheet for Niobe showing the range of her sorrow and her anger
Final render for Niobe's Phase II form, a hulking monster made of rock and root
Side and back color turnarounds for Phase II Niobe, with her children's hearts glowing alongside her generator
Asset render of Niobe's Phase I generator, before it expands and consumes more of her
Asset render of the way the children's hearts grow from the vines on Niobe's back to power her generator
Niobe's final form. Once the battle is lost, she is stripped to the skin, her generator charred away, and her armor crumbled
Gestures of Phase II Niobe's different rock-based attacks. She rips up the earth, she hurls boulders, she crushes and smashes!
An initial design for a bulkier, more concealed, Niobe, and her generator. The exploding hearts on her back were carried on into the final design
Early concepts for Queen Niobe, drawing on themes of the night, nature, and concealment
Preliminary sketches for Niobe. The idea of a big headpiece was a key element that was carried through to the final design.