Hello supporters of the great burger agenda!
Remember when you were a kid, and video games used to come with a lil booklet telling you all about the world and the characters? WE WANNA BRING THAT BACK.
…in digital form, at least.
She is all of us.
P is for Player Character, and also Patty
A fiend for entering no-effort competitions, Patty may have bitten off more than she can chew when she won this failing burger truck.
She’s not the type to put much thought into the long term, but hey, now that she’s here, she could totally design some burgers and run a business. After all, it’s one failing business, how hard could it be?
This is the face of someone who’s never worked in hospitality before.
Designing Patty
Patty’s character is inspired by a few of our favourite cartoons. Here’s a recipe for designing Patty:
1 cup of Bee’s determination to march to her own beat, even to her own detriment. (Bee & Puppycat)
½ cup of Steven’s willingness to see the best in everybody and everything. (Steven Universe)
¼ cup of Mordecai’s insecurities and immaturity. (The Regular Show)
¾ cup of Linda’s unflinching enthusiasm. (Bob’s Burgers)
3 heaped tablespoons of Dipper’s creative problem solving… and habit of making things worse for himself. (Gravity Falls)
1 teaspoon of Spongebob’s reckless optimism. (Spongebob Squarepants)
Throw them all in a grinder until the meat is nice and minced, then shape it into a Patty. Enjoy that mental image! :)
Patty is a character of indeterminate age, and only slightly more determinate gender. She’s happy to use whatever pronouns people call her. She has more important things to think about, like if she could deep-fry a taco (yes) and if it’s safe to do so in the food truck while Fry isn’t around (no).
While Patty doesn’t exactly love to work, she’d rather drive this truck into the ocean and take Fry and a week’s supply of burger ingredients with her than be perceived as lazy. Below her own insecurities though, what she really wants is to put her feet up, enjoy some munchies and imagine she is free from the pressing weight of capitalism.
Visually, we knew we wanted Patty and Fry to feel like their namesakes, so a lot of our discussion revolved around “this, but people”:
Courtesy of BanjoZebra on Wikimedia Commons.
Our artist Jackal took the idea and ran with it through her textured hair and layered burger coloured clothing! Fun fact: we were exploring how we wanted to do the player character’s gender at the same time as exploring her design, so these concept sketches are varying degrees of masc to femme.
We landed in butch-femme territory in the end, and it just feels right somehow. 😌💅
When we moved into colour design, we made an unexpected discovery…
Entirely unintentional, but it tickled us. 😂
A relatably weird little world
We hope you’ve enjoyed this lil peek behind the curtain. We’d love to do another one of these sometime for Fry, or even the Truck (vehicle design is fun!), so watch this space. 👀
Until next time,
Jess, Alex, Jackal & Anthony