Character development
I continued to develop further with the character I created last time in terms of outfit style and weaponry. I also started exploring potential background lore for the world this character exists in. The first stage of my development was making alternate versions of the outfit I decided on to see which looked best:
Although I kept the same cut of clothing, I changed the pattern of the clothing to fit the concept better and played around with contrasting dark/light coloured fabrics. I even removed the staff weapon on the image on the right as I contemplated the usefulness of having a staff as my weapon concept was shifting to enchanted jewellery. I tried to take on board my tutor's (Josh's) advice to make my design more fantastical by adding more intricate embroidery and also exaggerating features such as extending the hair strands, making her bracelets more pointed/dagger like and adding the moon and star facial tattoos under the eyes.
I also addressed the unclear aspects (shoes and under dress) and drew in pointed shoes and extended the dress so it became floor length instead. I thought from a clothing design point of view that it flowed better and looked more appealing rather than confusing to the viewer. Creating these alternate versions took around an hour in total.
As I was still considering how to incorporate the staff into gameplay, I chose the design in the middle to take forward (considered a preliminary design) and expanded on certain details such as shoes and the bracelets:
For the shoes I took inspiration from the traditional shoe in South Asia called khussa. It is commonly worn in most regions of South Asia and I thought that the aesthetic fit the character as the shoes I designed have a fantasy element. I particularly like the checkered design as I think it fits the theme best and goes with the outfit design.
As can be seen in the image above the bracelets were inspired by the chakri and chakram, throwing weapons primarily used within South Asia. I thought they were a unique weapon design as they existed in different sizes (chakri being 15cm in diameter and chakram being small enough to be worn as a bracelet). South Asian fighters wearing chakrams as necklaces and bracelets made me delve deeper into the concept of jewellery doubling up as weaponry as well as being decorative. I thought this would fit the theme well as intricate jewellery is a trademark of South Asian culture and I thought there was an opportunity to create potential combat gameplay (rather than remaining as a purely decorative skin).
Next I focused on the character's face and jewellery as I started to give significance to jewellery beyond aesthetic means. I thought they were important to signify the magic/mage class user as their heavily ornate pieces were for practical as well as decorative use. In addition this look added to the fantasy element I was going for as I had to consider what a magic user would look like in a fantasy video game.
The necklace was created from my own imagination as a quick concept expanding on what I had drawn in the full body model above. The facial jewellery and tattoos were heavily influenced by a reference I had of a Pakistani clothing model. I changed the tattoo from 2 stars to a moon and star as the night sky is a common motif within South Asian art and the moon especially holds a lot of significance across South Asian cultures e.g. crescent moon and stars appear on the Pakistani flag, lunar months used which follow the cycle of the moon etc.
In many South Asian and Middle Eastern cultures, the application of kohl (black eyeliner and/or mascara) to create heavy eye make-up is seen as a form of protection against 'evil eye' (evil eye is a curse or legend believed to be cast by a malevolent glare, usually given to a person when they are unaware. Source: wikipedia). I noticed that the model in the reference I used as a heavy application of kohl, although here used for aesthetic purposes, it contributes to the fantasy I am trying to create with my own character, who in turn also wears kohl.
As fashion designers often use high fashion make-up looks to go with the highly stylised outfits, I mimicked this high fashion look in the character I drew below (left) to help reiterate the 'fantasy' by depicting something that exuded surrealism and takes the audience to another realm. Personally, I thought the reference (right) did this well and succeeds in grounding the viewer in the fantasy world and making the fantastical believable (as referenced in my design research essay in semester 1) which is why I chose to incorporate these elements in my own design below:
Following on from this, I decided to start incorporating colour in my design. As colour is such a crucial component, I wanted to make sure I was happy with most aspects of my design. Moving forward I coloured in the head shot above as can be seen below. I chose gold jewellery as it is common in South Asia and rightly so as the gold juxtaposes well with brown skin. I also tried out an alternate necklace design which had potential to be used as a weapon and redrew the chakram bracelets as golden pointed bracelets.
I had a tutorial with Jim who suggested that I bring in more background research to my design as I was going off references pulled from various sources. This made sense as he wanted to make sure I was staying true to the core of my research which was representing South Asian cultures authentically in video games. I realised that I hadn't done as much research into this character's world as I would have liked, so I thought a good base to start with (as suggested by Jim) was differences in magical use based on region. Proposed ideas were that magic was embedded into the jewellery (as I had been currently doing), magic embedded into clothing via embroidery, magic embedded into henna tattoos (mehndi) and magic embedded into other (vague) objects. These differences would be decided based on region which in turn would inform the regional designs of magic users. I thought this was a good step forward as it made me make sure I wasn't condensing multiple cultures into one character and doing exactly what I critiqued game designers of doing. This is something I am hoping to explore further this coming week.
Lastly, I started concepting ideas from the bracelet jewellery into potential weapons. A couple of ideas can be seen below, where the bracelets can be magically expanded into larger discs (reminiscent of the chakris) and sent flying at opponents whilst spinning at high speed (top right and top left). As the outer rim of the bracelets are blades, the impact of spinning blades on enemies would be quite gruesome.
Although I plan to expand this further, I did start playing with the idea of regional differences in weapons (and also distinguished by clothing). The second idea I had was the bracelets being relatively harmless when the wearer had them on their arm, but when required in combat, spikes could come out like a wheel spoke and the bracelets could be attached on a chain which is magically enhanced to alter the diameter size once again to form a chain weapon as can be seen below (bottom right). Both concepts are still in the draft stages but I thought it was fun to think of two ideas which used the same concept (magically enhanced bracelets) but were radically different in terms of combat style (long range vs mid range), gameplay and expression of magic (one using magic to both enhance and command the weapon to hit the target, the other using magic to enhance the weapon but physically using the weapon in their own hands).
So far I feel that I am making good progress with this character. There are a lot of aspects that I haven't yet covered but I hope to do more in this week. As well as focusing on regional design differences, I hope to continue world building and making the distinct cultures of various magic more clearer as these differences do exist and I would like to portray them in a respectful and meaningful way which the viewer can still appreciate and enjoy.
Although I kept the same cut of clothing, I changed the pattern of the clothing to fit the concept better and played around with contrasting dark/light coloured fabrics. I even removed the staff weapon on the image on the right as I contemplated the usefulness of having a staff as my weapon concept was shifting to enchanted jewellery. I tried to take on board my tutor's (Josh's) advice to make my design more fantastical by adding more intricate embroidery and also exaggerating features such as extending the hair strands, making her bracelets more pointed/dagger like and adding the moon and star facial tattoos under the eyes.
I also addressed the unclear aspects (shoes and under dress) and drew in pointed shoes and extended the dress so it became floor length instead. I thought from a clothing design point of view that it flowed better and looked more appealing rather than confusing to the viewer. Creating these alternate versions took around an hour in total.
As I was still considering how to incorporate the staff into gameplay, I chose the design in the middle to take forward (considered a preliminary design) and expanded on certain details such as shoes and the bracelets:
For the shoes I took inspiration from the traditional shoe in South Asia called khussa. It is commonly worn in most regions of South Asia and I thought that the aesthetic fit the character as the shoes I designed have a fantasy element. I particularly like the checkered design as I think it fits the theme best and goes with the outfit design.
As can be seen in the image above the bracelets were inspired by the chakri and chakram, throwing weapons primarily used within South Asia. I thought they were a unique weapon design as they existed in different sizes (chakri being 15cm in diameter and chakram being small enough to be worn as a bracelet). South Asian fighters wearing chakrams as necklaces and bracelets made me delve deeper into the concept of jewellery doubling up as weaponry as well as being decorative. I thought this would fit the theme well as intricate jewellery is a trademark of South Asian culture and I thought there was an opportunity to create potential combat gameplay (rather than remaining as a purely decorative skin).
Chakram/chakri weapon (reference)
Next I focused on the character's face and jewellery as I started to give significance to jewellery beyond aesthetic means. I thought they were important to signify the magic/mage class user as their heavily ornate pieces were for practical as well as decorative use. In addition this look added to the fantasy element I was going for as I had to consider what a magic user would look like in a fantasy video game.
The necklace was created from my own imagination as a quick concept expanding on what I had drawn in the full body model above. The facial jewellery and tattoos were heavily influenced by a reference I had of a Pakistani clothing model. I changed the tattoo from 2 stars to a moon and star as the night sky is a common motif within South Asian art and the moon especially holds a lot of significance across South Asian cultures e.g. crescent moon and stars appear on the Pakistani flag, lunar months used which follow the cycle of the moon etc.
In many South Asian and Middle Eastern cultures, the application of kohl (black eyeliner and/or mascara) to create heavy eye make-up is seen as a form of protection against 'evil eye' (evil eye is a curse or legend believed to be cast by a malevolent glare, usually given to a person when they are unaware. Source: wikipedia). I noticed that the model in the reference I used as a heavy application of kohl, although here used for aesthetic purposes, it contributes to the fantasy I am trying to create with my own character, who in turn also wears kohl.
As fashion designers often use high fashion make-up looks to go with the highly stylised outfits, I mimicked this high fashion look in the character I drew below (left) to help reiterate the 'fantasy' by depicting something that exuded surrealism and takes the audience to another realm. Personally, I thought the reference (right) did this well and succeeds in grounding the viewer in the fantasy world and making the fantastical believable (as referenced in my design research essay in semester 1) which is why I chose to incorporate these elements in my own design below:
Following on from this, I decided to start incorporating colour in my design. As colour is such a crucial component, I wanted to make sure I was happy with most aspects of my design. Moving forward I coloured in the head shot above as can be seen below. I chose gold jewellery as it is common in South Asia and rightly so as the gold juxtaposes well with brown skin. I also tried out an alternate necklace design which had potential to be used as a weapon and redrew the chakram bracelets as golden pointed bracelets.
I had a tutorial with Jim who suggested that I bring in more background research to my design as I was going off references pulled from various sources. This made sense as he wanted to make sure I was staying true to the core of my research which was representing South Asian cultures authentically in video games. I realised that I hadn't done as much research into this character's world as I would have liked, so I thought a good base to start with (as suggested by Jim) was differences in magical use based on region. Proposed ideas were that magic was embedded into the jewellery (as I had been currently doing), magic embedded into clothing via embroidery, magic embedded into henna tattoos (mehndi) and magic embedded into other (vague) objects. These differences would be decided based on region which in turn would inform the regional designs of magic users. I thought this was a good step forward as it made me make sure I wasn't condensing multiple cultures into one character and doing exactly what I critiqued game designers of doing. This is something I am hoping to explore further this coming week.
Lastly, I started concepting ideas from the bracelet jewellery into potential weapons. A couple of ideas can be seen below, where the bracelets can be magically expanded into larger discs (reminiscent of the chakris) and sent flying at opponents whilst spinning at high speed (top right and top left). As the outer rim of the bracelets are blades, the impact of spinning blades on enemies would be quite gruesome.
Although I plan to expand this further, I did start playing with the idea of regional differences in weapons (and also distinguished by clothing). The second idea I had was the bracelets being relatively harmless when the wearer had them on their arm, but when required in combat, spikes could come out like a wheel spoke and the bracelets could be attached on a chain which is magically enhanced to alter the diameter size once again to form a chain weapon as can be seen below (bottom right). Both concepts are still in the draft stages but I thought it was fun to think of two ideas which used the same concept (magically enhanced bracelets) but were radically different in terms of combat style (long range vs mid range), gameplay and expression of magic (one using magic to both enhance and command the weapon to hit the target, the other using magic to enhance the weapon but physically using the weapon in their own hands).
So far I feel that I am making good progress with this character. There are a lot of aspects that I haven't yet covered but I hope to do more in this week. As well as focusing on regional design differences, I hope to continue world building and making the distinct cultures of various magic more clearer as these differences do exist and I would like to portray them in a respectful and meaningful way which the viewer can still appreciate and enjoy.
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