Learn How to Design Speculative Materials for Game Characters

Introduction

When designing a character from a far-future setting, an alien culture, or a fantasy world, you might need materials that go further than what's currently available. Since there are no historical references for such fabrics yet, you might struggle to invent something new. When doing that, it needs to feel like it could exist in that world, not only look interesting on the surface.

Speculative materials create that challenge. A made-up fabric that ignores physics looks like just decoration, while one that is grounded in how materials actually behave and ties into the worldbuilding will look believable. This guide will walk you through a five-step framework that I developed for designing speculative materials by taking real textile properties as a starting point and pushing them into a fictional context in ways that stay visually coherent and believable.

Step 1: Define the purpose

Before you start designing, you need a design brief. So, describe in one sentence: what problem does this material need to solve for this character, in this world?

Useful questions to ask yourself:

• What does it protect against? (Blades, bullets, environment, energy weapons, temperature).
• Under what conditions must it survive?
• Who can afford or access it, and what does the cheaper version look like?
• What's the trade-off? Nothing is perfect. What does this material sacrifice to gain its primary function?

Write your brief down and brainstorm solutions. I've made a mindmap for mine:

Step 2: Find your real-world base

Speculative materials need physics and textures that feel believable, and the best way to achieve that is to start with materials that already exist. Find different materials that share properties with what you need and name them explicitly.

Some starting points by category:

• Protective: Kevlar (bulletproof, woven aramid, stiff and structured), Dyneema (ultra-strong, lightweight, flexible), Nomex (fire-resistant, used in racing and firefighter suits), ceramic plate inserts (rigid, heavy, cracks on impact).
• Performance: Gore-Tex (waterproof and breathable via membrane), neoprene (insulating and flexible), compression fabrics (Lycra/spandex blends, support and stretch), Merino wool (temperature-regulating, moisture-wicking, natural).
• Adaptive: Shape-memory alloys (return to original shape when heated), thermochromic materials (change colour with temperature), phase-change materials (absorb and release heat).

I made a board where I collected real-life fabrics per property:

I am lucky to have a large fabric stash and searched for fabrics I already own so I could look at them closely and feel their weight and behaviours. I made a flatlay of them:

Step 3: Extrapolate into your world

Now it's time to take the materials you've chosen and push them into your world. You can ask yourself: if this world has advanced technology, biological innovation, magic, or extreme scarcity, what does that do to the design of the material?

Here's the framework I used for this speculative material:

Design brief: a reptilian researcher, displaced into cold, wet climates their biology can't handle, needs passive thermal insulation and a moisture barrier that keeps their scales healthy enough to work.

Real base:

• Ripstop nylon (durable outer shell, tear-resistant grid weave).
• Merino wool (moisture barrier, breathable, nice against scales).
• Fiberfill (passive insulation layer).

What I'm keeping from the real materials:

• The grid structure of ripstop is visible on the outer shell.
• Merino's fine knit texture at the collar and cuff, where it meets the scale.
• The softness of fiberfill.

What I'm advancing:

• Ripstop grid evolved from square to triaxial triangular weave, as this is stronger against tearing, sealed intersections replace a separate waterproof membrane.
• Fiberfill is locked into structured honeycomb twill cells for consistent insulation across the upper body, with no migration or compression loss over time.
• Merino stays unchanged as it is already optimal for scale contact and natural temperature regulation.

Step 4: Make it visually believable

• Show the technology integration: If the material has power, show where it comes from. Battery packs, charging ports, conductive seams, and magnetic attachment points are the details that sell the technology as real. Think about what happens when it breaks: glitching patterns, dead zones, sections of the tech that have stopped working while the base material remains intact.
• Maintain material logic: Your material still obeys gravity and physics unless the innovation specifically changes that. Heavy materials drape with weight. Rigid materials don't bend at the knee. Flexible materials show stress points at joints and tension lines under movement. The physical material properties for simulation, like weight, stiffness, stretch, and shear, all still apply to speculative materials.
• Texture tells the story: A perfectly smooth, uniform surface reads as advanced technology. Visible weave structure reads as constructed. Degraded or patched areas read as age or scarcity. Deliberately use texture variation to communicate the material's history and quality tier.

Step 5: Consider layering

Even speculative outfits aren't a single layer. Real clothing is worn in layers, and so is fictional clothing. You can think of a function per layer:

• Base layer: tech integration, biometric monitoring, thermal regulation.
• Protective layer: the actual armour or structural material.
• Environmental layer: what faces the world, like the jacket, cloak, or outer shell.

Each layer can be a different material with different properties and different qualities. A character might be wearing a high-tech base layer under a mid-tier protective vest under a scavenged outer jacket. You can use this to tell the viewer who this character is without saying a word.

Here, my character is wearing a standard-issue merino base layer that prioritises biological survival over comfort, a mid-layer of structured honeycomb fiberfill built for function, not refinement, and a triaxial ripstop outer shell that signals a purpose-built fieldwork kit for someone whose body needs some extra protection.

Reference Workflow

You can follow this when starting a design for a speculative material:

• Write the design brief.
• Name different real-life materials with similar properties, and find reference images/fabrics.
• List what you're keeping from those materials, then put them in your world.
• Make sure to keep it believable and grounded in the worldbuilding.
• Consider layering in the outfit.

And now build it. The brief tells you the purpose of these materials. The real base tells you the material behaviour, and your worldbuilding tells you how it will look. Thanks for reading, and good luck designing materials that have never existed before.

Imara van der Wel, Digital Fashion Designer