Lara Croft

Lara Croft has been redesigned many times since her debut in 1993. As the character has developed, so have her designs, showing us how she has gone from sex symbol to realistic, believable character - who is still just as badass as the original.

I think that if I choose to do redesigns for my practical, I will use this as reference, to see how a lead, iconic character can be changed so much yet remain so recognisable. Not many other franchises have brought their characters through such a transformation - at least, definitely not their female characters. I should look at what other characters are as popular or iconic as Lara and focus on how they could be redesigned.

Some of the original inspiration from Lara Croft was Tank Girl and pop artist Neneh Cherry - at least, once she was decided to be a girl. The original character was male, and somewhat similar to Indiana Jones, but Jeremy Smith, the co-founder of Core Design, the studio in charge of Tomb Raider said that this was too unoriginal. Lead Graphic Artist Toby Gard then changed the character to a female, with which he could then counter female stereotypical characters with, although as the series went on and produced a film franchise, this was not completely avoidable. Gard left the studio after the 'marketing which represented Lara in a way that was nothing like her character'. 

Years later, as Tomb Raider was losing momentum, Tomb Later: Legend (2006) was released. The series was developed by Crystal Dynamics instead, with Gard returning to the franchise for the first time since the original was released. This brought back everything that made Lara popular, and brought much more personality into it rather than the over done caricature that the character had become.

The 2013 reboot looked drastically different because of the technology of gaming engines, but both the game and design were well received, and the new Lara Croft was a believable starting point for the well known character.

The studio were unsure at first because of the few lead female characters in the industry, but he probably isn't regretting their decision now.