The body layer. Claire's body outline as well as the blush on her cheeks and her golden hair set the foundation in this layer.
The clothing layer. This one shows a brown top hat with gold trim, a sparkly golden and light yellow suit, a brown bowtie, a brown skirt, and brown gloves all together. There's a unique clothing pose for each body pose so that they clothing can move with the characters.
The layers for the eyes, eyebrows, and mouth. In this case, we have winking eyes, normal eyebrows cut out to fit the gaps in Claire's hair, and a mouth with the tongue sticking out slightly. Typically, a character will have 4 or 5 eye expressions, 4 or 5 mouth expressions, and 3 or so brow expressions typically including raised brows, normal brows, and furrowed brows.
All the pieces put together! Claire is winking at the player while sticking her tongue out and pointing when all is said and done.
Characters are put together out of multiple pieces, which can combine together to make far more expressions than we'd ever be able to draw on our own. Here are all the pieces that make up one of Claire's poses, as well as the final product at the end! #indiedev #gamedev