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The chance to bring new characters to life in a galaxy far, far away in Star Wars Outlaws was a dream come true for the team at Massive. But as associate art director Marthe Jonkers explained at the studio in Malmo, Sweden, they first had to try and get a handle on how you design characters that are memorable, unique, "but still very Star Wars". As a universe that's home to so many unforgettable figures - from likable heroes to complex villains, and endearing droids - creating the open-world adventure's cast began by considering what kind of story the team wanted to tell. Once their direction was set on a scoundrel fantasy, Massive then had to set about shaping a character who could not only embody that, but also speak to what Jonkers and the team believe is at the heart of any Star Wars story:
"Star Wars stories [like in] the original trilogy, are very much about personal stories," Jonkers says. "You're following personal stories of people and their relationships. For us, that was really important, to have a character that could take you on this journey into this underworld. We were really thinking about what kind of character we can design that can embody this scoundrel fantasy; someone that starts out as something simple like a thief, and grows into much more of a scoundrel as she gets to know the underworld."
"This was the starting point for Kay and Nix, because Nix was there from the beginning, too," adds Jonkers. "We knew we wanted to have this duo because Star Wars stories are really about relationships as well, and these interpersonal interactions, and having Kay and Nix as the main character, we could really have the opportunity to tell that kind of story."
Attention to detail
Just like Massive's approach to open-world design and the story of Star Wars Outlaws, the team followed guidelines "that were the backbone of design for George Lucas" to make the characters fit right into the galaxy. Most Star Wars characters, for example, can be recognized by their strong silhouette, so easy readable designs were key; especially since they followed the three second rule – where if you look at a character, you can roughly get a sense of what they're about – for their approach. Injecting personality through color and shape, and bringing a level of believability was also paramount to make every individual character feel relatable and tangible.
The smallest details on a character's design can also tell a story all by itself. At the studio in Malmo, Sweden, the art team guides us through the design process for the cast, with so much attention paid to small decals and features that paint a clearer picture of a character's personality, or illustrate their lived experiences.
So much of Kay Vess' design, for example, offers insight into her personality and history. For one thing, she has a broken nose, which speaks to her hothead tendencies and her background as a thief in her home of Canto Bight, where danger is never too far away. Then there's the hairpin she always wears, made out of a stick dice she got from the casino city and a data spike, which she uses as a makeshift lock. Other details include a small wrist tattoo of Nix that shows off her impulsive side, and her deep connection to the little Merqaal, along with a larger tattoo adorned on her chest of a star map to hint at her desire for freedom and adventure.
As Jonkers explains, so many of these smaller touches came to life over time as the story developed, while others informed what kind of character she would become. "These characters really grow as we work on them because it's multiple teams involved," Jonkers says. "For example with Kay, it's not just us designing the visuals, it's the narrative [team]. It's even the casting. Once we found Humberly [González] who plays Kay, she added a lot to Kay as well. When suddenly Kay came to life and she had a voice and she had movement, she had expressions in the animations as well, slowly but surely, all of these details were added."
These finer embellishments are there to help make the characters feel more authentic, with Jonkers saying that their approach to design is about 80% grounded and 20% exotic to give it that Star Wars edge.
"It was really important for us that Kay was someone that you could relate to, you could feel like, 'okay, I understand her'," Jonkers says. "She's a bit impulsive, and she's very spontaneous. I think that's where ND-5 also comes in to be kind of the contrast of that. All of these characters, we put them together to get these interesting contrasts. We even have charts where we were looking at the relationships between this character and this character, [so we can ask]: do they like each other? Or what's going on between them? To really get this network of different personalities, different interactions going on."
New and authentic
While ND-5's personality contrasts with Kay's, many features and elements also tell us more about the droid. As a BX-commando droid, dents and damage on the chest show old battle scars from the Clone Wars, and his most striking feature is his jacket which also serves a narrative purpose. "The reason he's wearing this coat is because he wants to hide himself," says Jonkers. "And you can see he has a lot of scars, some of them are even covered by the jacket, and it's because he's been through a lot. And he's kind of struggling with his past, he doesn't really know how to position himself and he uses his jacket to hide himself. And even in his animation, we made sure that you could see that he's not standing straight up, he's actually always a little bit hunched over."
A lot of effort went into giving ND-5 some personality, even though he's a droid, which certainly paid off when they first revealed the character - albeit not in the way the team saw coming, with many fans down bad for the "hot droid".
"It was a nice surprise", lead concept artist Samuel De Vos laughs. "The morning after [ND-5's reveal], in the office everyone was like... 'we did that.' "
"That was really an eye-opener for me, because we didn't design him per se, with that in mind," Jonkers adds, smiling. "Everybody's like, 'wasn't Nix supposed to be the cute one?', and now we have ND-5. It was really funny. But, you know, it does show to us that people see that we put a lot of personality in him. And that was a great success. For a droid, of course, it's hard to put a lot of personality in them. But there's still a lot of opportunities, like with the scars and the jacket. I think that helped. But at the same time he is a droid, so he's very straight to the point, and very goal oriented. And Kay and him will have a lot of back and forth about that, because that doesn't always match completely in terms of their motivations."
"You haven't seen it before, but it does feel like it's part of the Star Wars galaxy. That's something I'm really, really proud of."
Marthe Jonkers, associate art director
ND-5 and Kay may not always agree with each other, but Nix will be steadfastly by our side as we explore the Outer Rim. As a character who has been there since the beginning of the Star Wars Outlaws' inception, it was important that they made him an appealing and friendly character who expresses himself in lots of ways, which is why he has soft fur, with large, expressive eyes and ears. Nix is a completely new species that Massive "created from scratch" in collaboration with LucasFilm Games, and as senior concept artist Yulia Misyul outlines, they wanted to make him feel believable by "looking at nature and the real world around us."
"A lot of the established wildlife in Star Wars looks realistic because they're grounded in real references," De Vos says. "And that applies for all the new wildlife that the team has designed. For example, on Kijmi, there's the koe, which literally translates to cow in Dutch. The reason why Nix looks so grounded is because he takes a lot of inspiration from existing animals. They're not as straightforward as a cow, but there's definitely clear references to an axolotl, for example, the tentacles that he has and the scales."
Through this grounded approach, the team aimed to bring to life characters that feel both new and authentic to the universe. It's a tricky balance to strike, but Massive hopes it will pay off when we meet the cast of Star Wars Outlaws on August 30, 2024.
"It was important that when we designed every character and creature, we didn't necessarily look at Star Wars and think, 'okay, let's make something like that'," says Jonkers. "We were looking at things from Star Wars, and Lucasfilm Games – it was fantastic because they provided us with so many references and drawings, and Ralph McQuarrie sketches – but then we looked at it, and we thought, 'okay, the actual inspiration [behind them] was something else'; it was these kinds of creatures, or it was these kinds of movies, or it was this kind of setting, or location."
"And then we would use this exact same approach to create all of the characters, creatures, and locations ourselves," Jonkers continues. "That, I think, was quite successful because we were able to create something that feels like the original trilogy – very authentic, but it's also very new. You haven't seen it before, but it does feel like it's part of the Star Wars galaxy. That's something I'm really, really proud of."
