I am out of inspiration

I am working on a new game. In this game you can give characters an assignment like "open this door" or "walk to the left".

For a couple of weeks now I'm thinking about how this character must look like. It must be a simple little creature looking stupid with a recognizable feature. For example the minions (despicable me). They have goggles as a recognizable feature.

Maybe it's a little bit a strange question but I am not asking to design a complete character for me.
I am totally out of inspiration, I just need some inspiration to come up with a original good recognizable feature.

All suggestions are welcome.

 

You can't force this. You need to be patient and endure such dry phases.

What have you done to get inspired? Try something else.

 

What's your game theme or story line?

 

Is it House Elf ?

 

Google image search is usually a fountain of inspiration

 

why do people have dry spells with no inspiration? I don't get it. You should be having too many ideas. Perhaps it's time to watch some films, read some books and play some great games. Top up the tank.

 

Well inside head everything is awesome. But for most of us its digital conversion is difficult part.... lack of enough Money, Artistic(Graphic,UI and animation) and or Development abilities, Good team, all this at right time also creates frustration spells more deadly as you have ideas but not able to realize it and in such time trying to trim it up to the smallest core even for prototyping purpose makes it unusable by the time... as another cool idea starts attracting us to repeat the same loop, to eventually feel extremely dry about game creation.

As a remedy I follow,
Eating chocolate, going for swimming or having nice break for 2-3 days and being in conversation with industry people brings my enthusiasm back for everything. Having conversation with industry people is most important part, it never let us isolate and introduce us to cools stuff happening around. In fact its the only reason I have added a few contacts of collaboration projects although most of the time progress is not good (IMHO I put it optimistically) but I am having chance to be with something really inspiring stuff I am happy they are part of my life and I am there. (Of course my work is going on)

 

@herbie - inspiration is like the tides... everyone have to walk through the mud sometimes to reach the water.

Everyone got their own source or sources for inspiration... maybe you have just worked too long on the same thing and have to switch to something else for a minute to get a fresh perspective? The mind is after all, best at unconsciously solving problems when you completely switch gear to something that is completely unrelated so that those resources get freed up in your brain.

You could watch movies, cartoons, read comics and Google for images and so on...
You could also take an analytic approach to this... make a list of common and uncommon traits to the resources that you find. Try to figure out why people made these decisions (everything tells something about a character) and then look at your game and ask yourself; Which would fit the existing style in the game the best? Which would communicate the feeling that you want to achieve the best? and so on...

Professional artists tend to pick the best images from their results, cut away anything unnecessary and paste the resulting images into a single file, a huge collage.

 

Thank you all for reply.

The game is some kind of maze where the characters have to find the exit.
I´m not out of inspiration with regard to the game itself but just how the characters must look like.
I don't want to have another dime a dozen character.

 

Check out polycount some of the artist there do amazing inspirational work especially when they do their low poly challenges.

 

It's a nutritional problem. Ideas need to form before you "have" them. You brain can't allow that formation without being healthy. After getting your basic diet down, the most useful supplementation I've found, for this, is a combination of caffeine and L-theanine. Meditation, exercise / mobility work, gratitude practice, all that stuff helps, but mostly because it puts your brain into states that can be achieved more quickly with supplements.

 

Personally I tend to get ideas when I am doing boring repetitive tasks, but don't let your manager/producer/spouse know that as they will have you doing the chores at home or in the office, just to help inspire you.

 

How about a test mouse with head strap and wires.

 

Ditto, I have never quite understood "writers block" and those sorts of things. I will get burned out something occasionally, but I switch to something else to let the noggin cool down. Inspiration is never a problem, time always is.

 

has a crazy eye and a "tick"
for some reason im thinking ive already seen this character somewhere.

 

Too much inspiration at once can also block you. A mesh can just have one shape, not all of them at once

 

A maze does not make a theme. Here are a couple of themes that could be pasted on. Each will naturally suggest solutions to your character appearance. You can probably come up with others

• Miners escaping after a cave in
• A computer virus negotiating a firewall
• Aliens invading or escaping a space station
• Water flowing through pipes
• Ants moving through their nest

Do some basic thinking about a story line and the rest will come naturally. As @Tiles said, your problem is too much freedom. Constraints are a great way to improve inspiration.

 

I understand. The theme is more like Miners escaping after a cave in.
Thanks.

 

Miners wear hard hats with little lights on them. They carry pick axes and lanterns. One in ten might have a canary.

 

there's this pet product commercial that has these green Gumby characters jumping around , fighting fleas, ninja style. the kind of nondescript gummy bear, translucent characters, that gave me an inspiration.. try that?

 

I usually have my dry spells half way through a games development, when its flaws start to show. But it only lasts a day, a week at its max (I think thats happened once).

 

No dry spells ever here, there's so much to do and add, but I am a monster for culture, movies, books, art, poetry, you name it, I adore it.

I usually watch at least 5 films a week, mostly to wind down from work. I would suggest people just fill up, stock up on energy and resources from the world and art that surrounds you.

I never watch TV or TV shows though. They will simply empty your head.

 

Thumbs up for no TV.

 

Yeah..! but Prison Break, Psych, Burn Notice, (and Suits) are the exceptions though