Stephen kicked off the panel by briefly introducing the panel and prompting them to give a short breakdown of the specific things that go into their process of world building. Specifically, when designing characters and costumes.
Jeremy - When I am trying to design costumes I tend to exaggerate features. I add lots of detail. I try to put the reader in an antique world where you can get lost in the details. I try and create the craziest characters I can come up with.
David - With Mouse Guard, their anatomy is all the same. There is only so much you can do with their body language so clothing is what differentiates the different characters. All the mice are little in this very big world around them and that alone makes the world unique. The characters come through the costuming. I try and show the different types of regions in the world through the costume details. If you look at the mouse who wears goggles and has his head covered, he looks like he's from a desert. It indicates he's from Sandmason. Now if you see that character out of a desert, you know he doesn't belong, he's out of place. The guy with the pine cone is an example of showing how they incorporate things they made or things they grabbed from nature to adorn themselves with. It tells a lot about the world around them. I like to keep it loose as I go. If I wrote all of the details at once it would be too overwhelming. By doing it this way, I don't paint myself into a corner and can edit as I go.
