Hello again, everyone. Mari Shimazaki here, back to talk a little bit more about the character design on Bayonetta.

Thank you all so much for the comments on the blog!

Your comments are the source of much happiness here, so everyone on the staff makes sure to read them.

Well, E3 is now over, and I think everyone has finally seen videos of Bayonetta being played. I hope you are looking forward to the game even more now…

Since this is my second blog post on character design, I thought I would write about Bayonetta’s fateful rival, Jeanne.

I think the only thing that could rival a woman is another woman, which is why we decided early on that Bayonetta’s rival would be female.

I thought about what we could do to make her the antithesis of Bayonetta… With Bayonetta, she carried strongly held, specific design cues such as witches being black with long hair. However, with Jeanne, I was able to freely deviate from those cues despite the fact she is a witch. Bayonetta is known for her long hair, so I felt that Jeanne needed to have some kind of defining trait as well. It became her large lapel. It kinda looks like Pon De Lion, don’t you think? LOL (Note: Pon De Lion is a popular character in Japan.)

Thematically, Bayonetta’s color is black, so to provide symmetry, Jeanne’s color is red. I added the slit-esque accents down the legs of her dress to allow users to easily see her action-game-style movements. The coloring on Jeanne was actually a result of me paying attention to another character’s design. It’s subtle… But maybe you can figure it out? You have to admit, the nice blend of red, black, and silver is cool, right?

I also added some faint embroidery on her back.

From a game character design standpoint, having something that really stands out is what you would usually go with; however, we are intentionally avoiding that on this game. All of the characters in Bayonetta share a theme of being “fashionable,” so we try to keep the ornamentation subdued.

Moreover, Jeanne needed to have something moving, or she wouldn’t be very interesting in-game. Thus, I added a long, plume-like accessory on to her guns. Once that was done, Kotegawa-san took over and designed incredibly cool weapons for me.

I wanted to make Jeanne feel like something out of the 1960s, so she wears rather thick makeup. Her blood red lips and lower eyelashes are the key points to this design. She actually wore her glasses at first; however, I felt it was a bit strange, so I decided to put them on her head instead. While Bayonetta is straight-forward and strong, I designed Jeanne to be a bit of a change-up if you will, with a sense that she is haughty and putting on airs.

To be honest, Jeanne’s design didn’t require a huge amount of effort, so there aren’t any particular incidents that happened during her design to revisit here…

Nevertheless, there you have it, our two witches. Checking around with the team, it seems that Jeanne is overwhelmingly the more popular of the pair. Kamiya-san is also extraordinarily attached to Jeanne. (He even told me exactly what her bust, waist, and hip measurements were.) But to be honest, I personally prefer Bayonetta…

Which one do all of you prefer?

Next time, I hope to blog about designing the other characters in the game.

(NOTE: Higher resolution versions of the concept art in this post can be found on the PlatinumGames Inc. Flickr Page)

Pictures tell a story, and these pictures tell the story of PG’s trip to E3 2009.

Closing in on the Convention Center, everyone began taking pictures of the enormous temple to games. Michi’s (white shirt in the background) picture of the expo hall was taken here.

The picture taking continued once we were in the show. Everyone got as much space as possible so they could take a picture of the booth.

The Bayonetta booth looked really spectacular, with the lights moving as if they were clouds.

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You asked for it, and we made it happen. Along with SEGA and Sumthing Distribution, you will finally be able to get your hands on a copy of the MADWORLD Soundtrack!

On June 30, you can order your very own copy on CD for $15.99 USD. Digital Download will also be supported for those of you who are looking to load your music players without a physical disc.

Keep an eye on http://www.sumthing.com/ as orders should become available soon!

(Note: Sumthing allows mail orders from the U.S., its territories and possessions, military bases, Puerto Rico, Canada, United Kingdom, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Eire, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Greece, Luxemburg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Liechtenstein, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. If you don’t live in these areas, go for the digital version.)

Click more to verify your age and check out a trailer for the MADWORLD SOUNDTRACK!

More…

Hi everyone! I’m a Michi, a “programmer” on Bayonetta! I’m still a rookie around here, and this is my first game, so even though I’m filled with anxiety and excitement, I’m giving it my all every day.

Somehow I was able to talk the company into sending me, the rookie of all people, along with the team to E3!

If I were to describe E3 in a single thought, it would be “an enormous petting zoo!” I hope I can give everyone reading the blog a taste of what I felt being at E3.

After a bit of this and that, I finally arrived at the E3 show!

The show space was so big that I don’t know where it even begins or ends…

Once I was into the show, obviously the first thing I went to see was Bayonetta!

Whoa! All of the controllers lined up in the Bayonetta booth were in the hands of gamers! Look at all of them playing Bayonetta in this picture… They kept passing the controller to person after person non-stop!

I was truly overcome with emotion. Seeing all of these people play our game in front of my eyes for the first time, there was an instant where the trials and tribulations so far turned into feelings of happiness.

After soaking in these emotions, I decided to check out some other booths.

Just walking around E3 was really a series of shocking experiences. Everyone seemed to be so happy. They would just start talking to each other without a care in the world, and even if they didn’t share a common language, they could play games together ? singing, dancing, shouting, getting mad like little kids…

I tried to squeeze all of E3 into the Bayonetta booth, but this is what happened! (Pretty nuts, isn’t it?)

I also got to check out all the big games at the show! It seems like no matter who made the game, everyone is doing an amazing job raising the bar on quality. I came away with the impression that graphics and gameplay are both on the rise, as it seems every company has really built up their know-how in that regard.

…But I’m incredibly happy that Bayonetta is able to compete in this environment! Of course, with the amount of work we have put into Bayonetta, we have no intention of playing second fiddle to anyone, and I am confident that we will live up to gamer’s expectations!

Ok. Maybe I got a little too excited at the end there, but what did you think of my E3 report? I thought I’d did it my way, telling you all about things in a nice short blog. I’d be really happy if you all came away from this wanting to go to a big game show and get your hands on Bayonetta as well, even if only for a little while.

Until next time.

Hi, everyone. I’m Muneyuki “Johnny” Kotegawa, and I am in charge of the design and modeling for all of the weapons in Bayonetta.

I was also involved in designing the weapons for Devil May Cry and Resident Evil. This is my first project with Kamiya-san since Devil May Cry.

I wanted to blog about Scarborough Fair, Bayonetta’s beloved handguns that you may have seen in our trailers and other advertisements.

First I want to cover how we approached design in general, not just limited to weapons. Kamiya-san’s direction for the character was pretty much;

1. A female lead character
2. A modern witch
3. Guns on hands and feet

I think that Shimako covered this in an earlier blog.

After going through an intense bit of back and forth between Shimako and Kamiya-san (I sit between them…) they came up with a color balance based around pitch-black clothing, white skin, gold ornamentations, and the red ribbon accent. It was then that it was decided that the guns in her hand should be red. While there is an element of color balancing to it, this game has intense action that hasn’t really been seen up until this point in gaming, so having the red guns makes it easier to pick up the position of Bayonetta’s limbs in combat. By the way, her gloves (palms), and soles are also red.

We also had to make this easy to pick up on because Bayonetta uses her guns in her primary for of attacking – via melee.

With all this in mind, I went to work to come up with some weapon designs based on real world guns. I do this because if I base something on gun parts that are familiar, it will remain convincing even if the final product is a complete work of the imagination. Movie prop guns like the blaster in Blade Runner, or Han Solo’s gun in Star Wars are examples of this style of design.

I suppose gun-lovers will be able to figure out which gun is based on what real world weapon. The strange base guns are the traces of trial and error included because I wanted to make something that no one had ever seen before. You could also say they reflect my personal taste as well.

The guns that aren’t red were actually created before we had locked down the final design specifications. I made them silver or gold to make sure they stood out to the eye.

After working on the various designs, Kamiya-san’s eyes stopped at a gun based on the Derringer. It must have been because great minds think alike, and he could see it would be a gun capable of rapid fire; a simple, rugged gun. Or so I thought. “This design would look hot in a girl’s hand.” Hmph.

1. The first image sees the design taking into account the gun’s use as a melee weapon, as well as making it giant to fit in with the action game requirements we talked about earlier. I also made the small parts gold to impart some elegance. The part underneath the grip is formed and inspired by a high-heel.

2. The second image is even more of a melee weapon, adding some spikes and other ornamentation, as well as a jewel on the side. This was all to give the gun an overall accent.

3. I was told to make the gun less spikey, so redesigned with something a bit more subdued, while thinking of the design elements once again. This is also where I added the final logo for Scarborough Fair.

4. Since the gun will be used for melee attacks, I wanted to add something akin to a knuckle guard onto the gun. I also shrunk things down to make the entire gun seem stronger.

5. I felt I may have gone too far, so I went back to some previous elements. The high-heel silhouette that was removed in design #4 makes a comeback.

6. Here we move even closer back towards the original Derringer silhouette. I added a rail onto the top of the guns so that they could be equipped on Bayonetta’s feet. They slide into the gap in her high heels. The knuckle guard is meant to remind you of an old pair of scissors, an idea that came from Kamiya-san. This is the design I used to make the final guns.

As a little addition, if you put two of the guns together, they will form the Witch’s mark. I used this design to begin production on the CG model.

But even then, I kept toying with the design as I created the model, doing retakes as I added ideas or the use of the weapon changed.

Scarborough Fair is an old English ballad that focuses on four herbs – Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme. These herbs became the names of each individual gun. Witches and herbs are closely linked. (This even comes up a bit in the game’s story.) I also changed the color of the gem on each of the gun to match the flower of the herb, which Bayonetta then uses to summon/expel the bullets that allow her to fire limitless rounds of ammo. (You can’t really see it, but there is a bullet in the gem.) Underneath the grip, we also added a charm (designed by Shimako) that is also linked with the herbs.

The gun can also be opened at the breach to be loaded with different bullets and fired single-shot. You’ll just have to look forward to the game to figure out how we use this…

So that pretty much sums up how we went about the design and creation of Scarborough Fair. It took a long time to arrive at Bayonetta’s main weapon, but once we had that clear direction, the rest of the weapons were a smooth design process. The first time is always the hardest, right?

And of course, as you have seen in the trailers, this isn’t the only weapon that Bayonetta will wield. You can look forward to playing with weapons that range from the standard to the absolutely outrageous.

Next time I blog, I will give you a look into the design of some of the other weapons, as well as the guns used by the mysterious woman in red, Jeanne.

(NOTE: See high resolution versions of these pictures on PlatinumGames’s Flickr account.)

E3 2009 starts today!

The PlatinumGames crew is in LA for a show schedule packed with meetings, demonstrations, podcast filming, and other forms of general gaming tradeshow goodness.

Keep your eyes peeled for the latest info on Bayonetta, and if you are at the show, make sure to say hi!

Of course, it wouldn’t be an E3 without a least one ridiculously tasty group dinner.