had previously worked on the Siren series. Yamaguchi created the initial drafts of the game's planned female protagonist before Kat was created. When creating the town of Hekseville, Yamaguchi drew directly from comics, using line drawing to exaggerate building outlines and choosing unusual environmental colors. The core concept for the game's environments was "Living Background", presenting the game's comic book influences within a moving background. The effect was created using multiple shaders and different environmental effect layers. The process was draining for the relatively small team assigned with creating the graphics. The main characters were designed by Shunsuke Saito. Kat's design reflected the wish to appeal to Western players; her proportions, face and hair were more realistic than what many expected of Japanese character designs. The key words for Kat's design were "ninja", "strong woman" and "unknown nationality". Kat went through multiple drafts, with her final design meant to have no exact origin and hold an exotic quality similar to popular female game heroine Lara Croft. Enemy designs were by Takeshi Oga, while NPC designs are being handled by Yukiko Itano. The game's concept and cover art were created by Oga. When creating the cover art, Oga worked to convey the setting and gameplay elements of Gravity Rush. The style and cel shaded graphics of Gravity Rush was influenced by Franco-Belgian comics, with Toyama citing artists Jean Giraud and Enki Bilal as direct inspiration. The choice allowed a combination of realism and fantastic elements that Yamaguchi felt was unique to the style. Another influence on the world design was the film The Fifth Element. The concept of Gravity Rush stemmed from a scene from The Incal, a graphic novel series illustrated by Giraud; several scenes showed characters falling through space, scenes which Toyama later emulated within Gravity Rush. The world's culture was based on modern-day cities, while the buildings and streets of Hekseville were based on towns and cities from Northern and Eastern Europe, combining old buildings with modern transport. Specific influences were the cities of Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Its design began with the World Pillar being at its center, then the rest of the city grew around it around the concept of a fixed time period for the whole city to allow for the creation of interesting locations. The game's spoken dialogue used a constructed language which sounded similar to French; Toyama created the language based on Giraud's bande