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TysonTan's avatar

Maria Notte

By TysonTan
Project: Freedom Planet 1: and Freedom planet 2:
Maria Notte
is a support character I designed for Freedom Planet 2. She is a megabat and she works as a news reporter.

Pixel art first, concept art follows
At first I only drew Maria's pixel art -- I designed FP2 characters directly as ingame pixel art to avoid impossible details. In this way I can also tweak them precisely according to my vision, probably also saved some work from the pixel artists. When Stephen posted her pixel art on GalaxyTrail's twitter account, people seemed to like her, so I drew some supplemental concept art. Some of the new details developed in the concept art are later fed back to pixel art, and you will see a improved Maria that resembles this art set in the actual game.

Quality-of-life for bats in Freedom Planet 2
I ended up making this artwork set as the demonstration of how the FP2 bat race cope with their natural body characteristics. Inspired by Zootopia, I designed the bats in a more realistic way, retained their arm-wings instead of cheating with back-wings. Then question rose: how they live their modern life with ease? Bat wings make them clumsy doing all task except flying, so I designed some stock gadgets and specific gestures to help them improve quality-of-life.

If you like the bats in FP2, please thank Stephen DiDuro for his openness to experimental ideas. :D

Follow FP2 development
GalaxyTrail twitter:
Producer and main developer Stephen Diduro's twitter:
FP2 official website: (artwork not updated yet, but it has new demos!)
My twitter:
My tumblr:
Image details
Image size
4362x1697px 3.94 MB
Raxis's avatar

Oh she's adorable, this is amazing :D

CaseyDecker's avatar

This character does look quite nice and lovely in this reference picture you've done, and I also hope to see her if she does appear in "Freedom Planet 2", which I am sure to love as much as I did the first game as well! :D

Se05239's avatar

I absolutely like that people go against the norm when it comes to bat characters by making their arms literally wings with the webbing merged together with their bodies.

However, I still struggle to see why people make normal clothing for them. Imagine getting in and out of that dress of hers with those massive wings, if she don't tear and break them..
It would make much for sense if the clothing was designed for her body in mind, with straps or belts holding the dress together at either the shoulders or waist, letting them be capable of removing their clothing from over their head or stepping out of them as they were pulled up like you'd do pants.

Red and black is not a very original color combo but I admire that you decided to not go for bright red or pitch black as both of these are extremes. Extremes are so hard to work with and bright red in particular tends to really hurt the eyes due to it being so vibrant. Black, white and red all contrast each other which makes a decent color scheme overall with the beautiful blue eyes being the winner in what takes my attention the most.

Overall, I am pleased with how the character is portrayed in this reference sheet and I hope your demonstration will impact the game's design of bats, if it already hasn't!
TyrakatheDragonFan's avatar
Thank you SO much for sticking with the anatomy and not making her a four-armed freak of nature like a certain other cartoon bat from a similar game series. I've waited a LONG time to SOMEONE to get it right, so you have my deepest gratitude.
Artkitty999's avatar
Great job! I have a character name lily and she kind of looks like her. Again awesome job!
TiamatDragon123's avatar
Better than Rouge for sure

Who with me?
Why aren't you making your own clothing line by now?

Seriously your costuming is impeccable.
DEEDEEANI's avatar
I love her. God I'm so glad they hired you.
Scall0p's avatar
she's now my second favorite character in freedom planet my first favorite is milla
TiamatDragon123's avatar
RainbOasis's avatar
Goddammit! There's no Maria Notte in Rule 34. Yet!
Shiroune's avatar
she's adorable. I like her.
Cabbara's avatar
cuuuuuu u u u u u u  u    u        u                 u                       u                                         u                                           t                                          e !!!
ACEnBEAKY's avatar
She's lovely, esp the big pic near the center. 
gerbilfat's avatar
Really, really cool how you handled doing the arms/hands/wings into one limb. Not a lot of artists attempt this, but you did, and you knocked it out of the park. She's still very cute, too!
A fine looking bat girl, it gives me the nostalgia of Chip and Dale Rescue rangers, as there was in one episode a bat called Foxglove who was Dale's girlfriend.
By the way, do the pair of add-ons of the headband act as headphones ?
Alisenokmice's avatar
awwwwwwwww! she is so beautiful! * Q *
K4nK4n's avatar
The most adorable bat ever!Heart Heart Heart Heart
gilgam's avatar

If the wings are attached to the body to the waist, how does the dress work?
TysonTan's avatar
Dresses like this exists in real world. You can google some photos of this kind of dress that only attaches its front side and back side around the butt. The extreme example is apron. This design works because of gravity, material tension and friction. I also gave the dress a rubber reinforcement band under the chest to keep it in shape, but I guess even that wasn't really necessary.
WatarouDezi's avatar
Shes so adorable. From her theme to design I can say she's the best bat humanoid Ive seen. I see freedom planet being mentioned alot so Im curious to what it is. Ill probably do some research and maybe be pleasantly surprised. 
DeadCobra's avatar
Shes a very cute bat Love 
Cypuss's avatar