The design origins of Blade Kitten’s Kit Ballard

The character design for PlayStation Network’s upcoming Blade Kitten protagonist Kit Ballard didn’t just materialize out of thin air. It came from the inspiration of cartoons and comics from Creative Director Steve Stamatiadis’ childhood.

After a tip at E3 2001, Stamatiadis began working on visuals for what he calls his “dream game” or what we call Blade Kitten.

Stamatiadis was kind enough to share a look at some early Kit sketches, a comparison between Kit in 2001 and Kit in 2008 (her final design), and a sheet of Kit wearing a bunch of different outfits. He said that inspiration on her design game from Ty the Tasmanian Tiger’s girlfriend Shazza – even though they look pretty much nothing alike, which is alright though because Kit looks a hell of a lot better.

He was going for the comic-book style and got it right on the spot. As for the backgrounds used in the game, he was hoping to get the feel of Studio Ghibli films’ backgrounds, as well as the works of Kazuo Oga. His final result was “a compendium of things that I’ve seen and enjoyed in anime, comics, movies and as a lover of games”, or once again, Blade Kitten for short.

Check out his shared concept and comparison sheets at the gallery. Blade Kitten hits the PlayStation Network “soon”. Look forward to it.

Blade Kitten: Origins and Inspirations [PlayStation.Blog]

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